Spring 2024 Applied Micro Mini Day
Date: March 25th, 2024
Address:
NYU Stern School of Business
44 West 4th Street
KMC 4-90
New York, NY 10012
REGISTRATION (closed) |
The schedule is:
12:00 PM – 1:10 PM Lunch
1:15 PM – 2:15 PM: Petra Todd
2:15 PM – 2:45 PM Coffee Break – 30 minutes
2:45 PM – 3:45 PM Jerome Adda
3:45 PM – 4:00 PM Stretch Break – 15 minutes
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM: J Carter Braxton
Speakers:
1. Petra Todd (University of Pennsylvania)
Abstract: This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model, which integrates value-added and school-choice models, to evaluate grade-by-grade and cumulative impacts of the Mexican Prospera conditional cash transfer (CCT) program on educational achievement. The empirical application advances the previous literature by estimating policy impacts on learning, accounting for dynamic selective school attendance and incorporating both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. A dynamic framework is critical for estimating cumulative learning effects because lagged achievements are important determinants of current achievements. The model is estimated using rich nationwide Mexican administrative data on schooling progression and mathematics and Spanish test scores in grades 4-9 along with student and family survey data. The estimates show significant CCT impacts on learning and educational attainment, particularly for students from poorer households. Results show that telesecondary schools (distance learning) play a crucial role in facilitating school attendance and in fostering skill accumulation.
2. Jerome Adda (Bocconi University)
Title: “Health Beliefs and the Long Run Effect of Medical Information”
Abstract: This paper studies the role of information on the evolution of beliefs and smoking in the United States in the 20th and early 21st centuries. We develop a dynamic and dynastic model of smoking, mortality and beliefs. The information about the harmfulness of smoking comes from three different sources: (i) learning from individual health shocks, (ii) medical information or public health messages and (iii) social learning, understood as the diffusion of information and beliefs within and across social groups over time. We estimate the model using data on smoking behavior, health information and data on beliefs on the effect of smoking on health that cover several decades and different social groups that we assemble. The estimated model allows us to understand the role of each of these mechanisms and how they shaped smoking over the last century. We use the model to evaluate the long term effects of medical information across socioeconomic groups and time.
3. J Carter Braxton (University of Wisconsin)
Title: “Intergenerational mobility and credit”
Abstract: We combine the Decennial Census, credit reports, and administrative earnings to create the first panel dataset linking parent’s credit access to the labor market outcomes of children in the U.S. We find that a 10% increase in parent’s unused revolving credit during their children’s adolescence (13 to 18 years old) is associated with 0.28% to 0.37% greater labor earnings of their children during early adulthood (25 to 30 years old). Using these empirical elasticities, we estimate a dynastic, defaultable debt model to examine how the democra-
tization of credit since the 1970s – modeled as both greater credit limits and more lenient bankruptcy – affected intergenerational mobility. Surprisingly, we find that the democratization of credit led to less intergenerational mobility and greater inequality. Two offsetting forces underlie this result: (1) greater credit limits raise mobility by facilitating borrowing and investment among low-income households; (2) however, more lenient bankruptcy policy lowers mobility since low-income households dissave, hit their constraints more often, and reduce investments in their children. Quantitatively, the democratization of credit is dominated by more lenient bankruptcy policy and so mobility declines between the 1970s and 2000s.
Organizers:
Support for this event has been generously provided by: