Month: October 2013

Studying labor market data for U.S. foreign born workers

Detailed data and the underlying micro data can be found at;

http://www.census.gov/population/foreign/

Two sources of information are:

Current Population Survey Data on the Foreign-Born Population

Detailed tables on the foreign-born population in the United States from the Current Population Survey shown by a wide range of characteristics including age, sex, marital status, employment status, occupation, industry, income, earnings, poverty status, household type, size and tenure, and metropolitan status

http://www.census.gov/population/foreign/data/cps.html

American Community Survey Data on the Foreign-Born Population

http://www.census.gov/population/foreign/data/acs.html

Wage and hour time records analysis tools: Cluster Random Sampling

Random sampling of time records is often necessary in wage and hour cases.  Some employers maintain handwritten or machine produced records that are not efficiently converted to an electronic format.   It is not always possible to convert these types of records in a timely and cost effective manner.

Random sampling is a tool that is frequently called upon in these situations.  For instance,  it is common to randomly sample a population of employees and then randomly sample a time period from that sample of employees.  This type of cluster random sampling is common in these situations.

See for example: Sharon Lohr, Sampling: Design and Analysis, 2nd Edition, Brooks/Cole, 2010.

Manufacturing in the U.S. is making a comeback U.S. BEA data shows

From the U.S. BEA:

Manufacturing real value added—a measure of an industry’s contribution to GDP—rose 6.2 percent in 2012, after increasing 2.5 percent in 2011.  Durable-goods manufacturing, the largest contributor to overall growth in the economy for the third consecutive year, increased 9.1 percent, after increasing 6.8 percent in 2011 and 13.3 percent in 2010.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/industry/gdpindustry/2013/gdpind12_adv.htm

U.S. workers finding replacement jobs quickly

Most U.S. workers who lose their jobs are able to find replacement ones quickly according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on unemployment duration.  The overall percentage of workers finding new employment within in 4 weeks is over 25%.  The current percentage is above Great Recession figures and us increasing.   Some demographics are finding replacement employment even quicker.

Statistical random sampling messing time records in wage and hour litigation

Many employer time records are still in paper format that is not easily machine readable.  Analyzing these data in a wage and hour case typically requires manual entry of the records.  However, entering in all the time records is not always feasible.  In these situations a statistical random sampling of records can be useful and informative.   A solid statistical sampling alows the researcher to calculate error rates which are useful when making inferences concerning the time records.

Some economists and research suggest inflation may be good for the economy

Some economists and recent research support the idea of allowing inflation to increase above its current target of 2%. Proponents argue that increases prices will stimulate growth and increase business profits. Opponents argue that inflation could grow out of control and hurt fixed income investments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/business/economy/in-fed-and-out-many-now-think-inflation-helps.html?hp

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Recent payday loan research

 

Adams, William, Liran Einav, and Jonathan Levin. 2009. “Liquidity Constraints
and Imperfect Information in Subprime Lending.” American Economic
Review 99 (1): 49-84.

Agarwal, Sumit, Paige Marta Skiba, and Jeremy Tobacman. 2009. “Payday
Loans and Credit Cards: New Liquidity and Credit Scoring Puzzles?”
American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 99 (2): 412-417.

Bhutta, Neil, Paige Marta Skiba, and Jeremy Tobacman. 2012. “Payday Loan
Choices and Consequences.” Vanderbilt University Law School Working
Paper No.12-20.

Chatterjee, Satyajit, Dean Corbae, Makoto Nakajima, and Jose-Victor Rios-
Rull. 2007. “A Quantitative Theory of Unsecured Consumer Credit with
Risk of Default.” Econometrica 75 (6): 173-234.

Edelberg, Wendy. 2004. “Testing for Adverse Selection and Moral Hazard in
Consumer Loan Markets.” FEDS Working Paper No. 2004-09.

Elliehausen, Gregory, and Edward C. Lawrence. 2001. Payday Advance Credit
in America: An Analysis of Customer Demand. Credit Research Center,
Georgetown University.

Gross, David, and Nicholas S. Souleles. 2002. “Do Liquidity Constraints and
Interest Rates Matter for Consumer Behavior? Evidence from the Credit
Card Data.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (1): 149-185.

Karlan, Dean, and Jonathan Zinman. 2009. “Expanding Credit Access: Using
Randomized Supply Decisions to Estimate the Impacts.” Review of Financial
Studies 23 (1): 433-464.

Melzer, Brian T.. 2011. “The Real Costs of Credit Access: Evidence from the
Payday Lending Market.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (1): 517-
555.

Melzer, Brian T., and Donald P. Morgan. 2010. “Competition and Adverse

Selection in a Consumer Loan Market: The Curious Case of Overdraft vs.
Payday Credit.” Unpublished.

Morse, Adair. 2011. “Payday Lenders: Heroes or Villains?” Journal of Financial

Economics 102 (1): 28-44.

Skiba, Paige Marta, and Jeremy Tobacman. 2011. “Do Payday Loans Cause
Bankruptcy?” Vanderbilt University Law and Economics Research Paper
No. 11-13.

Stephens, Melvin. 2008. “The Consumption Response to Predictable Changes
in Discretionary Income: Evidence from the Repayment of Vehicle
Loans.” Review of Economics and Statistics 90 (2): 241-252.

 

 

Economists find that larger payday loans lead to LOWER default rates

payday

Economists, Will Dobbie and Paige Mart Skiba, in their paper,  use data from Payday lenders in a number states to estimate an econometric model of the payday loan model.  Their paper uses borrower income,  demographic information, and loan eligibility details to test for moral hazard and adverse selection in the payday loan market.

They find no evidence of moral hazard.  A larger loan actually decreases the probability of a default.  They find that a $50 larger payday loan leads to a 17 to 33 percent drop in the probability of default.    In addition, their results show the relationship between factors such as credit score (-), home owner ship (-), income (-) and age(-) on the probability of default.

Definition: In economic theory, a moral hazard is a situation where a party will have a tendency to take risks because the costs that could incur will not be felt by the party taking the risk

 

Harley Davidson’s are niche market ; albeit a big niche.

Harley-Davidson  Co. said it expects to ship 259,000 to 264,000 motorcycles to dealers and distributors worldwide in 2013….In the U.S., dealers sold 48,529 new motorcycles in the quarter, up 20.1 percent compared to sales of 40,402 motorcycles in the year-ago period.

Revenue from motorcycles grew 10.7 percent to $857 million, compared to revenue of $774 million in the year-ago period….

 

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