Mark H. Showalter

Factors Affecting the Transmission of Earnings across Generations: A Quantile Regression Approach

In this paper we estimate intergenerational earnings mobility models using quantile regressions. Quantile regression is a less restrictive estimation approach than more commonly used methods such as ordinary least squares and instrumental variables, which only estimate the mean effects of intergenerational earnings correlation. Further, we investigate the role of education as an intergenerational transmission mechanism for earnings. We find that the intergenerational earnings correlation is greater at the bottom of the sons conditional earnings distribution than at the top, and that controlling for sons education reduces the intergenerational earnings correlation. We also find that education is relatively more valuable at the bottom of the conditional earnings distribution and thus tends to compress the distribution.

The effect of grade retention on educational and labor market outcomes

Abstract Grade retention is a major issue in the ongoing debate over how to improve primary and secondary education in the United States. This paper examines the retention decision and its empirical effects using an economic framework. Within our model, the retention decision is endogenous with respect to such observables as dropping out of school and labor market earnings and this endogeneity needs to be accounted for in empirical work. In the empirical section of the paper we use the High School and Beyond (HSB) data set to examine the effects of retention on the probability of dropping out of high school and on labor market earnings several years after the student has entered the workforce. We account for the endogeneity of grade retention by using instrumental variables (IV) estimation where the key instrument is based on exogenous variation across states in kindergarten entry dates.

The effect of cigarette taxes on cigarette consumption.

OBJECTIVES This paper reexamines the work of Meier and Licari in a previous issue of the Journal. METHODS The impact of excise taxes on cigarette consumption and sales was measured via standard regression analysis. RESULTS The 1983 federal tax increase is shown to have an anomalous effect on the regression results. When those data are excluded, there is no significant difference between state and federal tax increases. Further investigation suggests that firms raised cigarette prices substantially in the years surrounding the 1983 federal tax increase, which accounts for the relatively large decrease in consumption during this period. CONCLUSIONS Federal excise taxes per se do not appear to be more effective than state excise taxes in terms of reducing cigarette consumption. The reaction of cigarette firms to government policies appears to be an important determinant of the success of antismoking initiatives.

The Impact of Liability on the Physician Labor Market

This study examines the impact of malpractice reforms on physician behavior using a new measure of liability risk and a nationally representative, individual‐level data set on physician behavior. We match our liability measure to data on physician behavior from the Physician Practice Costs and Income Survey (PPCIS). Data from the PPCIS bracket a period of substantial state‐level legal reform between 1983 and 1988, which provides identifying variation in our liability measure. We estimate the impact of liability reform on hours worked. We find an estimated elasticity of hours worked to liability exposure of −.285 for the full sample of physicians. The effect for physicians ages 55 or older is much larger: we find an elasticity of −1.224 for this category. We find that an increase in

State Health Insurance Regulations and the Price of High-Deductible Policies

1 of expected liability is associated with a

An examination of flexible spending accounts.

.70–

Flexible Spending Accounts as Insurance

1.05 increase in malpractice premiums.

An empirical investigation of the box-cox model and a nonlinear least squares alternative

This study examines the impact of state health insurance regulations on the price of high-deductible family and individual polices in the nongroup market. We use a unique and rich data set on actual insurance policies sold through a large Internet health insurance distributor to examine the impact of various regulations on policy prices, controlling for policy characteristics, demographic characteristics of the purchasers, and state-level demographics. We also use data from a single major insurance firm that provided offer prices for a family policy from a set of randomly selected zip codes. Both datasets suggest a strong statistical relationship between regulation and insurance prices.

Flexible spending accounts and the use-it-or-lose-it provision

This paper develops a framework for analyzing flexible spending account (FSA) participation and usage. We explore patterns of FSA usage using data from a benefits firm for 1996 including an examination of types of FSA expenditures and their timing. We estimate some simple econometric models of the participation decision and also the decision of how much to put into an FSA. Several pieces of evidence suggest that much of an FSA election amount is based on foreknowledge of expenditures. We also find that participants tend to spend their election amount early, thus obtaining an interest-free loan.

The effect of school quality on student performance: A quantile regression approach

We model flexible spending accounts (FSAs) as a special type of insurance policy. We prove the following results given losses drawn from a continuous distribution: (1) the optimal election amount, F*, is increasing in the consumers level of risk aversion; (2) F* is increasing in the level of the maximum loss; If utility is decreasing in absolute risk aversion (DARA), then F* is (3) decreasing in income and (4) increasing in the marginal tax rate.