Knowledge that Transforms

Analysis of longitudinal data for immigrants presents a more pessimistic portrait of immigrants' economic success. First, the rate of growth of immigrant earnings was overstated in census-based studies. Second, the worsening of immigrant earnings for more recent arrival cohorts is deeper than previously suggested. Against these two negative findings, one must keep in mind an important caveat. The steeper cohort decline in earnings may be a sign of greater human-capital investment by more recent immigrants. Longitudinal data suggest a strong degree of earnings convergence: immigrants who start at lower earnings quickly make up a large part of the deficit relative to their immigrant counterparts.

The strength of incentives used in an organization and the productivity of employees that results from these incentives depend to a large degree on the characteristics of the performance measures available to the organization. Some employees work under high-powered explicit incentive contracts, while others have no explicit incentive contracts at all. The ability of agency theory to predict the pattern of incentive provision in organizations has not been very impressive, and the divergence between the prescriptions of agency theory and the actual practice of firms has been widely noted. This paper (along with both other papers in this session [Edward P. Lazear, 2000; Canice Prendergast, 2000]) attempts to fill some of the gap between theory and practice. I examine the characteristics of performance measures (those data on which explicit incentive contracts are based) to understand how firms use incentive contracting, and to predict the use of incentives in practice.

This paper develops a simple general-equilibrium framework to study the effect of the exchange-rate system on trade and welfare. An important feature of the model is deviations from purchasing-power parity, caused by rigid price setting in buyers' currency. In a benchmark model with separable preferences and only monetary shocks, trade is unaffected by the exchange-rate system, consistent with most evidence. In general, both trade and welfare can be higher under either exchange-rate system, depending on preferences and on the monetary-policy rules followed under each system. There is no one-to-one relationship between the levels of trade and welfare across exchange-rate systems.

This paper explores a monetary-policy model with habit formation for consumers, in which consumers' utility depends in part on current consumption relative to past consumption. The empirical tests developed in the paper show that one can reject the hypothesis of no habit formation with tremendous confidence, largely because the habit-formation model captures the gradual hump-shaped response of real spending to various shocks. The paper then embeds the habit-consumption specification in a monetary-policy model and finds that the responses of both spending and inflation to monetary-policy actions are significantly improved by this modification.

We study how diversity evolves at a firm with entry-level and upper-level employees who vary in ability and “type” (gender or ethnicity). The ability of entry-level employees is increased by mentoring. An employee receives more mentoring when more upper-level employees have the same type. Optimal promotions are biased by type, and this bias may favor either the minority or the majority. We characterize possible steady states, including a “glass ceiling,” where the upper level remains less diverse than the entry level. A firm may have multiple steady states, whereby temporary affirmative-action policies have a long-run impact.

We study a Lucas asset-pricing model that is standard in all respects, except that the representative agent's subjective beliefs about endowment growth are distorted. Using constant relative risk-aversion (CRRA) utility, with a CRRA coefficient below 10; fluctuating beliefs that exhibit, on average, excessive pessimism over expansions; and excessive optimism over contractions (both ending more quickly than the data suggest), our model is able to match the first and second moments of the equity premium and risk-free rate, as well as the persistence and predictability of excess returns found in the data.

PUR 6403 Crisis and Risk Management focuses on practical applications of theory and research to identify and strategically manage issues and operational risks that can materially affect the continuity of global organizations. Emphasis is placed on preparing managers for ethical and effective risk and crisis communication, as well as the formulation of strategic crisis communication plans. Class information: PUR 6403 §1219 meets 8th-10th periods (3-6 p.m.) on Thursdays in Weimer 3020. Course goals: The goal of PUR 6403 is for students to understand and appreciate how issues impact organizational continuity, how issues and operational risks are strategically managed and crises averted, and the importance of ethical, effective risk and crisis communication.

We demonstrate that a simple model, constructed on the premise that people are motivated by both their pecuniary payoff and their relative payoff standing, organizes a large and seemingly disparate set of laboratory observations as one consistent pattern. The model is incomplete information but nevertheless posed entirely in terms of directly observable variables. The model explains observations from games where equity is thought to be a factor, such as ultimatum and dictator, games where reciprocity is thought to play a role, such as the prisoner's dilemma and gift exchange, and games where competitive behavior is observed, such as Bertrand markets.

This paper considers propagation of aggregate shocks in a dynamic general-equilibrium model with labor-market matching and endogenous job destruction. Cyclical fluctuations in the job-destruction rate magnify the output effects of shocks, as well as making them much more persistent. Interactions between capital adjustment and the job-destruction rate play an important role in generating persistence. Propagation effects are shown to be quantitatively substantial when the model is calibrated using job-flow data. Incorporating costly capital adjustment leads to significantly greater propagation.