Working paper
The Effect of the Sex Buyer Law on the Market for Sex, Sexual Health and Sexual Violence
with Thien Nguyen
We evaluate the effect of the 2015 criminalization of the purchasing of sexual services in Northern Ireland on the market of such services, sexually transmitted infections and sexual violence. This sub-national change in sex market regulation gives us an opportunity to estimate the causal effects of this new law which has become increasingly popular with policymakers over the last 20 years. Based on newly constructed data sets, our results indicate that the law reduced, temporarily, the size of the market for sexual services and fees for sexual services, lowered sexually transmitted infection rates among women and increased sexual violence committed against women. These results are largely consistent with recent evidence on the effects of different kinds of sex market regulation.
Publications (link to google scholar)
Gender, Competition and Performance: Evidence from real competitions
Revise and Resubmit at Quantitative Economics
with Maria Cubel, Matej Guid, Enrique Lopez-Manas and Santiago Snachez-Pages
Abstract: There is a growing literature looking at how men and women respond differently to competition. We contribute to this literature by studying gender differences in performance in a real world competitive environment, expert chess tournaments. This is a high-stakes, highly competitive and male dominated environment. Our findings suggest that women underperform compared to men of the same ability. We show that it is the gender composition of games that matters. Using within player variation in the conditionally random gender of their opponent we find that women perform significantly worse against male opponents. We go on to examine the mechanisms through which this effect operates by using a unique measure of within game quality of play. We find that the gender composition effect is driven by women playing worse against men, rather than men playing better against women. The gender of the opponent does not affect a male player's quality of play. We also find that men change their behavior by persisting longer against women before resigning suggesting a possible additional psychic cost of losing to female opponents. These results suggest that the gender composition of competitions affects the behavior of both men and women but both in ways that are detrimental to the performance of women. Lastly, we study the effects of competitive pressure and find that players' quality of play deteriorates when stakes increase, that this effect is stronger for females and that it is even stronger when they play against a male opponent.
How sensitive is the average taxpayer to changes in the tax-price of giving?
International Tax and Public Finance (2019)
with Nicky L. Grant
Abstract: There is an extensive literature that seeks to estimate the effect of tax incentives for charitable giving in United States. We provide theoretical and empirical evidence of a large downward bias in the estimator of the price (or tax-price) elasticity using survey data when non-itemizers are included in the sample. Such studies account for nearly half of the published work in this area and have generally found price elasticities in excess of -1 and larger (in absolute value) than those found using samples of itemizers from tax-filer data. We provide an intuitive modification to the standard model which we show yields a consistent and efficient estimator of the price elasticity for the average tax payer under a simple testable restriction. We find empirical support for this restriction and estimate a bias in the price elasticity in the standard model of around -1 indicating that the estimates of the price elasticity for the average taxpayer have been systematically over-estimated. Our results suggest an inelastic tax-price elasticity for the average taxpayer where only for those individuals with income in the top decile do we find a statistically significant price elasticity of a magnitude consistent with those estimated on tax-filer data.
Risk aversion and inequity aversion in demand for unemployment benefits
International Tax and Public Finance (2017)
with Alejandro Esteller-More
Abstract: This paper is an empirical study of what motivates net contributors to support redistributive policies. While studies in the area have tended to consider broad measures of inequality and support for redistribution in general, we focus on a single, salient relationship between local unemployment rates and demand for spending on unemployment benefits. Using a particularity of the Spanish labour market we estimate how workers' stated preferences for unemployment benefits spending respond to changes in the local unemployment rate. We then decompose this response into the part explained by risk aversion, and thus demand for insurance, and the part explained by inequity aversion. Our results suggest that increases in local unemployment rates lead to increased demand by workers for unemployment benefits spending. Moreover, our results are consistent with an insurance motive driving this relationship but provide little support for inequity aversion. Our results suggest that studies of the relationship between inequality and demand for redistribution might benefit from considering both the source and measure of the inequality and the instrument of redistribution.
Charitable bequests and wealth at death (online appendix)
Economic Journal: Features (2017)
with Anthony B. Atkinson and John Micklewright
Abstract: Charitable bequests are a major source of income for charities but surprisingly little is known about them. We propose a multi-stage framework for analysing the bequest decision and examine the evidence for Britain provided by new data on estates. The novelty of the framework is that it distinguishes between five different steps that lead to a charitable bequest. Our new data for Britain have the advantages of covering the whole population of non-trivial estates, in contrast to much of the US literature based on the small fraction of the population covered by estate tax returns, and of containing fuller information on charitable intent. We use this unique data set to explore the relationship with wealth at death of testacy, of leaving a charitable bequest, and of the form of the bequests.
Unofficial Development Assistance: a model of development charities' donation income
Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 2015, 77(2), 191-209
with Wiji Arulampalam and John Micklewright
Abstract: The empirical literature on the determinants of charities’ donation income, distinguishing the charitable cause, is small. We consider the case of development charities specifically. Using a panel covering a quarter of a century, we observe a strong fundraising effect and a unitary household income elasticity. We find evidence that the conventionally identified ‘price’ effect may simply be the product of omitted variable bias. Our results further suggest that public spending on development crowds in private donations for development. We find a positive spillover effect of fundraising, suggesting the efforts of one development charity may increase contributions to other development charities.
Are big charities becoming more dominant?: cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (2013)
with David Clifford
Abstract: There is a debate surrounding the implications of big charities' increasing dominance of total charitable income, but no empirical work which assesses whether indeed big charities are becoming increasingly dominant. We provide this assessment from both cross-sectional and longitudinal perspectives, using a panel data set with information on charities' income in England and Wales between 1997 and 2008. From a cross-sectional perspective, examining trends in income concentration ratios, there is no evidence that the biggest charities account for a growing share of total charity income over the period of analysis. However, the longitudinal perspective, which relates income growth over the period to initial size, shows that initially large charities have significantly higher median relative growth rates than the initially small. Substantively, these results are relevant to government plans for the 'Big Society', which rest in part on the ability of smaller, community-based charities as well as the bigger voluntary bodies to thrive and grow. Methodologically, for studies which examine trends in the distribution of income, these results illustrate the additional insights that are provided by the longitudinal perspective which cannot be inferred from repeated cross-sectional information.
Charitable Giving for Overseas Development: UK Trends Over a Quarter Century
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A (2012)
with Anthony B. Atkinson, John Micklewright, Cathy Pharoah and Silke Schnepf
Abstract: Charitable giving is an important source of funding for overseas development and emergency relief. Donations in the UK are about a quarter of the size of government development aid. There has been strong growth over time, reflecting the activities of development charities and the public response to humanitarian emergencies. The paper examines how this charitable giving has changed since 1978, using a newly constructed panel data set on donations to individual UK charities. When did the increase take place? Did the public respond to events such as Live Aid or has there been a steady upward trend? What has been the relationship with changes in household income? Which charities have grown fastest? Have new charities displaced old? How do changes in giving for overseas compare with changes in giving for other causes?