Institute for the Study of Labor

About: Institute for the Study of Labor is a nonprofit organization based out in Bonn, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Wage & Unemployment. The organization has 2039 authors who have published 13475 publications receiving 439376 citations.

Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts

Abstract: We propose a new approach to test the full-information rational expectations hypothesis which can identify whether rejections of the null arise from information rigidities. This approach quantifies the economic significance of departures from the null and the underlying degree of information rigidity. Applying this approach to U.S. and international data of professional forecasters and other agents yields pervasive evidence consistent with the presence of information rigidities. These results therefore provide a set of stylized facts which can be used to calibrate imperfect information models. Finally, we document evidence of state-dependence in the expectations formation process.

Housing Supply and Housing Bubbles

Abstract: Like many other assets, housing prices are quite volatile relative to observable changes in fundamentals. If we are going to understand boom-bust housing cycles, we must incorporate housing supply. In this paper, we present a simple model of housing bubbles which predicts that places with more elastic housing supply have fewer and shorter bubbles, with smaller price increases. However, the welfare consequences of bubbles may actually be higher in more elastic places because those places will overbuild more in response to a bubble.The data show that the price run-ups of the 1980s were almost exclusively experienced incities where housing supply is more inelastic. More elastic places had slightly larger increases in building during that period. Over the past five years, a modest number of more elastic places also experienced large price booms, but as the model suggests, these booms seem to have been quite short. Prices are already moving back towards construction costs in those areas.

Fifty Years of Mincer Earnings Regressions

Abstract: The Mincer earnings function is the cornerstone of a large literature in empirical economics. This paper discusses the theoretical foundations of the Mincer model and examines the empirical support for it using data from Decennial Censuses and Current Population Surveys. While data from 1940 and 1950 Censuses provide some support for Mincer's model, data from later decades are inconsistent with it. We examine the importance of relaxing functional form assumptions in estimating internal rates of return to schooling and of accounting for taxes, tuition, nonlinearity in schooling, and nonseparability between schooling and work experience. Inferences about trends in rates of return to high school and college obtained from our more general model differ substantially from inferences drawn from estimates based on a Mincer earnings regression. Important differences also arise between cohort-based and cross-sectional estimates of the rate of return to schooling. In the recent period of rapid technological progress, widely used cross-sectional applications of the Mincer model produce dramatically biased estimates of cohort returns to schooling. We also examine the implications of accounting for uncertainty and agent expectation formation. Even when the static framework of Mincer is maintained, accounting for uncertainty substantially affects the return estimates. Considering the sequential resolution of uncertainty over time in a dynamic setting gives rise to option values, which fundamentally changes the analysis of schooling decisions. In the presence of sequential resolution of uncertainty and option values, the internal rate of return - a cornerstone of classical human capital theory - is not a useful guide to policy analysis.

Microeconomic evidence of creative destruction in industrial and developing countries

Abstract: This paper provides an analysis of the process of creative destruction across 24 countries and 2-digit industries over the past decade. It relies on a newly assembled dataset that draws from different micro data sources (business registers, census, or representative enterprise surveys). The novelty of the approach is in the harmonization of firm level data across countries, which enables international comparisons and the identification of country-specific factors as opposed to sectoral and time effects. All countries display a massive reallocation of resources, with the entry and exit of many firms in all markets, the failure of many newcomers and the expansion of successful ones. This process of creative destruction affects productivity directly, by reallocating resources towards more productive uses, but also indirectly through the effects of increased market contestability. There are also large differences across groups of countries. While entry and exit rates are fairly similar across industrial countries, post entry performance differs markedly between Europe and the U.S., a potential indication of the importance of barriers to firm growth as opposed to barriers to entry. Transition economies show an even more impressive process of creative destruction and, amongst them, those that have progressed the most towards a market economy show better outcomes from this process. Finally, Mexico shows large firm dynamics with many new firms entering the battle but also many failing rapidly, while Argentina resembles more of Continental Europe with smaller flows and less impressive post-entry growth of successful firms.

Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment

Abstract: This paper evaluates the effects of fiscal policy on investment using a panel of OECD countries. In particular, we investigate how different types of fiscal policy affect profits and , as a result, investment. We find a sizable negative effect of public spending -- and in particular of its public wage component -- on business investment. This result is consistent with models in which government employment creates wage pressure for the private sector. Various types of taxes also have negative effects on profits, but, interestingly, the effects of government spending on investment are larger than the effect of taxes. Our results have important implications for the so called 'Non-Keynesian' (i.e. expansionary) effects of fiscal adjustments.