John M. McDowell

Gender And Promotion In The Economics Profession

The authors use unique panel data on American Economic Association members to test for gender differences in promotion in a profession with a well-defined promotion and job hierarchy and in which men and women exhibit similar labor-market attachment. The results suggest that over the period from the 1960s through the early 1980s, female economists had lower levels of professional attainment and career advancement than did their male colleagues with similar attributes. These gender differences remain in evidence despite controls for unobserved heterogeneity and self-selection between academic and non-academic jobs. There is evidence, however, that promotion prospects for female economists significantly improved during the 1980s, not only at all ranks, but also within both Ph.D.-granting institutions and non-Ph.D.-granting institutions. In fact, the results reveal no unexplained gender-specific differences in promotion by the end of the 1980s.

Differential economic opportunity, transferability of skills, and immigration to the United States and Canada

Studies concerned with U.S. and Canadian immigration after World War II have been on cross-sectional data or on limited time series data and have stressed the importance of differential economic opportunity as a cause of migration. In this study, four vectors of variables are used to explain annual immigration to both the United States and Canada, 1962-84, from a number of specific source countries--economic opportunities, transferability of skills, level of economic development and political conditions, and institutional controls that reflect the immigration policies of the two nations. Wage differentials, several measures of skill transferability, political conditions in source countries, and the policy variables prove to be important determinants of U.S. and Canadian immigration. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.

The selection of public utility commissioners: A re-examination of the importance of institutional setting

5. ConclusionsThe result of a great many studies is that it makes no difference to the rate level whether the public utility commission is appointed or elected. Nevertheless, the typical response to an inquiry regarding the effect of appointment versus election is that a difference in resulting rate structure should exist. In this paper we have reconciled these views and more carefully examined the issue of whether institutional setting does matter in the setting of regulated electricity prices. We suggest that one should not necessarily expect elected PUCs to behave differently than appointed ones. Instead different behavior should be expected from PUCs that are ‘closer’ to their constituents than those more isolated, irrespective of whether the PUC is elected or appointed. The results of an empirical examination based on a large sample of utilities operating during the period of 1981-83 support this view. The more narrowly defined is the consumer voter-group, everything else the same, the lower is the rate set by the PUC.

Economic value of an in-house editorship

ConclusionIn this paper we have examined the editor effect on publications in institutions with an in-house editor. We found this effect to be general across journals. Using our estimates of the editor effect, we have speculated on the value of such an editing arrangement to the faculty and graduates of the home institution. These estimates might give some clue as to the subsidy an association might extract in negotiations over future editing positions or, alternatively, some benchmark on the return considerations an editor might expect from his home department colleagues.

Conducting Descriptive and Analytical Research with the Immigration and Naturalization Service Public Use Tapes

For many years the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has published annual data on persons admitted to the U.S. as legal resident aliens. Only relatively recently has INS begun to make its microdata files available. This paper concerns the INS Public Use Tapes including a detailed description of the information available on them an account of the frequency and severity of certain flaws in the data and a discussion of possible methods for correcting these flaws. The paper also discusses a number of strengths and [weaknesses] of the data for descriptive and analytical research and it provides several suggestions for research projects that could be carried out with the INS data. (EXCERPT)

A model of the skill composition of US immigration

A human capital model is specified to explain the skill composition of US immigration. A unique set of panel data (57 source countries and 15 annual observations) and a methodology not previously used to study a demographic phenomenon are employed to estimate the model. Coefficients on time-invariant variables are recovered by means of the Hausman - Taylor instrumental variable procedure, which yields considerably different results than the generalized least squares model.

Source-country social programs and the age composition of legal US immigrants

Abstract In this study we use the concept of the marginal migrant to develop a theoretical model of the age composition of US immigration. Two age classes of immigrants are distinguished, 20–34 and 50 and over, along with sex and entry class (numerically restricted, numerically exempt). Annual data (1972–1991) for 109 source countries are pooled, and the Hausman–Taylor instrumental variable technique is employed to estimate regressions that satisfy adding-up restrictions. Along with measures of differential economic opportunities, migration costs, and US institutional controls, we incorporate into the analysis a unique set of variables relating to social programs in source countries. Such programs prove to be significant determinants of the age composition of US immigrants.

The National Labor Market Consequences of U.S. Immigration

Since the imposition of restrictive entry quotas in the early 1920s, U.S. immigration issues have generally been of little concern to economists. First binding quotas, and later the effects of the depression and World War II, resulted in sharply reduced immigration compared with levels of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When, during the 1950s, immigration again began to rise toward quota ceilings, population was growing rapidly from other sources, and thus immigration continued to contribute relatively little to U.S. population growth. Moreover, during this period mortality among the aging stock of foreign-born more than offset net immigration, with the consequence that the stock declined by 4.6 million between 1930 and 1970. What attention was directed at international migration issues during this half century was mainly on the part of economic historians, who focused on the period of unrestricted flows, and on the part of those interested in the brain drain, who were concerned with the flow of high-level manpower from poor to rich countries.

Do Economics Departments Improve After They Appoint a Top Scholar as Chairperson

There has been almost no research into what makes an effective chairperson in a university department. This paper constructs a historical longitudinal dataset on economics departments in 58 US research universities. It documents evidence that a department’s research output tends to improve substantially when the incoming department Chair is himself or herself an outstanding scholar (in particular, is highly cited). The analysis adjusts for a set of other possible influences, including the standing of the department, university resources, the previous Chair, the trend in the department’s productivity, and time-lags. Possible interpretations, and implications for future research, are discussed.