nber.orgUpward Income Mobility among the Sons of Immigrants

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH HOME PAGE loading... Select one Research Researchers Institutional -- NBER Cancels Spring 2020 In-Person Program and Working Group Meetings In light of the evolving global coronavirus situation, the NBER has canceled all in-person program and working group meetings that were scheduled for the spring of 2020. Most other NBER meetings — those connected with specific projects — will be postponed or replaced with teleconference sessions. Invitees to those meetings will be receiving further information from the NBER Conference Department. Exploring Economic Impacts of Global Health Shocks The global coronavirus outbreak has raised important questions about the consequences of health shocks for economic activity. There are many challenges in translating past experiences to the current setting. A number of NBER research studies have investigated the economic and other consequences of previous epidemics. View abstracts and links to studies Wesley Clair Mitchell The NBER at 100: A Century-Long Search for Facts to Underpin Economic Policy The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) was founded one hundred years ago — on January 23, 1920 — as a New York State nonprofit corporation. The founders, who were leaders in business and academia, declared that the organization would "encourage ... investigation, research, and discovery, and the application of knowledge... in the fields of economic, social, and industrial science." Its research program, formulated by founding Director of Research Wesley Clair Mitchell, focused on determining and reporting facts of relevance to economic policy, while adhering to the founders’ prescription to abstain from making policy recommendations. In its first half century, the NBER supported a small group of researchers who carried out major projects on topics such as national income accounting, business cycle fluctuations, the measurement of monetary aggregates, and the role of human capital in labor markets, and who published their findings in NBER volumes. More recently, it has concentrated on convening groups of its more than 1,500 college- and university-based affiliates to conduct research, on hosting research colloquia, and on enabling grant-funded research by its affiliates. Former Director of Research Solomon Fabricant described the NBER's founding and early years in a short history . Over the course of 2020, the NBER will host a series of events to consider current and future directions in economic research. Photo credit: University Archives, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries -- Productivity in Higher Education How do the benefits of higher education compare with its costs, and how does this vary across individuals and institutions? Productivity in Higher Education uses rich and novel administrative data, modern econometric methods, and deep institutional understanding to explore these issues. Researchers examine the returns to undergraduate education, differences in costs by major, the productivity of for-profit schools, the productivity of various types of faculty, the effects of online education on the market, and the ways in which the productivity of institutions responds to market forces. Edited by Caroline M. Hoxby and Kevin Stange. Additional information Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior While agricultural yields have increased steadily in the last half century, inflation-adjusted agricultural commodity prices have been trending downward as increases in supply outpace the growth of demand. Yet recent severe weather events, biofuel mandates, and a switch toward a more meat-heavy diet in emerging economies have boosted prices. Whether this is a temporary jump or the beginning of a longer-term trend is an open question. Agricultural Productivity and Producer Behavior explores issues including potential environmental consequences of yield growth, genetically modified crops, changing climatic factors, production responses to government regulations, and the role of crop diversification, disease management, and water-saving methods. Edited by Wolfram Schlenker. Additional information --- New NBER Research 13 March 2020 Is Parental Leave Costly for Firms and Coworkers? Analyzing data from Denmark to assess family leave costs to firms and coworkers, Anne A. Brenøe , Serena P. Canaan , Nikolaj A. Harmon , and Heather N. Royer find no measurable effects on firm output or profitability, and no significant changes in the well-being of coworkers. ( ...more... ) 12 March 2020 Does Marginal Hospitalization Save Lives? Studying elderly Medicare patients who come to ERs with respiratory conditions that are at the margin for hospital admission, Janet Currie and David Slusky find that admission leads on average to a seven day hospital stay, and to charges of $42,000, but does not reduce the risk of death in the course of the next year. ( ...more... ) 11 March 2020 Paid Parental Leave Spreads in US, but Still Lags Firm-provided paid parental leave has greatly increased in the last two decades in the United States but even workers at the most generous US firms receive fewer weeks of fully paid leave than workers in the median OECD nation, according to a study by Claudia Goldin , Sari Pekkala Kerr , and Claudia Olivetti . ( ...more... ) New NBER Research New NBER Research -- More Research Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy, volume 1 Matthew J. Kotchen , James H. Stock , and Catherine D. Wolfram , editors New papers on environmental and energy economics and policy evaluate carbon taxes versus a cap-and-trade mechanism for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, identify the conditions under which exemption of electric vehicles from the gasoline tax is likely to be efficient, analyze the rapidly growing market for green bonds, develop a general framework for evaluating fuel economy standards, present a measure of US output over the last 60 years that accounts for air pollution damages, and illustrate methods of accounting for employment effects of environmental regulations. For more information or to order -- Bulletin on Health Length of Life for Older Americans: Location Matters The most recent issue of the Bulletin on Health features a study that examines the longevity of Medicare beneficiaries who move from one location to another.Using a panel of Medicare data, the researchers estimate that remaining life expectancy at age 65 increases by 1.1 years for a person moving from an area in the lowest 10 percent in terms of life expectancy impact to one in the highest 10 percent. Equalizing the effects of location would eliminate 15 percent of the variation in life expectancy across areas. Also featured in this issue of the Bulletin on Health are studies of birth outcomes at hospitals with relatively high C-section rates, and the effects of increased Medicaid reimbursement rates on patient access to care. Subscribe Read online The Roles of Immigrants and Foreign Students in US Science, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship Ina Ganguli , Shulamit Kahn , and Megan MacGarvie , editors Using new data and rigorous empirical analysis, this new NBER book examines various aspects of the relationship between immigration, innovation, and entrepreneurship, including the effects of changes in the number of immigrants and their skill composition on the rate of innovation; the relationship between high-skilled immigration and entrepreneurship; the differences between immigrant and native entrepreneurs; and the post-graduation migration patterns of STEM doctoral recipients. The volume also examines the role of the US higher education system and US visa policy in attracting foreign students for graduate study and retaining them after graduation. For more information or to order Follow us on Frequently Requested Items Business Cycle (Recession & Recovery) Page This Week's Working Papers Request for Proposals for Conference Venue -- Call for Papers - 2020 Summer Institute...