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Abstract:
This paper provides the first empirical test of the Portia Hypothesis: females with masculine monikers are more successful in legal careers. Utilizing South Carolina microdata, we look for correlation between an individual's advancement to a judgeship and his/her name's masculinity, which we construct from the joint empirical distribution of names and gender in the state's entire population of registered voters. We find robust evidence that nominally masculine females are favored over other females. Hence, our results support the Portia Hypothesis.

Abstract:
We examine the correlation between federal government activity and the performance of the D.C. area's National Football League team, the Washington Redskins. We find a significantly positive, non-spurious, and robust correlation between the Redskins' winning percentage and the amount of federal government bureaucratic activity as measured by the number of pages in the Federal Register. Because the Redskins' performance is prototypically exogenous, we give this surprising result a causal interpretation. Drawing upon public choice theory and behavioral economics, we provide a plausible explanation for the causal mechanism: bureaucrats must make "logrolling" deals in order to expand their regulatory power, and a winning football team acts as a commonly shared source of joyous optimism to lubricate such negotiations. We do not find the same correlation when examining Congressional activity, which we attribute to legislator loyalty to their home state's team(s).

regulation, regulations, NFL, regulators and sports, regulations and sports, stadium finance, public choice and sports

Abstract:
This paper describes the economic analyses such as benefit-cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and risk-risk analysis that could be used to improve environmental rulemaking if Congress were to implement the Clean Air Act such that EPA could consider costs when setting National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). I show that setting NAAQS without considering costs could eventually lead to scenarios where US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies reduce human health and welfare. Every time the EPA sets a new ambient air quality standard, the resources devoted to compliance with the standard are necessarily taken away from other uses. Because a 2001 Supreme Court ruling upheld the EPA’s interpretation of the Clean Air Act that EPA may not consider costs when setting NAAQS, Congress should amend the Clean Air Act to state that the EPA Administrator should consider costs when setting NAAQS. Allowed to consider such information, the EPA would be better equipped to choose regulatory actions that are most cost-beneficial or cost-effective.

Clean Air Act, NAAQS, benefit-cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, risk-risk analysis

Abstract:
The midnight regulations phenomenon - an increase in the rate of regulation promulgation during the final months of an outgoing president's term - is empirically tested using data on the number of economically significant regulations reviewed each month. Submissions of economically significant regulations to Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) are found to increase by seven percent during midnight periods. Spikes in regulatory activity, such as those of midnight periods, are shown to decrease the amount of time regulations are reviewed at OIRA, perhaps because of budget and staff limitations. Evaluated at the mean, one additional economically significant regulation submitted to OIRA decreases the mean review time for all regulations by about half a day. If OIRA review improves the quality of regulations, then any phenomenon such as midnight regulations that leads to spikes in regulatory activity and decreases review time could result in the proliferation of low quality regulations.

regulation; midnight regulations, regulatory review, OIRA, election cycles, election cycles and regulations, regulation quality

Abstract:
Information about collectively-created problems, such as air pollution, may elicit voluntary changes to consumer behavior that at least partially offset the cause of the problem. We show that increases in information about climate change are associated with statistically and economically significant decreases in expenditure on gasoline, controlling for gasoline prices and income. We simultaneously provide updated estimates of the short run price and income elasticities of demand for gasoline in the US, utilizing recent weekly gasoline consumption and price data and spatially-delineated supply side disruptions due to hurricanes as an instrument for price.

climate change, global warming, gasoline demand, voluntary protection of the commons, environmentalism, environmental awareness

Abstract:
This paper contains the written testimony of Patrick A. McLaughlin submitted in conjunction with oral testimony given before the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on April 23, 2009. Dr. McLaughlin stated that mandating benefits for H-2B guest workers, while well-intended, may have unintended consequences. If the goal of policymakers is to help H-2B workers avoid exploitation, then they should explore the option of adopting a "free agent" model for H-2B workers - that is, allow H-2B workers to change employers.

