Michael Wenz, Winona State, will be our next seminar participant. His presentation, “Is There Status Quo Bias? Evidence from Two Point Conversion Attempts in Football ,” will be Friday, November 7th, at 3:30 p.m. in room 230 Wimberly Hall. A copy of his paper is available here. Upper division students are invited. UPDATE: Link to paper has moved here.

Greg Mankiw on the Presidential Candidate's Marginal Tax Rates

Greg Mankiw has a nifty little post on his blog on how the presidential candidate's tax plans will affect an additional dollar earned were he to work more.

I'm with him:

The bottom line: If you are one of those people out there trying to induce me to do some work for you, there is a good chance I will turn you down. And the likelihood will go up after President Obama puts his tax plan in place. I expect to spend more time playing with my kids. They will be poorer when they grow up, but perhaps they will have a few more happy memories.

Privatizing Education

Steve Yamarik helps to make the case for privatizing education. Schooling offers no positive externalities .

Estimating Returns to Schooling from State-Level Data: A Macro-Mincerian Approach

In this paper, we use information from U.S. states to determine the social return to schooling. We estimate a macro-Mincerian model where aggregate earnings (or income) depend upon physical capital, labor, average years of schooling and average labor force experience. We find that the social return to U.S. schooling is 9 to 16 percent, which matches estimates of the private return found in the labor literature. Our results therefore provide evidence that U.S. schooling is indeed productive, but generates no positive externalities.

Economics Student Discussion

The first meeting of the Economics student discussion group was a hit! We are meeting again on Wednesday, October 29th at 4pm in 307 CWH. Please join us if you can.

Visualization

Lisa points to an excellent visualization from the New York Times. However, it could have been improved. Eager Eyes has some suggestions.

Economics Student Discussion

The current economic situation in the US has prompted many discussions of macroeconomic policy, monetary policy, and the workings of the US economy. Multiple students have expressed interest in getting together to discuss current economic events. This discussion would be student led.

I propose an initial meeting time of 4:30pm on Wednesday, October 22 in room 257 in the Cartwright Center. If you are interested, join the Facebook group ‘UW-L Economics Students’ or email me.

If you have a specific question or an article to discuss, bring it with you.

Kathryn Birkeland
birkelan.kath@uwlax.edu

Can A President Tame the Business Cycle?

Check out this great New York Times interactive graphic. Notice the biggest change in the past 16 years (i.e. bipartisan) is the change in the share of income of the bottom 99%.

2008-2009 Seminars

The Economics Department will once again host a seminar series during the 2008-09 academic year. The series is made possible by the generous bequest made to the department by David M. Cole, a professor of economics at UWL from 1966-77. Seminars are scheduled for Friday afternoons and generally last for one hour. The series is open to anyone, but should be especially attractive to economics majors and minors. The series highlights the current research topics of scholars from a variety of backgrounds. Past speakers have included Nobel laureates Douglass North and Robert Fogel and Federal Reserve Board Governor Laurence Meyer. While not all speakers are as distinguished, their research is interesting and the presentations are always worth attending. Beginning this year the final presentation each semester will be made by a member of the UWL Economics Department in an effort to highlight the research that our faculty is undertaking. The speaker series has been set for the year, though dates are subject to change. Final details concerning the time and room for each seminar are available on the department web page the week prior to the seminar. This year’s scheduled speakers include:

October 10-Kristen Monaco, Cal State Long Beach, Wages and working conditions of truck drivers at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles

November 7-Mike Wenz, Winona State, Is there status quo bias? Evidence from two point conversions in football

November 21- James Murray, Viterbo, Initial Expectations in New Keynesian Models with Learning

December 5- Glenn Knowles and Keith Sherony, UWL, A Tale of Two Teams: A Comparison of the Cubs & Sox in Chicago

March 6- Cara McDaniel, Kenyon College, A Study of Hours Worked in the OECD Countries

March 27- Russell Cooper, University of Texas, Macroeconomics

April 17- Scott Cunningham, Baylor, The Internet and Prostitution

May 1- Taggert J. Brooks, UWL, In Da Club: An Econometric Analysis of Strip Club Patrons

Problem Definition

I stumbled upon this quote from Bertrand Russell:

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

Bertrand Russell
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970)

It's why we spend so much time on Problem Definition in BUS 230.

Bailout Plan Summary

If you're wondering what's in the bailout plan passed by Congress this week, check out this summary.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/house_bill_summary/

Like Guitar Hero, but for Economists!

Check out Budget Hero at Marketplace where you can decide how to spend our 3.3. trillion dollar federal budget!

Reading Research

The New York Times has a great Health related section this week.  In particular they have this graphic, which details how to read (skeptically) medical research.  Its good advice for reading all kinds of research.

Seminar: Kristen Monaco

Kristen Monaco, Cal State Long Beach, will be our first seminar participant for the 2008-09 year. Kristen will be presenting "Wages and working conditions of truck drivers at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles," on Friday, October 10th at 3:00 pm in room 102 Wimberly. A copy of her paper is here.

Abstract:

Using data from surveys conducted in 2004 and 2006, we examine the work and earnings of drayage drivers at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. Though possessing relatively low levels of education (most have a high school diploma or less), these drivers average approximately $35,000 in earnings net of truck expenses, working, on average, 11.2 hours of work per day. Owner operators experience increased net earnings once their trucks are fully paid for, leading them to buy older, more polluting trucks. This negative externality is currently being addressed by both Ports enacting new regulations regarding truck drayage in Southern California.