UP OR DOWN? A MALE ECONOMIST'S MANIFESTO ON THE TOILET SEAT ETIQUETTE

This paper develops an economic analysis of the toilet seat etiquette. I investigate whether there is any efficiency justification for the presumption that men should leave the toilet seat down after use. I find that the “down rule” is inefficient unless there is a large asymmetry in the inconvenience costs of shifting the position of the toilet seat across genders. I show that the “selfish” or the “status quo” rule that leaves the toilet seat in the position used dominates the down rule in a wide range of parameter spaces including the case where the inconvenience costs are the same. (JEL D7, H4)     

TRADE COSTS AND JOB FLOWS: EVIDENCE FROM ESTABLISHMENT‐LEVEL DATA

Changes in the costs of trading inputs or final goods affect establishment‐level job flows. Using a longitudinal database containing the universe of manufacturing establishments in California from 1992 to 2004, we find that a decline in input or final‐good trade costs is associated with job destruction in the least productive establishments, job creation in the most productive establishments, and an increase in the death likelihood of the least productive establishments. The evidence is consistent with predictions of models of trade with heterogeneous firms. Additionally, the evidence shows that the effects of input trade costs on establishment‐level job flows are larger than the effects of final‐good trade costs. (JEL F14, F16)     

TRADE ADJUSTMENT,POLITICAL PRESSURE,AND TRADE PROTECTION PATTERNS

This paper introduces trade adjustment considerations as active determinants of trade policy. Using novel U.S. data sets, I show that, despite their small monetary value, trade‐induced unemployment and trade‐adjustment costs can incite an incumbent politician to grant protection to an unorganized industry, even in the presence of political pressure by organized sectors. This finding complements the theoretical predictions from Grossman and Helpman (American Economic Review, 84, 1994, 833–50) who argue that the government should protect organized industries but should subsidize imports in unorganized sectors. (JEL D73, F13, F14, F16, J68)     

UNDERSTANDING THE COSTS OF CONSUMER DURABLE ADJUSTMENTS

This article examines whether adjustment frictions help account for the patterns of household consumption expenditures observed in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, namely, that the variance of log durable expenditure is four times larger than that of log nondurable expenditure for annual data and this gap substantially widens for quarterly data. Estimating a structural model of household consumption with nondurable and durable goods with the simulated method of moments, I find that the fixed costs associated with durable adjustments are important in matching the cross‐sectional moments. Using the estimated model, I also examine the response of nondurable and durable expenditures to income shocks. (JEL D12, D91, E21)     

Voting here and there: political integration and transnational political engagement among immigrants in Europe

In this article, I examine voting patterns in origin and receiving country national elections among immigrants in Europe. The existing scholarship on transnational political engagement offers two competing interpretations of the relationship between immigrant integration and transnational engagement, which I classify as the resocialization and complementarity perspectives. The resocialization perspective assumes that transnational political engagement gradually declines as immigrants become socialized into the new receiving society. Conversely, the complementarity perspective assumes that immigrant integration increases transnational political engagement. I test these competing perspectives with survey data collected between 2004 and 2008 for 12 different immigrant groups residing in seven European cities. The analysis examines how immigrant political and civic participation in receiving countries affect their proclivities to vote in homeland elections. I also analyse the effects of receiving and origin country contexts on immigrant voting behaviour in homeland elections. While my findings support both the resocialization and complementarity perspectives, they also highlight the ways in which a set of origin‐country contexts shape immigrant propensities to engage in transnational electoral politics. I observe a degree of complementarity among immigrants with resources who are motivated and eligible to participate in both receiving and origin‐country elections.     

THE HOME MARKET EFFECT IN INTERNATIONAL ARMS TRADE

I show that military spending contributes to international arms proliferation through a push effect: large demand encourages production growth in the domestic market if transport costs are non‐negligible. Under increasing returns to scale, the country can then supply weapons on the global market at low prices. This is a manifestation of the home market effect (HME), which states that countries with higher demand for a differentiated good will be net exporters of that good. I construct a monopolistic competition model of international trade that accounts for differences in demand across countries, and test its predictions using post‐Cold War data. (JEL F1, H5, R1)     

The transnational effect of multicultural policies on migrants' identification: the case of the Israeli diaspora in the USA

While it is difficult to gauge the effect of multicultural policies within countries, it is even more difficult to measure them across countries. In this article, I use fundamental multicultural changes that have occurred in Israeli society in recent decades as a case study, and track their effect on how Israelis who reside in the USA identify with Israel. Analysing the US census and the American Community Survey, I have focused my research on three groups of Israeli‐born migrants in the USA – Israeli Arabs, ultra‐Orthodox Jews and the Jewish majority. Findings indicate that originating from a minority community in the homeland predicts not only a different rate, but also different longitudinal trends of Israeli identification. I offer several possible explanations for these variations, but an in‐depth analysis of the Israeli case indicates that the transnational effect of the changing multicultural agenda in Israel is the leading mechanism at play.     

