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. We argue that when researchers use audit correspondence studies to measure discrimination against individuals that infrequently interact with audited units, they raise the risk that these audited units become aware they are being studied or otherwise act differently. We also argue that sending multiple pieces of correspondence can increase detection risk. We present the result of an audit correspondence study that demonstrates how detection can occur for these reasons, leading to significantly attenuated (biased towards zero) estimates of discrimination.

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. We find evidence that language related to stereotypes of older workers sometimes predicts discrimination against older workers. For men, we find evidence that age stereotypes about all three categories we consider - health, personality, and skill - predict age discrimination, and for women, age stereotypes about personality predict age discrimination. In general, the evidence that age stereotypes predict age discrimination is much stronger for men, and our results for men are quite consistent with the industrial psychology literature on age stereotypes.

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. We estimate the effects of these laws on SSDI applications and receipt using a difference-in-differences approach. We find that a broader definition of disability, where only a medically diagnosed condition is required to be covered under state law, along with being able to sue for more damages under state disability discrimination law, are both associated with a significant reduction in induced SSDI applications and receipts. We also find some evidence that some features of state disability discrimination laws are also associated with increased employment, especially for women. While we find some positive association between age discrimination laws and employment effects, we do not find any moderating effect of age discrimination laws on SSDI.

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. This allows me to estimate the effect of SFIs relative to the "business-as-usual": what would have happened without SFIs. I estimate the effects of these SFIs on filming location, using databases from IMDb and Studio System, and on business establishments, and employment in the motion picture production industry, using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. My results show increases in feature films, but not TV series filming, employment, or business establishments. This suggests that while there are some benefits to these incentives, their ability, under favorable circumstances, to develop a local film industry is very limited.

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. Interview offer rates do not differ by race, which holds after an extensive battery of robustness checks. We discuss multiple concerns such as the saliency of signals, selection of cities and occupations, and labour market tightness that could affect the results of our audit study and those of others. We also conduct decompositions of wages, unemployment rates, unemployment durations, and employment durations to explore if discrimination might exist in contexts outside our experiment. We conclude by highlighting the essential tests and considerations that are important for future audit studies, regardless of if they find discrimination or not.

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. I compile a detailed database of incentives, matching this with TV series and feature film data from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and Studio System, and establishment and employment data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages and Country Business Patterns. I compare these outcomes in states before and after they adopt incentives, relative to similar states that did not adopt incentives over the same time period (a panel difference-in-differences). I find that TV series filming increases by 6.3 to 55.4% (at most 1.50 additional TV series) after incentive adoption. However, there is no meaningful effect on feature films, and employment, wages, and establishments in the film industry and in related industries. These results show that the ability for tax incentives to affect business location decisions and economic development is mixed, suggesting that even with aggressive incentives, and "footloose" filming, incentives can have little impact.

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. The survey first educated respondents on Alaskan geography, the current status of protected land and wildlife in Alaska, and common arguments for and against National Park expansion. The survey then described a proposal to expand the Denali National Park and asked a series of questions designed to bound the respondents WTP. Finally, the survey asked respondents to answer questions about what motivated their support or disapproval for the program. Multiple methodologies were used to estimate the national average WTP, resulting in a WTP range of a single payment of $77 to $409. This is estimated to be a total WTP of $15.1 billion to $79.3 billion for all individuals aged 18 to 64 in the United States, or $363.1 million to $1.91 billion per year in 2017 dollars. Respondents to the survey indicated that their support is driven primarily by increased protection from oil spills (85.8% deemed this very important or important), by increasing and protecting Alaska's biodiversity (84.3%), and preserving Alaska's beauty (84.2%). These results can help inform recent, current, and future debates about land use. President Obama significantly expanded land protections, while President Trump is continuing to scale back land protections, including opening up untouched land in Alaska in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. These results suggest that there are significant passive use values that should be considered when deciding whether to expand or reduce protection of land. Given that passive use values are significant, this suggests that the economic benefits must be large to tip a cost-benefit analysis in favor of reduced land protections.

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. We relate the difference in callback rates between old and young applicants to state variation in age and disability discrimination laws. These laws could boost hiring of older applicants, although they could have the unintended consequence of deterring hiring if they increase termination costs. In our preferred estimates that are weighted to be representative of the workforce, we find evidence that there is less discrimination against older men and women in states where age discrimination law allows larger damages, and more limited evidence that there is lower discrimination against older women in states where disability discrimination law allows larger damages. Our clearest result is that these laws do not have the unintended consequence of lowering callbacks for older workers.

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. Using state variation in disability discrimination protections, we find little or no evidence that stronger disability discrimination laws lower the hiring of nondisabled older workers. We similarly find no evidence of adverse effects of disability discrimination laws on hiring of disabled older workers.