Results

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Task-Based Discrimination

We develop a task-based model of occupational sorting to identify and quantify the effect of discrimination, racial skill gaps, and aggregate task prices on Black-White differences in labor market outcomes over time. At ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization: Forthcoming

Do looks matter for an academic career in economics?

We show that physical appearance plays a role in the success of economics PhD graduates and investigate the underlying mechanisms driving this relationship. Leveraging a unique dataset of career and research productivity...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Selection into entrepreneurship and self-employment

We study the effects of ability and liquidity constraints on entrepreneurship. We develop a three sector Roy model that differentiates between entrepreneurs and other self-employed to address puzzling gaps that have emer...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Smart and illicit: Who becomes an entrepreneur and do they earn more?

We disaggregate the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to distinguish between "entrepreneurs" and other business owners. We show that the incorporated self-employed and their businesses engage in activiti...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... 'Smart and illicit': the making of a successful entrepreneur

Smart teenagers who engage in illicit activities are much more likely to become entrepreneurs, according to research by Ross Levine and Yona Rubinstein. But, they note, being self-employed doesn’t necessarily make someon...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Smart and illicit: who becomes an entrepreneur and does it pay?

We disaggregate the self-employed into incorporated and unincorporated to distinguish between “entrepreneurs” and other business owners. The incorporated self-employed have a distinct combination of cognitive, noncogniti...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Pride and Prejudice: Using Ethnic-Sounding Names and Inter-Ethnic Marriages to Identify Labor Market Discrimination

We use non-random sorting into interethnic marriage and salient differences between Sephardic and Ashkenazi surnames to evaluate the causal impact of Sephardic affiliation on wages. Using the 1995 Israeli Census, we esti...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Do Public Colleges in Developing Countries Provide Better Education than Private ones? Evidence from General Education Sector in India

Public college graduates in many developing countries outperform graduates of private ones on the college exit exams. This has often been attributed to the cutting edge education provided in public colleges. However, pub...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fear and the Response to Terrorism: An Economic Analysis

This paper offers a rational approach to the economics and psychology of fear and provides empirical evidence that supports our theory. We explicitly consider both the impact of danger on emotions and the distortive effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Racial Discrimination and Competition

We provide the first assessment of whether an intensification of product market competition reduces the racial wage gap exactly where taste-based theories predict that competition will reduce labor market discrimination....Read more...