Monday, July 13, 2020

Labor Market Outcomes for Post Great Recession Entrants: There was a dramatic negative structural break in college graduates’ employment rates, beginning around the 2005 entry cohort, that shows no sign of abating

The Lost Generation? Labor Market Outcomes for Post Great Recession Entrants. Jesse Rothstein. NBER Working Paper No. 27516, July 2020. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27516

Abstract: I study cohort patterns in the labor market outcomes of recent college graduates, examining changes surrounding the Great Recession. Recession entrants have lower wages and employment than those of earlier cohorts; more recent cohorts’ employment is even lower, but the newest entrants’ wages have risen. I relate these changes to "scarring" effects of initial conditions. I demonstrate that adverse early conditions permanently reduce new entrants’ employment probabilities. I also replicate earlier results of medium-term scarring effects on wages that fade out by the early 30s. But scarring cannot account for the employment collapse for recent cohorts. There was a dramatic negative structural break in college graduates’ employment rates, beginning around the 2005 entry cohort, that shows no sign of abating.



Rally held in Tulsa, OK, attracted 6,000 to 12,000 individuals to an indoor arena; this study, the first to explore the impact of this event on the spread of COVID-19, finds no net effect

Did President Trump's Tulsa Rally Reignite COVID-19? Indoor Events and Offsetting Community Effects. Dhaval M. Dave, Andrew I. Friedson, Kyutaro Matsuzawa, Drew McNichols, Connor Redpath, Joseph J. Sabia. NBER Working Paper No. 27522, July 2020. https://www.nber.org/papers/w27522

Abstract: On June 20, 2020, President Donald J. Trump held his first mass campaign rally following the outbreak of COVID-19. Held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the political gathering attracted 6,000 to 12,000 individuals to the indoor Bank of Oklahoma (BOK) arena. This study is the first to explore the impact of this event on the spread of COVID-19. First, using data from Safegraph Inc, we show that while non-resident visits to census block groups hosting the Trump event grew by approximately 25 percent, there was no decline in net stay-at-home behavior in Tulsa county, reflecting important offsetting behavioral effects. Then, using data on coronavirus cases from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a synthetic control design, we find little evidence that COVID-19 case growth grew more rapidly in Tulsa County, its border counties, or in the state of Oklahoma than each’s estimated counterfactual in the three weeks following the campaign rally. Difference-in-differences estimates further provide no evidence that COVID-19 case rates grew faster in counties that drew relatively larger shares of residents to the event. We conclude that offsetting behavioral responses to the rally — including voluntary closures of restaurants and bars in downtown Tulsa, increases in stay-at-home behavior, displacement of usual activities of weekend inflows, and smaller-than-expected crowd attendance — may be important mechanisms.


Higher levels of internet gaming disorder exist in males & higher levels of social media addiction exist in females; the effect sizes were larger in Europe and the Americas than in Asia

Do men become addicted to internet gaming and women to social media? A meta-analysis examining gender-related differences in specific internet addiction. Wenliang Su et al. Computers in Human Behavior, July 13 2020, 106480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106480

Highlights
• Gender differences exist globally in specific internet use behaviors/disorders.
• Higher levels of internet gaming disorder (IGD) exist in males.
• Higher levels of social media addiction (SMA) exist in females.
• The moderating influence of region existed in IGD and SMA.
• Studies of IGD and SMA may unmask features lost in studies of internet addiction.

Abstract: Males have been proposed to be more vulnerable to internet addiction (IA) than females. However, males and females may differ with respect to specific patterns and types of internet usage and related IA. To investigate further, a meta-analysis was conducted to investigate gender-related differences in internet gaming disorder (IGD) and social media addiction (SMA). The current meta-analysis aimed to quantify gender-related effect sizes relating to IGD and SMA, examine potential moderating influences of regions and other possible confounds, and compare the findings with generalized IA at the country level. The meta-analysis comprised 53 effect sizes with 82,440 individuals from 21 countries/regions for IGD, and 41 effect sizes with 58,336 individuals from 22 countries/regions for SMA. A random-effects model confirmed important gender-specific distinctions as men were more likely to exhibit IGD than women (g = 0.479) and less likely to exhibit SMA than women (g = −0.202). Additional moderator analyses revealed that effect sizes of IGD and SMA were larger in Europe and the Americas than in Asia. Further analyses indicated that the effect sizes of gender-related differences in IGD and SMA at the country-level were significantly larger than those in generalized IA, which suggests that gender-related differences in specific IAs may be underestimated in the “umbrella” of generalized IA. Results have implications for explaining why males and females may become addicted to internet use through different pathways.



Quantile-Specific Heritability of Intakes of Alcohol but not Other Macronutrients

Quantile-Specific Heritability of Intakes of Alcohol but not Other Macronutrients. Paul T. Williams. Behavior Genetics (2020), Jul 13 2020. https://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10519-020-10005-z

Abstract: Genetic heritability (h2) of alcohol use is reported to be greater in rural dwellers, distressed marriages, low socioeconomic status, in girls who are unmarried or lacking closeness with their parents or religious upbringing, in less-educated men, and in adolescents with peers using alcohol. However, these are all risk factors for heavy drinking, and the greater heritability could be due to quantile-dependent expressivity, i.e., h2 dependent upon whether the phenotype (alcohol intake) is high or low relative to its distribution. Quantile regression showed that h2 estimated from the offspring-parent regression slope increased significantly from lowest to highest gram/day of alcohol consumption (0.006 ± 0.001 per percent, P = 1.1 × 10−7). Heritability at the 90th percentile of the sample distribution (0.557 ± 0.116) was 4.5-fold greater than at the 10th percentile (0.122 ± 0.037). Heritabilities for intakes of other macronutrients were not quantile-dependent. Thus quantile-dependent expressivity may explain the higher estimated heritability associated with risk factors for high alcohol consumption.


White Americans’ expressed anti-Black & anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after Trump’s political emergence; results suggest the limits of racially charged rhetoric’s capacity to heighten prejudice among Whites

The Rise of Trump, The Fall of Prejudice? Tracking White Americans’ Racial Attitudes Via A Panel Survey, 2008–2018. Daniel J Hopkins, Samantha Washington. Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 84, Issue 1, Spring 2020, Pages 119–140, June 11 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfaa004

Abstract: In his campaign and first few years in office, Donald Trump consistently defied contemporary norms by using explicit, negative rhetoric targeting ethnic/racial minorities. Did this rhetoric lead White Americans to express more or less prejudiced views of African Americans or Hispanics, whether through changing norms around racial prejudice or other mechanisms? We assess that question using a thirteen-wave panel conducted with a population-based sample of Americans between 2008 and 2018. We find that via most measures, White Americans’ expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after Trump’s political emergence, and we can rule out even small increases in the expression of prejudice. These results suggest the limits of racially charged rhetoric’s capacity to heighten prejudice among White Americans overall. They also indicate that rather than being a fixed predisposition, prejudice can shift by reacting against changing presidential rhetoric.