Applied Economics Seminar at the Graduate Center: Anna Arakelyan

Join us in our upcoming Applied Economics Seminar at the Graduate Center organized by Professor David A. Jaeger.

A lecture by: Anna Arakelyan, CUNY Graduate Center
“Who Influences Your Wealth? The Effect of Culture and Ethnic Origin, Neighborhood and Peers on Personal Income: Spatial Econometric Analysis of New York City”

Abstract of the paper:

Being a “social animal”, each person is inherently embedded into a complex structure of social relations. He has role models to aspire to, conformity rules to follow, and expectations to meet. This paper aims to find what the different social influences each person experiences in life are. Specifically, I consider how a person’s ethnic community, age reference group, occupational and industry group peers, and residential area neighbors affect his total income. I introduce a novel model of multiple social networks and discuss various identification implications. I apply the model empirically to New York City, which naturally is a very favorable environment to test for multiple social effects. The study uses generous person-level American Community Survey data that covers rich geographic, ethnic, demographic, and employment characteristics. The sample used is made of five pooled cross-sections, resulting in about 270,000 observations. I analyze a model with spatial lags in dependent variable (SAR), a model with spatial lags in disturbance term (SEM), and a model with spatial lags in both dependent variable and error (SAC). I find highly significant effects for various specifications and elaborate on many aspects of the multiple social effects model.

Author’s website: http://arakelyanag.wixsite.com/vita

Date: Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Location: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room: 5382

Travel Directions to The Graduate Center:
By Subway: B, D, F, N, R, or Q to 34th Street-Herald Square; walk east to 5th Avenue 6 to 33rd Street.
By Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M6, M7, M16, M34, Q32.