THREE-AND-A-HALF MILLION WORKERS NEVER WERE LOST

The proper measurement of unemployment during the 1930's with respect to the classification of relief workers has recently been questioned. This study explores that issue, leading to a number of substantive issues about the operation of the U.S. economy in the Great Depression. Both historical and econometric evidence are utilized. The notion of full displacement of private-sector and other public employment by relief work is rejected. The conditions of excess demand for jobs, numerous "look-alike" unemployed, sticky wage adjustment, and sales-constrained firms are found to undermine the validity of the anticipations-search model and the natural-rate hypothesis for this period .     

DO REAL ESTATE BROKERS ADD VALUE WHEN LISTING SERVICES ARE UNBUNDLED?

This paper measures the effects of real estate brokerage services provided to sellers, other than MLS listings, on the terms and timing of home sales. It is not obvious that sellers benefit from those services. On the one hand, brokers offer potentially useful knowledge and expertise. On the other hand, because the relationship between the homeowner and the broker resembles a classical principal‐agent problem, the broker may not deploy services in ways that promote the seller's interests. Yet as long as valuable MLS listings are bundled with brokerage services, homeowners may use brokers even if the agency costs exceed the benefits of brokers' knowledge and expertise. Thus, quantification of the net value of brokerage services other than MLS listings bears directly on the recent policy debate over the desirability unbundling of MLS listings. We estimate the effect of a seller's decision to use a broker on list prices, selling prices, and speed of sale for a real estate market with an unusual and critical characteristic: it has a single open‐access listing service that is used by essentially all sellers, regardless of whether they employ brokers. Our central finding is that, when listings are not tied to brokerage services, a seller's use of a broker reduces the selling price of the typical home by 5.9% to 7.7%, which indicates that agency costs exceed the advantages of brokers' knowledge and expertise by a wide margin. (JEL D12, R31, L85)     

PARENTAL EARNINGS AND CHILDREN'S WELL‐BEING: AN ANALYSIS OF THE SURVEY OF INCOME AND PROGRAM PARTICIPATION MATCHED TO SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION EARNINGS DATA

We estimate the association between parental earnings and child well‐being using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation matched to Social Security Administration earnings records. We use very large samples on a wide variety of measures of child well‐being that are also linked to long histories of parent earnings from administrative records. Consistent with previous studies, we find that the use of longer time averages of parent earnings leads to substantially higher estimated associations compared to using only a single year of parent earnings. Using 7‐year time averages of parent earnings, we show, for example, that a doubling of parent earnings is associated with a reduced probability of a teenager reporting being in poor health by close to 50% and a decrease in the likelihood of a child repeating a grade by 39%. We also examine how the associations vary by the timing of when parental earnings are received during childhood. We find suggestive evidence that parental earnings received during the child's school‐going years (ages 6 to 17) are more strongly associated with college enrollment and children's future earnings as adults than parent earnings received earlier or later in the child's life. (JEL J13, I1, I2)     

Ballot Paper Cues and the Vote in Australia and Britain: Alphabetic Voting, Sex, and Title

When a voter comes to cast a ballot, some information aboutthe candidates is evident on the ballot paper itself. Usingmultiple regression techniques, this study provides quantitativeestimates of the impact of such information in recent Britishand Australian elections. The results suggest that whether thecandidate's name comes first, middle, or last on the ballotpaper has no effect on the vote in Britain. But it does matterin Australia, partly because voters are more likely to choosecandidates whose names come first, but mostly because the majorparties believe voters will do so and select candidates accordingly.In addition, women candidates are at an electoral disadvantagein Britain and at an even greater disadvantage in Australia.Most, but not all, of this disadvantage comes about becausemajor parties are reluctant to nominate women candidates. Finally,in Britain candidates with an honorary title garner an appreciabledeferential vote although candidates with an academic titledo not. These effects range in size from a modest 2.5 percentof the vote to a substantial 12.5 percent.