A mandate that employers pay benefits for employees would mean that each employee becomes more expensive to employ, which may lead employers to find substitutes or to simply cut back on operations. In effect, mandating benefits for H-2B workers would lead to decreased demand for their services and increased demand for the services of substitutes. As a group, H-2B workers may not be better off because there would be less H-2B workers employed. Also, those H-2B workers who manage to get jobs with mandated benefits may be better off only if their employers do not pass the costs of the mandated benefits along to the workers in the form of lower wages. Most importantly, mandating benefits does not necessarily fix the fundamental problem, which is that an employee still cannot quit his job and find a new one if the employee dislikes the working conditions or if the employer violates the terms of the contract.

Adopting a "free agent" model, on the other hand, directly addresses this problem while avoiding some of the unintended consequences. If H-2B workers are free to switch employers, then employers would have incentive not only to honor the terms of contracts but also to offer better wages and benefits in order to attract the best workers. This would empower H-2B workers with the freedom to move to the job where they are most valuable to the economy and also where they are best paid.

immigration, migration, guest worker, mandated benefits, H-2B

Abstract:
Groups of countries in a region sometimes impose environmental regulations on themselves, particularly inside the European Union. Regional environmental regulations might affect trade flows to and from the regulated countries differently than unilaterally generated regulations for two reasons. The first we term the uneven competitiveness effect: a given increase in production costs across all countries is a higher percentage increase in production costs for countries that produce low-cost goods than for those that produce high-cost goods. The second reason we term the uneven burden of compliance: because high income countries are more likely than low income countries to have relatively stringent environmental regulations in place prior to the creation of regional environmental regulations, the cost of compliance with a given regional environmental regulation might be lower for high income countries than for low income countries.

Using the gravity equation, we test the effect on bilateral trade flows of increases in environmental regulation stringency ratings, taken from survey data, with a panel of 56 countries, controlling for European Union membership and income levels. We find significant differences in the effects on EU members’ exports and non-EU members’ exports’ as well as across income levels of countries. An increase in environmental regulation stringency leads to a dramatic decrease in exports from low income, EU-members; conversely, a similar change in environmental regulation stringency leads to an increase in exports from high income, EU-member countries. The results are consistent with the hypothesized uneven competitiveness effect and the uneven burden of compliance.

international trade, gravity equation, regional regulations, environmental regulations, European Union regulations, environment and trade

Abstract:
This paper argues that the competitive liberalization of national governments of the past several decades has created a market for regional economic integration agreements (EIAs). Evidence shows that countries that have selected into EIAs such as free trade agreements have chosen well in the sense that the same economic characteristics that explain and predict bilateral EIAs also explain and predict bilateral trade flows. We show that previous ex post empirical evaluations of the effects of EIAs on trade have tended to underestimate the effects due to ignoring the (endogenous) self-selection bias of country pairs into EIAs. Accounting for this bias, we find that European economic integration had a much larger impact on trade over the period 1960-2000 than previously found, and other more recent EIAs have had economically and statistically significant effects on members trade. The results shed further light on understanding the causes and consequences of the growth of regionalism.

Abstract:
I test the level of information regarding possible groundwater contamination present in the real estate market in Washington County, Minnesota, where an approximately seven square-mile trichloroethylene plume has affected hundreds of households’ water supplies since at least 1988. By combining house sales and characteristics data from the county tax assessor, geographic information systems data, and data on which houses were chosen by environmental regulators to have their water tested and when, I first test whether the real estate market reacts to the groundwater contamination at all. Second, I test whether this reaction occurs only for homes that are most likely to have contaminated water, or if the market groups some houses that have little realistic probability of groundwater contamination in with those that are most likely to have contaminated water.

The results indicate that the market negatively reacts to groundwater contamination. Depending on the relative availability and accuracy of information, the market is at different times completely informed and incompletely informed as to the location of the plume. A disclosure law passed in 2003 might have added new, low-cost and imperfect information to the market that could explain the change in how informed the market was.

hedonic, real estate, information in markets

Abstract:
This paper provides the first empirical test of the Portia Hypothesis: Females with masculine monikers are more successful in legal careers. Utilizing South Carolina microdata, we look for correlation between an individual's advancement to a judgeship and his/her name's masculinity, which we construct from the joint empirical distribution of names and gender in the state's entire population of registered voters. We find robust evidence that nominally masculine females are favored over other females. Hence, our results support the Portia Hypothesis.