GRAVITY REDUX: MEASURING INTERNATIONAL TRADE COSTS WITH PANEL DATA

Barriers to international trade are known to be large but because of data limitations it is hard to measure them directly for a large number of countries over many years. To address this problem, I derive a micro‐founded measure of bilateral trade costs that indirectly infers trade frictions from observable trade data. I show that this trade cost measure is consistent with a broad range of leading trade theories including Ricardian and heterogeneous firms models. In an application I show that U.S. trade costs with major trading partners declined on average by about 40 between 1970 and 2000, with Mexico and Canada experiencing the biggest reductions. (JEL F10, F15)     

OPTIMAL BAIL AND THE VALUE OF FREEDOM: EVIDENCE FROM THE PHILADELPHIA BAIL EXPERIMENT

This article performs a cost‐benefit analysis to determine socially optimal bail levels for felony defendants. We consider jailing costs, the cost of lost freedom to incarcerated defendants, and the social costs of flight and new crimes committed by released defendants. We estimate the effects of changing bail using data from a randomized experiment. We find that the typical defendant in our sample would be willing to pay roughly $1,000 for 90 d of freedom. While imprecise, our optimal bail estimates are similar to the observed levels of bail prior to bail reform. (JEL J17, J19, K14, K42)     

Who Wants a Deliberative Public Sphere?1

Democratic theorists and social scientists suggest that a deliberative public sphere would be good for democracy by maximizing emancipatory possibilities and providing broad legitimacy to political decision making. But do ordinary Americans actually want a deliberative public sphere? I examine this question in the context of four contentious “religion and science” debates. Through a multidimensional evaluation exercise with 62 ordinary respondents, I find that evaluation of public representatives in these debates tends to favor open‐mindedness and ongoing debate. Further, respondents explicitly discount elected representatives who participate in public debate precisely because they are seen as violating deliberative norms through their affiliation with electoral politics. Respondents want a deliberative public sphere. However, this desire reflects an understanding of the public sphere and institutional politics as disconnected arenas with incompatible rules and objectives, raising multiple questions for democratic theory and for political sociology.     

WHEN DO SHELTER‐IN‐PLACE ORDERS FIGHT COVID‐19 BEST? POLICY HETEROGENEITY ACROSS STATES AND ADOPTION TIME

This study explores the impact of Shelter‐in‐Place Orders (SIPOs) on health, with attention to heterogeneity in their impacts. First, using daily state‐level social distancing data, we document that adoption of a SIPO was associated with a 9%–10% increase in the rate at which state residents remained in their homes full‐time. Using daily state‐level coronavirus case data, we find that approximately 3 weeks following the adoption of a SIPO, cumulative COVID‐19 cases fell by approximately 53.5%. However, this average effect masks important heterogeneity across states‐early adopters and high population density states appear to reap larger benefits from their SIPOs. (JEL H75, I12, I18)     

EDUCATION'S GAMBLING PROBLEM: EARMARKED LOTTERY REVENUES AND CHARITABLE DONATIONS TO EDUCATION

I examine the impact that lotteries introduced to support education have on voluntary contributions to education. State lotteries, and the causes they are introduced to support, are highly publicized. This provides the opportunity to assess whether donors are crowded‐out by government spending of which they are almost certainly aware. Using donor‐level survey data and nonprofits' tax returns, I find that donations to education‐related organizations fall with the introduction of a lottery. This result is driven by donors' response to the new (highly publicized) government revenue source (rather than a decrease in nonprofit fundraising efforts). (JEL D64, H3, H75)     

‘One and a Half Dimensional’ Preferences and Majority Rule

I examine a model of majority rule in which alternatives are described by two characteristics: (1) their position in a standard, left-right dimension, and (2) their position in a good-bad dimension, over which voters have identical preferences. I show that when voters’ preferences are single-peaked and concave over the first dimension, majority rule is transitive, and the majority’s preferences are identical to the median voter’s. Thus, Black’s (The theory of committees and elections, 1958) theorem extends to such a “one and a half” dimensional framework. Meanwhile, another well-known result of majority rule, Downs’ (An economic theory of democracy, 1957) electoral competition model, does not extend to the framework. The condition that preferences can be represented in a one-and-a-half-dimensional framework is strictly weaker than the condition that preferences be single-peaked and symmetric. The condition is strictly stronger than the condition that preferences be order-restricted, as defined by Rothstein (Soc Choice Welf 7:331–342;1990).     

