Spring 2023

Topic: Female Labor Force Participation in India
Authors: Shreya Sarkar (Berkeley ARE)

In 2021, India recorded a female labor force participation rate (LFPR) of 19%, relative to the male LFPR of 70%. Furthermore, the gender wage-gap in 2021 in India was reported at 35% (double that of the US). Hence, it is important to unpack and quantify the key constraints that are differentially impacting women, and impeding their participation in the labor market. Using detailed and high-frequency administrative data on daily-job-level labor supply and daily-job-level earnings of male and female gig-workers and quasi experimental methods, I plan to study the impact of distance-to-job, time-of-job, and route-safety on labor supply and earnings.

Topic: The Effects of Tracking on School Segregation and Academic Achievement
Authors: Jimmy Chin (Berkeley Economics) and Geoffrey Kocks (MIT Economics)

We study how school tracking impacts school segregation and human capital development. Our setting is the gifted and talented (G&T) program in New York City, which groups students by ability into separate classrooms beginning in kindergarten. Using quasi-experimental variation from admissions rules, we will estimate the causal effect of G&T enrollment on academic achievement and school segregation, as well as the impact of counterfactual G&T policies on these outcomes using a structural model of G&T demand.​

Fall 2022

Topic: The effects of colonization in Canada on natives’ welfare
Authors: Chiara Motta (Berkeley Haas), Lukas Leucht (Berkeley Haas), and Davis Kedrosky (Berkeley Economics)

This paper assembles novel data from the account books of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) to study the wage effects of a new entrant into a monopsonistic market for Indigenous labor. We show that in the setting of Canada's colonial economy, where Indigenous labor is difficult to coerce and mobile between firms, increased competition improves wages for Aboriginal workers. This unique case study allows us to isolate concentration as the main channel of labor market power and quantify the wage impacts of a transition from monopsony to duopsony.​​

Topic: Gender disparity in US patents
Author: Hadar Avivi (Berkeley Economics)

Spring 2021

Topic: Discrimination and selection in Indian labor markets
Authors: Shreya Chandra (Berkeley ARE) & Utkarsh Kumar (Columbia University)

​Many disadvantaged social groups in India, including women and individuals from lower castes, prefer public sector jobs because they have less discriminatory processes as compared to private sector jobs (among other reasons). The process of obtaining a position in the prestigious Indian Administrative Services takes multiple attempts over multiple years. The composition of test-takers is shaped by two opposing forces - while prestige attracts talent, high opportunity cost (for talented candidates) of spending 3-4 years under uncertainty may also attrit talent. These attrition forces may be stronger for disadvantaged groups making their representation weaker among policy makers.

Topic: Gender and innovation
​Author: Gauri Subramani (Berkeley Haas)

​The goal of this project is to understand individuals’ trajectories as inventors and to identify gender-specific trends that may influence the direction of innovation. Specifically, I am interested in understanding if male female and male inventors differ in their decisions whether to patent again and what areas they pursue patents in. This provides novel insight into the landscape of innovation and gender gaps in patenting.

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Fall 2020

Topic: Opium poppy markets in Mexico
Author: James Sayre (Berkeley ARE)

I study the economic forces that lead rural farmers in Mexico to produce opium poppy, and the feasibility of crop substitution programs to provide a legal alternative to such activities. I measure the degree to which farmers can substitute between legal and illegal crops, and whether out-migration of such regions has also been a way to mitigate changes in the price of illegal crops.

Topic: The "pink tax"
Authors: Kayleigh Barnes and Jakob Brounstein (Berkeley Economics)

We evaluate the existence of a "pink tax" placed on women's consumer goods and find that women pay higher prices per unit than do men for similar goods. This work can inform whether there exist real consumption inequalities between men and women.