Title: ESTIMATING STOCHASTIC BLOCK MODELS IN THE PRESENCE OF COVARIATES (joint with Louise Laage)

Abstract: In the standard stochastic block model for networks, the probability of a connection between two nodes, often referred to as the edge probability, depends on the unobserved communities each of these nodes belongs to. We consider a flexible framework in which each edge probability, together with the probability of community assignment, are also impacted by observed covariates. We propose a computationally tractable two-step procedure to estimate the conditional edge probabilities as well as the community assignment probabilities. The first step relies on a spectral clustering algorithm applied to a localized adjacency matrix of the network. In the second step, k-nearest neighbor regression estimates are computed on the extracted communities. We study the statistical properties of these estimators by providing non-asymptotic bounds.

Title: Immigrant Enfranchisement and Integration: Evidence from Italy

Title: Do Words Matter? The Value of Collective Bargaining Agreements (joint work with Elliott Ash, W. Bentley MacLeod, Suresh Naidu)

Abstract This paper proposes novel natural language methods to measure worker rights from collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) for use in empirical economic analysis. Applying unsupervised text-as-data algorithms to a new collection of 30,000 CBAs from Canada in the period 1986-2015, we parse legal obligations (e.g. “the employer shall provide...”) and legal rights (e.g. “workers shall receive...”) from the contract text. We validate that contract clauses provide worker rights, which include both amenities and control over the work environment. Companies that provide more worker rights score highly on a survey indicating pro-worker management practices. Using time-varying province-level variation in labor income tax rates, we find that higher taxes increase the share of worker-rights clauses while reducing pre-tax wages in unionized firms, consistent with a substitution effect away from taxed compensation (wages) toward untaxed amenities (worker rights). Further, an exogenous increase in the value of outside options (from a Bartik instrument for labor demand) increases the share of worker rights clauses in CBAs. Combining the regression estimates, we infer that a one-standard deviation increase in worker rights is valued at about 5.7% of wages.

Title: Family culture and childcare policies (with Francesca Carta and Lorenzo De Masi)

Abstract: We analyze the influence of past family culture on contemporary preferences for public childcare among U.S. natives and current legislative activity in the House of Representatives. We proxy family culture using historical family principles - equal inheritance and cohabitation- that characterize family structures prior to modern welfare states (Todd, 1983), thus minimizing reverse causality issues. By employing the prevalent family principles in the ancestral countries of origin, we effectively isolate the influence of family culture from other institutional and economic factors. Results from the General Social Survey (GSS) indicate that individuals with ancestors from egalitarian countries are more prone to advocate for public spending in childcare, while those with forebears cohabiting in large family units tend to rely less on formal childcare. Similarly, U.S. representatives from districts with a widespread egalitarian culture among the population's ancestry, as estimated by census data, sponsor more child-related bills, whereas those from cohabitation-oriented districts sponsor less. These findings are specific to children's policies and remain consistent despite political selection. Furthermore, we manually collect extensive genealogical data to identify each politician's ancestral family background. Our findings demonstrate that family culture of congressional districts consistently influences their representatives' legislative engagement with children's policies even when controlling for the politician's own family culture. This provides conclusive evidence that representatives prioritize their constituents' preferences over their own.

Title: Group Dissertation with Industry Projects: A Case Study

Abstract: This ongoing research explores a novel approach to Economics postgraduate dissertations by integrating teamwork and industry projects. It applies the equity share model to address free-rider issues within team environments, aiming to nurture collaboration. The interdisciplinary MSc program is designed to promote team-building, a sense of belonging, and an appreciation for diversity among students. Data for the study is drawn from students’ personal reflections, captured through emotional line graphs related to teamwork, assessment, and feedback. These insights are then analyzed alongside student performance, assessment schedules, and team composition to evaluate the experiences of the program’s first cohort. The case study also includes reflection summaries from the team responsible for supervising and delivering the dissertations.

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Title: Endogenous Clustering and Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibrium

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Title: Malthusian Migrations (with Romain Wacziarg)

We argue that societies with higher fertility experience increased levels of emigration. During the Age of Mass Migration, persistently high fertility created a large reservoir of surplus labor that could find better opportunities in the New World. We denote such migrations, from labor-abundant to land-abundant regions, as Malthusian migrations. Our results hold in a variety of datasets and specifications, across countries, regions, individuals, and periods. Using linguistic distance from French and twin births as instruments for fertility in crowdsourced genealogical data, we estimate a large effect of fertility on out-migration. Within households, later born children were more likely to migrate as fertility increased, particularly in regions with egalitarian inheritance. We develop a Malthusian model allowing for emigration as a way to escape population pressures, alleviating the negative effects of high fertility and contributing to the emergence of modern economic growth.

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Title: The incidence of affirmative action: Evidence from quotas in private schools in India (with Maricio Romero)

Abstract: The incidence of redistributive policies is central to whether they meet their stated goals. We study this in the context of one of the world's largest programs to improve social equity in schooling: a 25% quota in all Indian private schools for students from disadvantaged groups. We use lottery-based estimates to show that, although students admitted under the quota attend more expensive and preferred schools on average, the distribution of program benefits is very regressive. Program applicants are concentrated among more-educated and better-off households. Consequently, 7.4% of the program spending accrues to the bottom socioeconomic quintile, compared to 24.3% to the top quintile. We use rich survey data to show that low application rates for poorer children are not driven by preferences and beliefs. Instead, information constraints and application frictions appear to be key. Finally, we use a randomized intervention to confirm the importance of these frictions and further demonstrate that alleviating a single constraint (e.g., information) may not reduce regressive selection, even if it boosts application rates substantially. Our results demonstrate how constraints facing potential applicants can make redistributive policies regressive in practice. Appropriate policy interventions must consider the joint incidence of these constraints to reduce regressivity.

Title: Optimally Coarse Contracts (joint work with Roberto Corrao and Karthik Sastry).

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Title: BIg question economics: A way to introduce undergraduates to modern economics.

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