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.

The Effect of Social Security on Labor Supply: A Cohort Analysis of the Notch Generation

Abstract: This paper uses aggregate birth year/calendar year level data derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to estimate the effect of Social Security wealth on the labor supply of older men in the 1970s and 1980s. The analysis focuses on the 1977 amendments to the Social Security Act t which created a substantial t unanticipated differential in benefits for otherwise identical individuals depending on whether they were born before or after 1917. This differential has become known as the benefit notch. There are two principal differences between the present analysis and the previous literature. First t this paper uses time-series variations in benefit levels to estimate the relationship between benefits and labor supply in an era when real benefits were falling for new recipients: Second t variation in benefit levels across cohorts is used to estimate the relationship between benefits and labor supply. The results support a conclusion that labor supply continued to decline for the "notch babies" who received lower Social Security benefits than earlier cohorts.

Educational Attainment: Analysis by Immigrant Generation

Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the largely ignored issue of the determinants of the educational attainment of adults by immigrant generation. Using Current Population Survey (CPS) data, differences in educational attainment are analyzed by immigrant generation (first, second, and higher order generations), and among the foreign born by country of birth and age at immigration. Second-generation American adults have the highest level of schooling, exceeding that of the foreign born and of the native born with native-born parents. Teenage immigration is associated with fewer years of schooling compared to those who immigrated at pre-teen or post-teen ages. The gender difference in educational attainment is greatest among the foreign born. Hispanics and Blacks lag behind the non-Hispanic whites in their educational attainment, with the gap narrowing for higher order immigrant generations among Hispanics, but rising among blacks.

The Enrollment Effects of Merit-Based Financial Aid: Evidence from Georgia's Hope Scholarship

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of Georgia's merit-based HOPE Scholarship on college enrollments. Until the late 1980s, only a small fraction of total student aid was allocated on the basis of merit, but in the last decade state governments have stepped in,distributing billions of dollars in "HOPE-style" merit aid. Introduced in 1993, the HOPE Scholarship covers tuition, fees and book expenses for students attending Georgia public colleges, and provides a subsidy of comparable value to students attending in-state private colleges, without any income restrictions. Treating HOPE as a natural experiment, we contrast enrollment rates in Georgia with those in the other member states of the Southern Regional Educational Board using IPEDS data for the period 1988-97. We estimate that the scholarship increased the overall freshmen enrollment rate by 6.9 percentage points, with the gains concentrated in 4-year schools. We also find that HOPE raised the enrollment rates of both blacks and whites in Georgia schools, with the state's historically-black institutions playing an imprtant role. Finally, our results suggest that the total HOPE-induced increase represents about 12 percent of high-school graduates who qualified for the scholarship and 21 percent of those who took the award. However, because the overall HOPE effect involves enrollees at 2-year schools who are more likely recipients of the non-merit-based HOPE Grant, the total program enrollment response amounts to less than 10 percent of all freshmen program beneficiaries.

A Behavioral Account of the Labor Market: The Role of Fairness Concerns

Abstract: In this paper, we argue that important labor market phenomena can be better understood if one takes (a) the inherent incompleteness and relational nature of most employment contracts and (b) the existence of reference-dependent fairness concerns among a substantial share of the population into account. Theory shows and experiments confirm that, even if fairness concerns were to exert only weak effects in one-shot interactions, repeated interactions greatly magnify the relevance of such concerns on economic outcomes. We also review evidence from laboratory and field experiments examining the role of wages and fairness on effort, derive predictions from our approach for entry-level wages and incumbent workers' wages, confront these predictions with the evidence, and show that reference-dependent fairness concerns may have important consequences for the effects of economic policies such as minimum wage laws.

Collective Household Models: Principles and Main Results

Abstract: In the traditional approach to consumer behaviour it is assumed that households behave as if they were single decision-making units. This approach has methodological, empirical and welfare economic deficiencies. A valuable alternative to the traditional model is the collective approach to household behaviour. The collective approach explicitly takes account of the fact that multi-person households consist of several members which may have different preferences. Among these household members, an intrahousehold bargaining process is assumed to take place. In addition to providing an introduction to the collective approach, this survey intends to show how different collective household models, each with their own aims and assumptions, are connected.