Other Academic Writing. Stuff I need to return to at some point....
Economic Volatility
"Economic Instability Trends and Levels Across Household Surveys," Paper prepared for the National Poverty Center Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Analytic Research Small Grants Competition, October 2010.
I use 3 different surveys and find that income and earnings volatility has been mostly a cyclical phenomenon and--contrary to Jacob Hacker's research based on a new "economic security index" (using one of the datasets I looked at)--has not increased steadily over recent decades.
Incidentally, it's getting easier and easier to make files publicly available and less and less justifiable not to share them. Nothing to hide here. Those folders aren't organized though, and they have some huge files, so shoot me an email if you want me to walk you through them (my first name @ my domain name).
Social Policy
"How Did the Social Policy Changes of the 1990s Affect Material Hardship among Single Mothers? Evidence from the CPS Food Security Supplement," with Christopher Jencks. KSG Faculty Research Working Paper RWP04-027.
Welfare reform, combined with the other social policy changes of the 1990s, appears to have helped more single mothers and children of single mothers than it harmed, at least in terms of living standards.
"Preschool, Head Start, and Daycare Programs: Patterns, Trends, and Effects"
Data on trends and patterns, and a review of the evidence on effectiveness.
Test Scores and Cognitive Skills
"The Permanent and Transitory Effects of Schooling on Mental Ability," with Christopher Winship (no relation), in progress.
The question of whether additional schooling increases general mental ability – as opposed to simply imparting skills and knowledge – has been debated by sociologists and psychologists in the years since the publication of The Bell Curve. We make a number of contributions to this debate. First, we clarify that the conceptualization of mental ability used by researchers working in the IQ paradigm cannot appropriately be used to answer the basic question of whether environmental interventions increase mental ability. This paradigm uses a measurement scale that compares individuals to their same-age peers, and so one’s “ability” depends on the IQ scores of one’s peers. To determine whether schooling increases ability, one must measure ability on a scale that stays fixed as individuals age. We approximate an ability scale that spans age groups by placing youth from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – regardless of age – on an ability scale referenced to sixteen-year-olds. We use an ability measure based on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) and that is consistent in key ways with those used in The Bell Curve. We find that an additional year of schooling raises ability by about 3 IQ points on the sixteen-year-old scale. The effect is greater for those who initially have low ability levels. Second, we demonstrate that half of this apparent effect is illusory, dissipating once youth complete their schooling. This original finding appears to indicate that like musical and athletic ability, if “you don’t use it, you lose it.” Finally, we make a number of methodological contributions, demonstrating the construction of synthetic cohorts to use cross-sectional data in a longitudinal fashion and proposing a unique identification strategy to address the problem of ability bias.
"Bell Curves, g, and IQ: A Methodological Critique of Classical Psychometrics and Intelligence Measurement"
The case for the existence and importance of something corresponding with general intelligence has been unduly maligned by many social scientists, though the question is more complicated than is generally acknowledged by psychometricians.
Family Structure
"The Effects of Parental Marital Status and Living Arrangements on Child Outcomes in the United States: A Review"
Why the theoretical and empirical case for single parenthood being bad for kids is weak, weak, weak...
Early Inequalities
"Early Warning: The Persistence of Cognitive Inequalities at the Start of Schooling," Master's Paper.
Half or more of adolescent inequality in scholastic achievement (as measured by test scores) can be predicted by test scores at the start of schooling. And there is as much test-score inequality between siblings within the same family as between children in different families.
"At the Starting Gate: Pregnancy as a Mediator of Black-White Inequality" [In Progress]
There are really big differences in birth outcomes between blacks and whites. Shows the evidence and reviews findings from previous research.
Methods
"Effects without Consequences, But No Treatment without Assignment: Causal Inference and Social Science" [In Progress]
Social scientists are real confused about how to establish causal relationships, if you ask me. That includes the acolytes of statistician Don Rubin, as well as most of sociology, but for different reasons....
