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Monthly Archives: September 2015

Your American Dream is Not Mine! A New Approach to Estimating Intergenerational Mobility Elasticities

An, Yonghong and Le, Wang and Xiao, Ruli, Your American Dream is Not Mine! A New Approach to Estimating Intergenerational Mobility Elasticities (August 1, 2015). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2666697

“This paper provides a new framework to estimate intergenerational mobility elasticities (IGE) of children’s income with respect to parental income. Our approach is nonparametric allowing for heterogeneity in IGEs and nonlinearity by leaving the relationship unspecified, while acknowledging the latent nature of both child and parental permanent incomes. Our approach also addresses life-cycle bias directly in estimation without requiring knowledge of permanent income as the previous literature does. We confirm some of the previous findings and also have some novel results. First, we uncover that the association between observed annual income and permanent income varies over the life cycle; and that the observed patterns differ over generations, although the latter result is statistically insignificant due to large variances. Second, we find strong evidence that there exists substantial heterogeneity in IGEs across population and that the mobility function is nonlinear. The implied IGE exhibits a Ushape pattern with “twin-peaks”. Specifically, there is a considerable degree of mobility among the broadly defined middle class, but both the children of high and low income fathers are more likely to be high and low income adults, respectively. This result suggests that the U.S. is indeed the “land of opportunity” to live out the “American Dream”, just not for everyone! These results survive a battery of robustness checks. Finally, we also find that there exist a great deal of within-group heterogeneity. Our approach is also immediately applicable in many other similar contexts both within and outside labor economics.”

GAO – Agencies Need to Correct Weaknesses and Fully Implement Security Program

Federal Information Security: Agencies Need to Correct Weaknesses and Fully Implement Security Programs, GAO-15-714: Published: Sep 29, 2015. Publicly Released: Sep 29, 2015. “Persistent weaknesses at 24 federal agencies illustrate the challenges they face in effectively applying information security policies and practices. Most agencies continue to have weaknesses in (1) limiting, preventing, and detecting inappropriate… Continue Reading

GAO Reports – DOD Contract Services, Great Lakes Restoration, Managing for Results, Medicare, Pension Advance Transactions

DOD Contract Services: Improvements Made to Planning and Implementation of Fiscal Controls, GAO-15-780: Published: Sep 30, 2015. Publicly Released: Sep 30, 2015. Great Lakes Restoration Initiative: Some Information on Projects and Progress Made Available to Congress and the Public, GAO-15-841T: Published: Sep 30, 2015. Publicly Released: Sep 30, 2015. Managing for Results: Implementation of GPRA… Continue Reading

Child Nutrition Programs: Spending and Policy Options

CBO Report – September 25, 2015 – Child Nutrition Programs: Spending and Policy Options “Several federal programs support children’s nutritional needs. In 2014, the federal government spent about $20 billion to reimburse schools, child care centers, and after-school programs for children’s meals. Those programs benefit mainly school-age children from low-income households. Other nutrition programs provide… Continue Reading

HHS launches resources system to improve disaster preparedness

News release: “Health and emergency preparedness professionals now have access to the nation’s first and most comprehensive system of resources designed specifically to help communities better prepare for and manage the health impacts of disasters. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR),… Continue Reading

Stress Testing Corporate Balance Sheets in Emerging Economies

IMF – Julian T. S. Chow – September 30, 2015 – Working Paper No. 15/216 “In recent years, firms in emerging market countries have increased borrowing, particularly in foreign currency, owing to easy access to global capital markets, prolonged low interest rates and good investment opportunities. This paper discusses the trends in emerging market corporate… Continue Reading

Federal Transit Administration Issues Proposed Rule for Transit Agencies to Achieve State of Good Repair, Improve Safety

“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) today issued a proposed rule that would require public transportation agencies to monitor and manage their capital assets to achieve and maintain a state of good repair.  Identifying and prioritizing maintenance and repair needs of transit vehicles and infrastructure could lower costs, increase reliability and performance,… Continue Reading

Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health: consultation

“The Draft zero of the “Global Strategy and Action Plan on Ageing and Health” is now open to public consultation from individuals and institutions. Please respond as soon as possible so that your comments will help develop Draft 1, which will be discussed in Geneva on 29-30 October 2015.” “Healthy Ageing” is defined as the… Continue Reading

Report – Corporate America is not on a path to gender equality

“Women in the Workplace is a comprehensive study of the state of women in corporate America. The study is part of a long-term partnership between LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company to encourage female leadership and foster gender equality in the workplace. One hundred eighteen companies and nearly 30,000 employees participated in this 2015 study, building… Continue Reading

Review of the Current Landscape of Library Data Services and Institutional Data Policies

Briney, K., Goben, A., & Zilinski, L. (2015). Do You Have an Institutional Data Policy? A Review of the Current Landscape of Library Data Services and Institutional Data Policies. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 3(2), eP1232. http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1232 “INTRODUCTION Many research institutions have developed research data services in their libraries, often in anticipation of or… Continue Reading

EPA Revisions to the Worker Protection Standard – Pesticides

“EPA is announcing stronger protections for the nation’s two million agricultural workers and their families working on farms, forests, nurseries, and greenhouses. These revisions to the 1992 Agricultural Worker Protection Standard will afford farmworkers similar health protections that are already afforded to workers in other industries….There is a clear need for better protection for farmworkers.… Continue Reading

Mozilla Cybersecurity Delphi 1.0: Towards a user-centric policy framework

“From compromises of some of the world’s largest corporations, to critical vulnerabilities in widely used open source software, to exponential growth in the number of connected devices and users, the need to proactively design policies and practices to secure users and Internet infrastructure has never been greater. Yet, cybersecurity public policy conversations too often are… Continue Reading