Faculty publication

Professor Miceli Publishes Law and Economics: Private and Public

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Law and Economics: Private and Public, a coursebook by Professor Thomas Miceli and co-authors, is now available. From the publisher:

This accessible volume integrates wide-ranging economic methodologies with a vast array of legal subjects. Coverage includes the first-year law school curriculum along with institutions and doctrines comprising the core foundation of upper level legal study. Dedicated chapters introduce neoclassical economics, interest group theory, social choice, and game theory, and the book intersperses alternative methodological insights.

The analysis synthesizes these methodologies with modern and classic case law, other legal materials, and policy discussions inspired by current events. Ideal for a law school seminar or capstone course, this unique volume is also perfectly suited for business school courses on legal methods and public policy. Professors will find a rich array of materials adaptable to varying pedagogical styles and substantive areas of emphasis. Students exploring these materials will emerge with a deeper understanding of law and economics and a greater appreciation of our lawmaking institutions.

https://faculty.westacademic.com/Book/Detail?id=18210&q=stearns

Professor Agüero Published in Journal of Human Resources

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Professor Jorge Agüero’s paper “The Intergenerational Transmission of Schooling among the Education-Rationed,” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Human Resources.

Professor Agüero’s paper, coauthored with his former student Maithili Ramachandran, estimates the intergenerational transmission of schooling in a country where the majority of the population was rationed in its access to education. By eliminating apartheid-style policies against blacks, the 1980 education reform in Zimbabwe swiftly tripled the progression rate to secondary schools. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design, the authors find a robust intergenerational transmission. Several smoothness and placebo tests further validate their design. The authors show that both marriage and labor markets are key pathways in the schooling transmissions.

This is the third paper from the Department of Economics to be accepted at the Journal of Human Resources this academic year, along with papers from Professor Simon and Professor Furtado in the fall semester: Two Faculty Members Receive Journal of Human Resources Acceptances in the Same Month

Professor Miceli’s Contemporary Issues in Law and Economics

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Routledge has just published Contemporary Issues in Law and Economics by Thomas J. Miceli.

Law and economics is the field of study devoted to understanding laws and legal institutions using the tools of economic theory. This growing subject has become a mainstream area of study in both law schools and economics departments and this book explores the “law and economics” approach to some of the most interesting questions, issues, and topics in law, order, and justice.

Contemporary Issues in Law and Economics considers what economists call the “positive” analysis of the law – that is, using economic theory to explain the nature of the law as it actually exists. As part of this approach the author examines questions such as, what is the economic basis for the predominance of negligence rules in tort law? And, what is the explanation for the illegality of blackmail? Furthermore, another set of questions arises where the law seems to depart from the prescriptions of economic theory, and these issues are also examined in this volume. For example, the deeply rooted norm of proportionality between punishments and crimes, and the use of escalating penalties for repeat offenders, are both explored.

With self-contained chapters written in a non-technical style, this book offers a rigorous discussion of the above themes while remaining accessible to those without formal legal or economic training. It offers the ideal introduction to the field of law and economics while also providing a basis for students in more advanced courses.

https://www.routledge.com/Contemporary-Issues-in-Law-and-Economics/Miceli/p/book/9781138099760

Steve Ross published in REStat

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Steve Ross’s recent paper on the effect of the No Child Left Behind Act on local property values with Steve Billings and Eric Brunner was just published in the first issue of 2018 in the Review of Economics and Statistics.

In this paper, they show that property values near failing schools sometimes actually increase in value consistent with individuals moving into those neighborhoods to take advantage of the enhanced school choice opportunities available when a family’s children are assigned to a failing school.

Two Faculty Members Receive Journal of Human Resources Acceptances in the Same Month

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Professor Simon and Professor Furtado both had papers accepted at the Journal of Human Resources in the fall semester.