"Economic Instability Trends and Levels Across Household Surveys," Paper prepared for the National Poverty Center Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Analytic Research Small Grants Competition, October 2010.
I use 3 different surveys and find that income and earnings volatility has been mostly a cyclical phenomenon and--contrary to Jacob Hacker's research based on a new "economic security index" (using one of the datasets I looked at)--has not increased steadily over recent decades.
Incidentally, it's getting easier and easier to make files publicly available and less and less justifiable not to share them. Nothing to hide here. Those folders aren't organized though, and they have some huge files, so shoot me an email if you want me to walk you through them (my first name @ my domain name).
Social Policy
"How Did the Social Policy Changes of the 1990s Affect Material Hardship among Single Mothers? Evidence from the CPS Food Security Supplement," with Christopher Jencks. KSG Faculty Research Working Paper RWP04-027.
Welfare reform, combined with the other social policy changes of the 1990s, appears to have helped more single mothers and children of single mothers than it harmed, at least in terms of living standards.
"Preschool, Head Start, and Daycare Programs: Patterns, Trends, and Effects"
Data on trends and patterns, and a review of the evidence on effectiveness.
Test Scores and Cognitive Skills
"The Permanent and Transitory Effects of Schooling on Mental Ability," with Christopher Winship (no relation), in progress.
The question of whether additional schooling increases general mental ability – as opposed to simply imparting skills and knowledge – has been debated by sociologists and psychologists in the years since the publication of The Bell Curve. We make a number of contributions to this debate. First, we clarify that the conceptualization of mental ability used by researchers working in the IQ paradigm cannot appropriately be used to answer the basic question of whether environmental interventions increase mental ability. This paradigm uses a measurement scale that compares individuals to their same-age peers, and so one’s “ability” depends on the IQ scores of one’s peers. To determine whether schooling increases ability, one must measure ability on a scale that stays fixed as individuals age. We approximate an ability scale that spans age groups by placing youth from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth – regardless of age – on an ability scale referenced to sixteen-year-olds. We use an ability measure based on the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) and that is consistent in key ways with those used in The Bell Curve. We find that an additional year of schooling raises ability by about 3 IQ points on the sixteen-year-old scale. The effect is greater for those who initially have low ability levels. Second, we demonstrate that half of this apparent effect is illusory, dissipating once youth complete their schooling. This original finding appears to indicate that like musical and athletic ability, if “you don’t use it, you lose it.” Finally, we make a number of methodological contributions, demonstrating the construction of synthetic cohorts to use cross-sectional data in a longitudinal fashion and proposing a unique identification strategy to address the problem of ability bias.
"Bell Curves, g, and IQ: A Methodological Critique of Classical Psychometrics and Intelligence Measurement"
The case for the existence and importance of something corresponding with general intelligence has been unduly maligned by many social scientists, though the question is more complicated than is generally acknowledged by psychometricians.
Family Structure
"The Effects of Parental Marital Status and Living Arrangements on Child Outcomes in the United States: A Review"
Why the theoretical and empirical case for single parenthood being bad for kids is weak, weak, weak...
Early Inequalities
"Early Warning: The Persistence of Cognitive Inequalities at the Start of Schooling," Master's Paper.
Half or more of adolescent inequality in scholastic achievement (as measured by test scores) can be predicted by test scores at the start of schooling. And there is as much test-score inequality between siblings within the same family as between children in different families.
"At the Starting Gate: Pregnancy as a Mediator of Black-White Inequality" [In Progress]
There are really big differences in birth outcomes between blacks and whites. Shows the evidence and reviews findings from previous research.
Methods
"Effects without Consequences, But No Treatment without Assignment: Causal Inference and Social Science" [In Progress]
Social scientists are real confused about how to establish causal relationships, if you ask me. That includes the acolytes of statistician Don Rubin, as well as most of sociology, but for different reasons....
