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

A Lecture by:
Hilary Hoynes, University of California Berkeley and NBER

“Effective Policy for Reducing Inequality? The Earned Income Tax Credit and the Distribution of Income”

Abstract:
In this paper, we examine the effect of the EITC on the employment and income of single mothers with children. We provide the first comprehensive estimates of this central safety net policy on the full distribution of after-tax and transfer income. We use a quasi-experiment approach, using variation in generosity due to policy expansions across tax years and family sizes. Our results show that a policy-induced $1000 increase in the EITC leads to a 7.3 percentage point increase in employment and a 9.4 percentage point reduction in the share of families with after-tax and transfer income below 100% poverty. These results are robust to a rich set of controls and whether we compare single women with and without children or compare women with one child versus women with two or more children. They are also robust to whether we limit our analysis to the sharp increase in the 1993 expansion or use the full period of policy expansion, back to the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Importantly, event study estimates show no evidence of differential pre-trends, providing strong evidence in support of our research design. We find that the income increasing effects of the EITC are concentrated between 75% and 150% of income-to-poverty with little effect at the lowest income levels (50% poverty and below) and at levels of 250% of poverty and higher. By capturing the indirect effects of the credit on earnings, our results show that static calculations of the anti-poverty effects of the EITC (such as those released based on the Supplemental Poverty Measure, Short 2014) may be underestimated by as much as 50 percent.

Author’s website: https://gspp.berkeley.edu/directories/faculty/hilary-hoynes

Date: Tuesday, November 8, 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.

Join us in the upcoming Stone Center Inequality Lecture Series at the Graduate Center.

This session consists on a seminar and discussion with Rishabh Kumar on Thursday, November 3 at 3:30PM-5:00PM. The seminar will be held at the CUNY Graduate Center, Room 9204. The event will consist of a 30-minute seminar followed by 30-45 minutes for Q&A.

Rishabh Kumar is a PhD candidate in economics at the New School for Social Research. His research focuses on wealth, capital theory, and taxation from historical and international perspectives. His working paper, “Capital and the Hindu rate of growth: Top Indian wealth holders 1961-1986”, explores the evolution of wealth held by the wealthiest Indian households. The paper examines the share of national wealth held by the top 0.1% and 0.01%, as well as the composition of wealth.

The abstract of the paper:

Did India’s stagnant growth performance until the 1980s increase or decrease the wealth of the elite? Using estate tax data I compute a series which highlights the relative importance of top wealth holders in India between 1961-1986. I find that a combination of policies and shocks were able to significantly depress the personal wealth of the Top 0.1% over this period. A portfolio decomposition by asset categories for the rich reveals that there was a U shaped trend in the average value of movable assets while wealth invested in land significantly declined. Disparity within top wealth groups also follows a shrinking and swelling, consistent with the intervention of the state in private capital. These results have implications for the equalizing forces inherent in tax policy vis-a-vis the rich and the role of the state in regulating capital in poor nations.

RSVP to njohnson@gradcenter.cuny.edu or ian.haberman@gmail.com.

This event is part of the Stone Center Inequality Lecture Series.

Learn more about the Stone Center Inequality Lecture Series at:

Inequality-Lecture-Series

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

A Lecture by:
Ben Hansen, University of Oregon, NY Crime Lab, and NBER

“The Legal Market for Marijuana:Evidence on Tax Incidence and the Elasticity of Supply and Demand from Washington State”

Author’s website: http://economics.uoregon.edu/profile/bchansen/

Date: Tuesday, November 1, 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.

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

A Lecture by:
Eric Verhoogen, Columbia University and NBER
“Using Exchange Rates to Estimate Production Functions”

Author’s website: http://www.columbia.edu/~ev2124/

Date: Tuesday, October 25, 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.

In the upcoming Applied Economics Seminar organized by Professor David Jaeger on October 18, 2016, Professor Lars Ljungqvist will present the paper “The Fundamental Surplus” (Link)

A Lecture by:
Lars Ljungqvist, Stockholm School of Economics and NYU “The Fundamental Surplus”

Date: Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Time: 12:00pm-1:45pm

Location: 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room: 5382

Author website: http://www2.hhs.se/personal/Ljungqvist/

In an upcoming seminar on October 27, 2015, Nobel Prize in Economics Laureate, Robert Engle will discuss “Systemic Risk and the Prospect for Global Financial Stability” (Link) and his paper on “Dynamic Conditional Beta” (Link).

The following is the abstract taken from the latter.

“Dynamic Conditional Beta (DCB) is an approach to estimating regressions with time varying parameters. The conditional covariance matrices of the exogenous and dependent variable for each time period are used to formulate the dynamic beta. Joint estimation of the covariance matrices and other regression parameters is developed. Tests of the hypothesis that betas are constant are non-nested tests and several approaches are developed including a novel nested model. The methodology is applied to industry multifactor asset pricing and to global systemic risk estimation with non-synchronous prices.”

Professor Engle received his Nobel Prize in Economics in 2003 for his discovery of methods of analyzing unpredictable movements in financial asset prices and interest rates.  He also participated in the round table discussion on “the Future of Quantitative Finance” organized by our program in 2011.

Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm

Location:

365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

Room 9207

Please be sure to arrive early; seating is limited and cannot be guaranteed.

Wonderful overview by Branko Milanovic of the recent lecture by Robert Solow at the Graduate Center.

“…Bob Solow explored a couple of days ago another possibility. Going back to his own seminal work on the theory of growth, some 60 years ago, Solow asked the following question: why did we assume that there is perfect competition and that factors are paid their perfect competition marginal products? We knew, continued Solow, that there were monopolies; moreover, the theory of imperfect competition (Edward Chamberlin and Joan Robinson) existed since the 1930s. Solow said: “I could not find a good reason, but since theory and facts were broadly in accord, nobody bothered much with the assumptions”. That is, until recently. How can we explain, continued Solow, a sustained and significant divergence between non-farm sector productivity and real wage? Despite some quibbles about the measurement of the two, there is no doubt that  they have diverged. But that goes against everything we thought we knew! (I am paraphrasing Solow here.)…”

For the full blog post:

http://glineq.blogspot.com/2015/05/bob-solow-on-rents-and-decoupling-of.html

May 4 @ 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm

Jeffrey Sachs and Paul Krugman, two great economic minds, engage in an illuminating discussion moderated by Gillian Tett, US managing editor of the Financial Times. Since he late 20th century, globalization has accompanied widening inequality in both rich and poor countries, despite a decline in global inequality. In the US, globalization and technological change are often blamed for exacerbating income inequality. The panelists will shed light on these complex issues and how they relate to recent economic crises. Sachs, named one of Time magazine’s “100 most influential world leaders,” is a professor of economics at Columbia University, a senior UN advisor, and author of bestselling books, including The End of Poverty. Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, notedNew York Times columnist and author, professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and distinguished scholar at the Luxembourg Income Study Center at the Graduate Center, where he will join the economics faculty in Fall 2015. – See more at: http://www.gc.cuny.edu/Public-Programming/Calendar/Detail?id=29498#sthash.Z1FX3nB5.dpuf

The event is free but you must reserve your seat by visiting here.