Professor Simon’s paper, “The Effects of Aggregate and Gender-Specific Labor Demand Shocks on Child Health,” coauthored with Marianne Page and Jessamyn Schaller, considers the relationship between local labor market conditions and child health. The paper shows that local (state level) labor market recessions that primarily affect women increase maternal time spent at home and improve child health, whereas recessions that affect men have the opposite effects. These patterns suggest that both maternal time and family income are important inputs to child health.

Professor Furtado’s paper, “Settling for Academia? H-1B Visas and the Career Choices of International Students in the United States,” coauthored with Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes, examines whether international students respond to U.S. immigration policy when making career decisions. The authors find that international students who require H-1B visas to work in the United States became more likely to pursue careers in academia -a sector not subject to H-1B visa caps- after the H-1B visa cap was lowered in 2004.

The Journal of Human Resources is a leading journal in applied microeconomics. According to the 2016 ISI Journal Citation Reports, the journal has an impact factor of 4.047. The journal’s website reports an acceptance rate of 4 percent.

 

Professor Zhao Published in Journal of Monetary Economics

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Professor Zhao’s paper “The Chinese Saving Rate: Long-Term Care Risks, Family Insurance, and Demographics” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Monetary Economics, a top macro journal.

In this article, Professor Zhao and his coauthor find that the combination of the risks faced by the elderly and the deterioration of family insurance due to the one-child policy is an important cause of the increase in China’s saving rate since 1980. This paper is the first major paper growing out of their research agenda on the Chinese economy and its implications for the rest of the world.

Professor Zhao’s article can be found at his website:  https://sites.google.com/site/kaijackiezhao/research

Professor Ross Published in Review of Financial Studies

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Professor Ross’s paper “What Drives Racial and Ethnic Differences in High-Cost Mortgages? The Role of High-Risk Lenders” was just published in the Review of Financial Studies, a Top 3 Finance Journal.

This paper documents the existence of large differences in the cost of credit for minority borrowers, and the fact that most of the racial differences arise across lenders, rather than being driven by lenders who treat equally qualified minority borrowers differently than white borrowers.  The paper shows that these effects are primarily driven by lenders whose loans tended to have very high default rates during the crisis.

https://academic.oup.com/rfs/issue/31/1

Professor Vaninsky publishes in Economic Change and Restructuring

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Professor Alexander Vaninsky, a long-time economics instructor at the Stamford Campus, recently published the article “Optimal environment-friendly economic restructuring: the United States–China cooperation case study” in the journal Economic Change and Restructuring (November 2017).

This paper discusses a model for the restructuring of national economies for the purpose of achieving optimal growth under conditions of decreased energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The discussion combines input–output and factorial-decomposition models, and applies projected gradient and factor analysis to find the optimal structural changes that serve all three goals. A comparative analysis of the economies of the United States and China, including opportunities for cooperative restructuring, serves as a case study.

Professor Ross in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Professor Ross was invited to write a commentary on measuring trends in discrimination.  Specifically, Professor Ross carefully lays out the potential, but also the challenges, of exploiting multiple field studies of discrimination combined with meta-analysis techniques in order to measure changes over time in the level of discrimination.  Professor Ross notes recent research in the same journal that shows very stable levels of employment discrimination against African-Americans over several decades in the U.S.  On the other hand, his own research has documented substantial declines in the level of housing discrimination, especially among real estate agents for owner-occupied housing. Below is a link to the commentary.

http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10815.extract

Professor Miceli’s The Economic Approach to Law, Third Edition

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Stanford University Press has just published the third edition of Thomas J. Miceli’s Law and Economics textbook.

From the publisher:

“Master teacher Thomas J. Miceli provides an introduction to law and economics that reveals how economic principles can explain the structure of the law and make it more efficient.

The third edition of this seminal textbook is thoroughly updated to include recent cases and the latest scholarship, with particular attention paid to torts, contracts, property rights, and the economics of crime. A new chapter organization, ideal for quarter- or semester-long courses, strengthens the book’s focus on unifying themes in the field.

As Miceli tells a cohesive, analytical “story” about law from a distinctly economic perspective, exercises and problems encourage students to deepen their knowledge.”

The Economic Approach to Law, Third Edition