IDENTIFYING CHANGES IN THE SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF CRIME: EVIDENCE FROM A REFEREE EXPERIMENT IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE

Between the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 seasons, the National Football League (NFL) repositioned one of its officials in order to prevent injuries among officials. This creates a quasi‐experiment for studying how a change in the extent of policing affects detection of offenses. Using play‐by‐play data from the 2009–2010 and 2010–2011 NFL season, I estimate how the detection of offensive holding changes when the positioning of an official changes. I find that there is approximately a 20 increase in the number of offensive holding penalties called after the NFL repositioned the official. Penalties called on defensive linemen fell as a result of the repositioning. Overall, there was no change in the total number of penalties called. Using the estimated change in the probability of a penalty, I estimate the probability of an official calling a penalty. I infer that NFL officials detect approximately 60% of crimes committed on the field. (JEL K4, Z0, D0)     

Reconsidering Explanations for Regional Convergence in Voter Registration and Turnout in the United States, 1956–20001

In the United States, voter turnout rates have been declining for the last 4 decades; however, this pattern differs substantially by region. Southern states have actually seen a fairly dramatic increase in turnout since the 1950s and currently the South and non‐South have almost identical rates of voter registration and turnout. Using a series of Heckman probit models, which examine voting as a two‐step process of registering and casting a vote, we systematically investigate differences in rates of registering and voting across regions and test explanations for regional convergence over time. Using data from the American National Election Studies (1956–2000), we find that regional convergence in voter registration is primarily due to the removal of formal and informal barriers to registration and voting in the South and declining efforts to mobilize potential voters in the non‐South. In addition, we find some fairly distinct differences in which predictors are important to each stage of the voting process; for example, race is a better predictor of registering to vote than voting. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these results.     

RISK PREFERENCES AND EXPECTED UTILITY: EVIDENCE FROM LABOR SUPPLY DATA

This paper adds to the growing body of evidence that observed risk preferences are not consistent with expected‐utility theory. Using the link between labor supply decisions and utility as outlined by Chetty (“A Bound on Risk Aversion Using Labor Supply Elasticities.” The American Economic Review, 96(5), 2006, 1821–34), I compute the curvature of utility over wealth for 3,900 individuals in the 1996 Panel Study of Income Dynamics. I then compare this estimate to a measure of relative risk aversion based on the respondents' answers to hypothetical gambling questions and find virtually zero correlation. Finally, I investigate how the two measures and their correlations change by demographic groups and risky behavior. (JEL C81, D80, J22)     

WHY DON'T ELIGIBLE FIRMS CLAIM HIRING SUBSIDIES? THE ROLE OF JOB DURATION

Only a small fraction of firms that hire disadvantaged workers claim the federal subsidies for which they qualify, namely, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and Welfare‐to‐Work Tax Credit (WtW). Subsidy benefits depend partially on job duration, with higher subsidy rates above certain job‐duration thresholds. I estimate the relationship between a firm's WOTC/WtW participation and its eligible workers' job durations. Using unique Wisconsin administrative data, I find that workers' subsidy rates (determined by hours worked) have the expected relationship to participation: Firms with a larger fraction of workers exceeding the programs' job‐duration thresholds are more likely to claim the WOTC/WtW. I also find no evidence that firms systematically modify the job duration of their workers to maximize subsidy payments. (JEL J3)     

NEW MEASURES OF THE COSTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE FROM THE SUBJECTIVE WELL‐BEING OF 3.3 MILLION AMERICANS

Using two large U.S. surveys, we estimate the effects of unemployment on the subjective well‐being (SWB) of the unemployed and the rest of the population. For the unemployed, the nonpecuniary costs of unemployment are several times as large as those resulting from lower incomes, while the indirect effect at the population level is 15 times as large. For those who are still employed, a one percentage point increase in local unemployment has an impact on well‐being roughly equivalent to a 4% decline in household income. We also find evidence indicating that job security is an important channel for the indirect effects of unemployment. (JEL E24, H23, J64, J68)     

QUALITY‐ADJUSTED HUMAN CAPITAL AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH

This article examines the influence of quality‐adjusted educational attainment on growth and tests whether it facilitates the transfer of technology developed at the frontier for a panel of 60 countries. Using outcomes of pathogen stress as instruments, the results show that quality‐adjusted educational attainment and its interaction with distance to the frontier play important roles for growth. (JEL I20, O30, O40)     

SCALING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE: HOME COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Does differential access to computer technology at home compound the educational disparities between rich and poor? Would a program of government provision of computers to early secondary school students reduce these disparities? We use administrative data on North Carolina public school students to corroborate earlier surveys that document broad racial and socioeconomic gaps in home computer access and use. Using within‐student variation in home computer access, and across‐ZIP code variation in the timing of the introduction of high‐speed Internet service, we also demonstrate that the introduction of home computer technology is associated with modest, but statistically significant and persistent negative impacts on student math and reading test scores. Further evidence suggests that providing universal access to home computers and high‐speed Internet access would broaden, rather than narrow, math and reading achievement gaps. (JEL I2, J24)