Infrequent Identity Signals, Multiple Correspondence, and Detection Risks in Audit Correspondence Studies.

Audit correspondence studies are field experiments that test for discriminatory behavior in active markets. Researchers measure discrimination by comparing how responsive individuals ("audited units") are to correspondences from different types of people. This paper elaborates on the tradeoffs researchers face between sending audited units only one correspondence and sending them multiple correspondences, especially when including less common identity signals in the correspondences.

Does Ageist Language in Job Ads Predict Age Discrimination in Hiring?

We study the relationships between ageist stereotypes - as reflected in the language used in job ads - and age discrimination in hiring, exploiting the text of job ads and differences in callbacks to older and younger job applicants from a resume (correspondence study) field experiment (Neumark, Burn, and Button, 2019). Our analysis uses computational linguistics and machine learning methods to examine, in a field-experiment setting, ageist stereotypes that might underlie age discrimination in hiring. In so doing, we develop methods and a framework for analyzing textual data, highlighting the usefulness of various computer science techniques for empirical economics research.

Do Stronger Employment Discrimination Protections Decrease Reliance on Social Security Disability Insurance? Evidence from the U.S. Social Security Reforms.

The United States Social Security Amendments of 1983 increased the full retirement age and penalties for retiring before that age. This increased Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications by making SSDI relatively more generous. We explore if state disability and age discrimination laws moderated these spillovers, using variation whereby many state laws are broader or stronger than federal law.

Can Tax Incentives Create a Local Film Industry? Evidence from Louisiana and New Mexico.

State Film Incentives (SFIs) are a recent and popular economic development incentive. I study these through case studies of two prominent SFIs: those in Louisiana and New Mexico, using the Abadie et al. (2010) synthetic control case study method.

Employment Discrimination against Indigenous Peoples in the United States: Evidence from a Field Experiment.

We conducted an audit study - a resume correspondence experiment - to measure discrimination in hiring faced by Indigenous Peoples in the United States (Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians). We sent employers 13,516 realistic resumes of Indigenous or white applications for common jobs in 11 cities. We signalled Indigenous status in one of four different ways.

Do State Laws Protecting Older Workers from Discrimination Reduce Age Discrimination in Hiring? Evidence from a Field Experiment.

We conduct a resume field experiment in all U.S. states to study how state laws protecting older workers from age discrimination affect age discrimination in hiring for retail sales jobs.

Do Tax Incentives Affect Business Location and Economic Development? Evidence from State Film Incentives.

I estimate the impacts of recently-popular U.S. state film incentives on filming location, film industry employment, wages, and establishments, and spillover impacts on related industries.

How Valuable are National Parks? Evidence from a Proposed National Park Expansion in Alaska.

When balancing environmental preservation and economic development, it is critical to evaluate how taxpayers value national park land and for what they are valuing it. One key component of this evaluation is to calculate a "passive use value," or the willingness to pay (WTP), for protection of land that may never directly be used, and to determine what benefits of land protection motivate this passive use value. We estimated the WTP for a 5% expansion of Denali National Park in Alaska (an expansion of 325,340 acres) using a questionnaire and the contingent valuation method.

Does Protecting Older Workers From Discrimination Make It Harder to Get Hired? Evidence From Disability Discrimination Laws.

We explore the effects of disability discrimination laws on hiring of older workers. A concern with antidiscrimination laws is that they may reduce hiring by raising the cost of terminations and-in the specific case of disability discrimination laws-raising the cost of employment because of the need to accommodate disabled workers. Moreover, disability discrimination laws can affect nondisabled older workers because they are fairly likely to develop work-related disabilities, but are generally not protected by these laws.