Working Papers 2010
7-10 - Evaluating the upper bound of k-level reasoning
Ayala Arad and Ariel Rubinstein
Working Paper #7-10
Evaluating the upper bound of k-level reasoning
Ayala Arad and Ariel Rubinstein
Published in: Arad, Ayala, and Ariel Rubinstein. 2012.The 11-20 Money Request Game: A Level-k Reasoning Study.American Economic Review 102 (7): 3561-3573
Keywords: level-k thinking, leterative reasoning
6-10 - Trade and Labor Market Outsomes
Elhanan Helpman, Oleg Itskhoki and Stephen Redding
Working Paper #6-10
Trade and Labor Market Outsomes
Elhanan Helpman, Oleg Itskhoki and Stephen Redding
This paper reviews a new framework for analyzing the interrelationship between inequality, unemployment, labor market frictions, and foreign trade. This framework emphasizes firm heterogeneity and search and matching frictions in labor markets. It implies that the opening of trade may raise inequality and unemployment, but always raises welfare. Unilateral reductions in labor market frictions increase a country`s welfare, can raise or reduce its unemployment rate, yet always hurt the country`s trade partner. Unemployment benefits can alleviate the distortions in a country`s labor market in some cases but not in others, but they can never implement the constrained Pareto optimal allocation. We characterize the set of optimal policies, which require interventions in product and labor markets.
Jel Nos.: F12, F16, J64
Keywords: inequality, unemployment, trade, labor market policy
5-10 - Is there place for women? Gender bias at top economics schools
Galina Hale and Tali Regev
Working Paper #5-10
Is there place for women? Gender bias at top economics schools
Galina Hale and Tali Regev
Over the last twenty years women became much more prominent in the economics profession. Analyzing faculty and graduate students data for the top-10 economics departments between 1983 and 2007, we find persistent differences in gender composition across institutions. We test whether such differences are driven by female faculty influence or by departments` gender preferences. Using a matched sample of PhD students and faculty, we find positive correlation between the share of female faculty and the share of women in the entering PhD class. We show that this correlation is explained by departments` gender preferences that vary both across departments and over time, and not by influence of female faculty on the gender composition of the entering PhD class.We also find that these top-10 departments are targeting a certain trend in the number or share of women on their faculty, lowering on average the probability of hiring a woman by about 10 percentage points for each additional woman already on the faculty. This evidence suggests that gender differences across institutions are explained by gender preferences and policies rather than hysteresis related to women`s influence
Published in: Gender Ratios at Top PhD Programs in Economics,Economics of Education Review, Volume 41, Pages 55-70, 2014.
Jel Nos.: J16, J23, J71, I23, M51
Keywords: gender, segregation, econimists, gender bias, affirmative action, minority
4-10 - Talent Utilization, a sourse of Bias in maesuring TFP
Hosny Zoabi
Working Paper #4-10
Talent Utilization, a sourse of Bias in maesuring TFP
Hosny Zoabi
This paper analyzes a model of economic growth that explains differences in economic structure across countries. It highlights the interplay between productivity, talents utilization and entrepreneurship incentives. The paper has two main results. First, it argues that when measuring human capital we ignore one dimension, which is talents utilization. It is suggested then that, in development accounting, human capital is inaccurately measured. Second, it shows that the magnitude of talents utilization increases with the level of development. Thus, the paper suggests that talents utilization amplifies differences in productivity and contributes to the explanation of large observed international differences in per capita income.
Jel Nos.: L16, O11, O14, O33, O47
Keywords: Total Factor Productivity, Talents, Income levels.
3-10 - A real Model of the Israeli Economy
Amit Friedman and Zvi Hercowitz
Working Paper #3-10
A real Model of the Israeli Economy
Amit Friedman and Zvi Hercowitz
This paper presents a real open-economy model of the Israeli economy. The model is designed to perform quarterly macroeconomic forecasts and fiscal policy experiments. This is illustrated by the analyses of pre-announced tax cuts and lowering the public debt target – policies which were adopted during the fiscal consolidation process in Israel during the 2000s.The model is neoclassical in nature, but with some non-standard features such as a liquidity effect on nondurable consumption and on durable goods purchases. It includes dynamic optimization of households and firms, and a government which determines expenditures given exogenous tax rates and a public debt target. The model is estimated using the sample of the last decade. The quantitative results include the following: (i) Announcements of future income tax cuts have a simultaneous expansionary effect via consumer demand, but, at the time of implementation, the necessary cuts in government expenditure have a contractionary effect. (ii) The fiscal multiplier is relatively low, 0.4, a result that stems from the openness of the economy and the substitution between GDP and imports. (iii) The economy is sensitive to external world trade shocks that affect not only exports but also private consumption through the wealth and liquidity effects.
2-10 - Effects of trade on female labor force participation
Philip Saure and Hosny Zoabi
Working Paper #2-10
Effects of trade on female labor force participation
Philip Saure and Hosny Zoabi
Jel Nos.: F10, F16, J13, J16
Keywords: trade, female force participation, fertility, technological change
1-10 - Liquiditiy Constains of the Middle Class
Jeffrey R. Campbell and Zvi Hercowitz
Working Paper #1-10
Liquiditiy Constains of the Middle Class
Jeffrey R. Campbell and Zvi Hercowitz
Jel Nos.: E21
Keywords: Fiscal Policy, Tax Rebates, Marginal Propensity to Consume, Term Saving
