Katherine Carman's paper "Social Influences and the Private Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from Charitable Contributions in the Workplace" is now available at http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/Calendar/carman.pdf Abstract: This paper investigates factors that influence an individual’s decision to make voluntary contributions to a public good, focusing on the role of social influences. Measuring social influences is challenging due to several factors: group selection may be based on unobservable tastes, there may unobservable shocks that affect all group members, and the behavior of all group members is determined simultaneously. Proprietary data from the workplace-giving campaign of a large national company are used. These data contain detailed information, which can be used to overcome the difficulties often associated with measuring social influences. This paper formulates the problem of measuring social influences as one of estimating the relationship between individual behavior and the behavior of peers by selecting appropriate instruments for group behavior. The results suggest that individual giving behavior is affected by social influences and that social influences are stronger within salary quartiles and, in some situations, within genders. See you on wednesday, alexis *************************************** Research Workshop in Applied Statistics *************************************** Please join us this Wednesday @ noon at CBRSS, the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, 34 Kirkland Street, Rm 22, for two back-to-back presentations: *Katherine Carman* "Social Influences and the Private Provision of Public Goods: Evidence from Charitable Contributions in the Workplace" Katherine Carman is a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research for 2003-2005. She recently completed her Ph.D. in Economics at Stanford. Her primary research interests are in the fields of public economics and health economics. Her past research has examined the role of social influences on charitable contributions, the adequacy of life insurance holdings, and the financial impact of changes in marital status. Followed by *Andrew Leigh* "Who Gets the Earned Income Tax Credit? Impact and Incidence" www.ksg.harvard.edu/students/leighan Abridged abstract: How are hourly wages affected by the Earned Income Tax Credit? Two strategies are utilized. First, I use variation in state EITC supplements and find that a 10 percent increase in the generosity of the EITC is associated with a 4 percent fall in the wages of high school dropouts and a 2 percent fall in the wages of those with only a high school diploma. A second strategy is then implemented, based on the insight that the impact of the EITC on wages is determined by the typical EITC parameters in an employee's labor market. I construct a simulated instrument for the EITC parameters in an employee's labor market, and I find that wages respond to variation in the fraction of eligible employees and the average EITC rate, but do not respond systematically to changes in the marginal EITC rate. As always, lunch will be provided. Contact information, the current schedule, and previous presentations may be found at the course web site: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/ ****************************************** The Research Workshop in Applied Statistics is a forum for graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars to present and discuss work in progress and exchange ideas. It is intended as a tour of Harvard's statistical innovations and applications with weekly stops in different disciplines such as economics, epidemiology, medicine, political science, psychology, public policy, public health, sociology and statistics. The topics of papers presented in previous years included missing data, survey analysis, Bayesian simulation, sample selection, and models for election and portfolio choice. Faculty and student participants in the workshop present their current projects, and guest speakers also give occasional presentations. The workshop provides an excellent opportunity for informal interaction between graduate students and faculty from a variety of disciplines. Course credit is available for students as either an upper-level Government or Sociology class. Lunch is provided. If you are interested, note that all events are held at noon, in Room 22, Center for Basic Research in Social Sciences (CBRSS, 34 Kirkland St., this is the yellow building across the street from William James Hall). Contact information and previous presentations may be found at the course web site: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov3009/ To join the gov3009 mailing list, send e-mail to gov3009-l-request(a)fas.harvard.edu with the following text message: subscribe end ----- End forwarded message -----