ELITE SCHOOLS

While many US schools adopted test-optional admissions policies during the Covid-19 pandemic, several Ivy League colleges such as Yale, MIT, Brown, Dartmouth, and Georgetown are again requiring standardized test submissions in their application process. 

A new NBER paper by Ran Abramitzky, Jennifer K. Kowalski, Santiago Pérez, and Joseph Price assembles the largest extant dataset of the long-run socioeconomic composition of students at elite schools in the US in order to examine the effects of two major policy changes, standardized testing and the G.I. Bill:

“We find no evidence that the G.I. Bill increased the representation of lower- and middle-income students at elite colleges. We also find no evidence that the introduction of standardized testing persistently increased the representation of lower- and middle-income at elite colleges. The limited effects of these two policies suggest that increasing the representation of lower-income students in elite colleges may require earlier or more targeted interventions. This persistence of the underrepresentation of lower income students at elite institutions is particularly striking given the large changes that have occurred in higher education over the last century. Our findings reveal that there is substantial continuity in the economic origins of students at elite colleges and that such persistence has in general been difficult to alter. The one important exception to this continuity is the relative decline in the proportion of students from the top 20 percent following WWII and its subsequent reversal since the 1980s.”

+  See Sandra Black, Jeffrey Denning, and Jesse Rothstein on Texas’s Top Ten Percent policy for diversifying attendance to public flagships. Link. And see the UT system announcement this week offering free tuition to qualifying Texan families. Link. In PW, see Aida Hozic on Florida’s public education model. Link.

+  “Something profoundly altered higher education around 1890 so that almost all of today’s noteworthy US universities and colleges were founded before 1900.” By Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz. Link. See Caroline Hoxby on the rising selectivity of Ivy League schools, as distance from home factors less into the preference of prospective students. Link.

+  “Public educational assistance has tilted away from youth from low-income
families toward the most meritorious and highly qualified youth, and therefore toward those from middle- and higher-income families.” By Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeeding. Link. “Students at selective colleges have higher graduation rates than similarly qualified students at less selective colleges.” By Anthony P. Carnevale and Stephen J. Rose. Link.

NEW RESEARCHERS

Bolsa Familia

GABRIEL LEITE MARIANTE is an Economics PhD Candidate at the London School of Economics. In his job market paper, he exploits data regarding Bolsa Familia, the world’s largest cash transfer program by number of recipients, and finds that cash transfers increase women’s labor force participation, particularly when complementary public goods are available.

From the paper:

“In this paper, I take advantage of the institutional setting of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, a national programme with a large unconditional component, that is designed and implemented in identical fashion across the entire country. This feature allows me to isolate the role of local context in shaping regional variation in the effect on employment of men and women. Using plausibly exogenous variation in benefit receipt generated by a policy reform that increases benefit coverage, I find that, on average across the country, the benefit increases formal employment of women by 1.1pp (7.6%), but has no effect on men. The positive effect on women is highest for mothers, particularly those with children of pre-school age, who increase their propensity to spend money on children’s education, resulting in increased school enrollment and freeing up of time previously dedicated to care work.”

+++

+  “If renewed inflation, driven by geopolitical events or climate-driven disruption, interacts with tight labor markets to induce wage and price pressure, Labour’s plans will be derailed.” New on PW, Jo Michell on Labour’s stewardship over economic stagnation in the UK. Link.

+  A new Peterson Institute policy brief by Kimberly A. Clausing and Mary E. Lovely examines the regressive nature of tariff policies under Trump and Biden, with consequences for US revenues, consumers, and households. Link.

+  An October research paper from Chatham House assesses challenges to Azerbaijan’s  credibility in hosting the COP29 summit, and makes recommendations for how the country can use its leadership to engage oil and gas producers. Link.

+  A recent report by Melissa Mahoney and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research examines the economic and workforce impact of restrictive abortion laws since the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Link.

+  “Our results indicate that austerity measures (defined as negative shocks larger than 3 percent of the GDP) have a detrimental effect on GDP of about 5.5 percent even after 15 years.” By Guilherme Klein Martins. Link.

+  “No serious body of research has been produced that provides a clear justification for a 2–3 percent inflation target as the central goal of macroeconomic policy.” By Robert Pollin and Hanae Bouazza. Link.

+  See the G20 Rio de Janeiro Leaders’ Declaration. Link. And see Mariana Mazzucato and Vera Songwe, co-chairs of the Group of Experts to the G20’s TF-CLIMA, on the recommendations contained in their final report. Link.

+  “Dogmatic socialists, religious fanatics, ‘pious’ superstitious fetishists (this already covers the crusaders)—but also tourist ‘paradises’ (the most exploited commonplace in international advertising!)—are kindred phenomena in anthropological terms. And it is not surprising that even aesthetic objectivizations (kitsch, to be precise) of this ‘blocked’ seduction of the infinite resemble one another. The Jordan water that the crusaders took home is not very different from Berlin Spreewasser (not to mention tins of ‘Berlin Air’!).” By Ludwig Giesz. Link.

Each week we highlight research from a graduate student, postdoc, or early-career professor. Send us recommendations: editorial@jainfamilyinstitute.org