Statistics for Spatial Data.

We investigate conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables. First we show that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect. We then establish that the combination of an instrument and a condition on the relation between the instrument and the participation status is sufficient for identification of a local average treatment effect for those who can be induced to change their participation status by changing the value of the instrument. Finally we derive the probability limit of the standard IV estimator under these conditions. It is seen to be a weighted average of local average treatment effects.

Evolution and Rationality Some Recent Game-Theoretic Results. Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects

Economics Of Discrimination

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w22595/w22595.pdf

Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials.

Breaking with the exoticizing cast of public discourse and conventional research, Urban Outcasts takes the reader inside the black ghetto of Chicago and the deindustrializing banlieue of Paris to discover that urban marginality is not everywhere the same. Drawing on a wealth of original field, survey and historical data, Loïc Wacquant shows that the involution of America's urban core after the 1960s is due not to the emergence of an 'underclass', but to the joint withdrawal of market and state fostered by public policies of racial separation and urban abandonment. In European cities, by contrast, the spread of districts of 'exclusion' does not herald the formation of ghettos. It stems from the decomposition of working-class territories under the press of mass unemployment, the casualization of work and the ethnic mixing of populations hitherto segregated, spawning urban formations akin to 'anti-ghettos'.

Urban Outcasts: A comparative sociology of advanced marginality

This article reports the results from a randomized experiment designed to evaluate the direct and indirect (displacement) impacts of job placement assistance on the labor market outcomes of young, educated job seekers in France. We use a two-step design. In the first step, the proportions of job seekers to be assigned to treatment (0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100%) were randomly drawn for each of the 235 labor markets (e.g., cities) participating in the experiment. Then, in each labor market, eligible job seekers were randomly assigned to the treatment, following this proportion. After eight months, eligible, unemployed youths who were assigned to the program were significantly more likely to have found a stable job than those who were not. But these gains are transitory, and they appear to have come partly at the expense of eligible workers who did not benefit from the program, particularly in labor markets where they compete mainly with other educated workers, and in weak labor markets. Overall, the program seems to have had very little net benefits.

/pdf/do-labor-market-policies-have-displacement-effects-evidence-3gryb4mq56.pdf

Do Labor Market Policies have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment*

Place-based tax exemptions and displacement effects: An evaluation of the Zones Franches Urbaines program☆

Could we significantly reduce U.S. unemployment by helping job seekers move closer to jobs? Using data from the leading employment board CareerBuilder.com, we show that, indeed, workers dislike applying to distant jobs: job seekers are 35% less likely to apply to a job 10 miles away from their ZIP code of residence. However, because
job seekers are close enough to vacancies on average, this distaste for distance is fairly inconsequential: our search and matching model predicts that relocating job seekers to minimize unemployment would decrease unemployment by only 5.3%. Geographic mismatch is thus a minor driver of aggregate unemployment.

/pdf/mismatch-unemployment-and-the-geography-of-job-search-2bo7thgiow.pdf

Mismatch unemployment and the geography of job search

Our study focuses on the differences in wages and employment between French workers with French parents and French workers with at least one African parent, using the Formation Qualification Professionnelle survey (Insee, Paris, 2003). We introduce econometric decompositions, which allow us to reach conclusions when the potentially discriminated group is small. Then, we clarify the impact of discrimination at the hiring level in this context. We find that unexplained parts in the employment decompositions are much larger than in the wage decompositions. This suggests that, in France, labor market discrimination is more frequent at the hiring level than in the compensation process.

/pdf/wages-and-employment-of-french-workers-with-african-origin-565ou30hsg.pdf

Wages and employment of French workers with African origin

41 abgabenfreie Stadtgebiete (Zones Franches Urbaines, ZFU) wurden am 1. Januar 2004 gegrundet und traten an die Stelle der Gebiete der stadtischen Redynamisierung (Zones de Redynamisation Urbaine, ZRU). In den ZFU sind die Unternehmen funf Jahre lang von den Arbeitgeberabgaben, der Korperschaftssteuer, der Gewerbesteuer und der Grundsteuer befreit. Um die Auswirkungen dieser Masnahmen auf die Beschaftigung und die Existenzgrundung zu evaluieren, wird die Entwicklung dieser beiden Variablen fur die ZFU und fur eine Gruppe von ZRU, die ZRU blieben, ermittelt. Diese Gruppe wird durch paarweise Zusammenstellung bestimmt, um die Verzerrung bei der Auswahl der ZFU unter allen ZRU zu berucksichtigen („Propensity-Score-Methode“). Die Entwicklung wird fur das Jahr des Ubergangs von den ZRU zu den ZFU sowie die darauffolgenden vier Jahre errechnet. Die Einstufung als ZFU hat auf die Existenzgrundung und die Beschaftigung signifi kante und positive Auswirkungen. Allerdings mussen diese Effekte relativisiert werden denn die Zunahme der Bruttozufl usse von Unternehmen resultiert zu zwei Dritteln aus einer Verlagerung von Wirtschaftstatigkeiten aus nicht von diesen Masnahmen betroffenen Gebieten (d. h. Verlagerungen und keine wirklichen Existenzgrundungen). Fur die Nachbarschaft scheint die Anwesenheit eines solchen Gebiets keine negativen Folgen zu haben. Die Kosten, die durch die Schaffung oder Verlagerung von Arbeitsplatzen in solche Gebiete entstehen, sind hoch es liegt aber keine politische Bewertung ahnlicher Masnahmen vor, mit der ein Vergleich angestellt werden konnte.

Roland Rathelot

Papers

Do Labor Market Policies have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment*

Place-based tax exemptions and displacement effects: An evaluation of the Zones Franches Urbaines program☆

Mismatch unemployment and the geography of job search

Wages and employment of French workers with African origin

Zones franches urbaines : quels effets sur l'emploi salarié et les créations d'établissements ?