Rachel Ngai Research
Working Papers
· A Multisector Perspective on Wage Stagnation (with Orhun Sevinc), July 2024, IZA DP 16356
Previous version: CEPR DP 14855, CFM DP 2020-26
Vox Talks, video on the main idea of the paper produced by the LSE Research.
Abstract: Low-skill workers are concentrated in sectors experiencing fast productivity growth, yet their real wages have stagnated and lagged behind aggregate productivity. We provide evidence demonstrating the importance of a multisector perspective. Central to our mechanism is the decline in the relative price of the low-skill intensive sector driven by its faster productivity growth. This dampens wage gains for low-skill workers by lowering the price of their output relative to their consumption basket, which is further rein
forced by shifting them into the sector where less weight is placed on their labor. We calibrate the two-sector model to the 1980–2010 U.S. economy and find this mechanism to be quantitatively important. Our counterfactual analysis reveals that low-skill real wage growth would have nearly doubled if the observed aggregate productivity growth had been evenly distributed across sectors.
· Gendered Change: 150 Years Transformation in US Hours (with Claudia Olivetti and Barbara Petrongolo). May 2024. NBER Working Paper 32475.
Abstract: Women’s contribution to the economy has been markedly underestimated in predominantly agricultural societies, due to their widespread involvement in unpaid
agricultural work. Combining data from the US Census and several early sources, we create a consistent measure of male and female employment and hours for the US for 1870-2019, including paid work and unpaid work in family farms and non-farm businesses. The resulting measure of hours traces a U-shape for women, with a modest decline up to mid-20th century followed by a sustained increase, and a monotonic decline for men. We propose a multisector economy with uneven productivity growth, income effects, and consumption complementarity across sectoral outputs. During early development stages, declining agriculture leads to rising services – both in the market and the home – and leisure, reducing market work for both genders. In later stages, structural transformation reallocates labor from manufacturing into services, while marketization reallocates labor from home to market services. Given gender comparative advantages, the first channel is more relevant for men, reducing male hours, while the second channel is more relevant for women, increasing female hours. Our quantitative illustration suggests that structural transformation and marketization can account for the overall decline in market hours from 1880-1950, and one quarter of the rise and decline, respectively, in female and male market hours from 1950-2019.
· Housing and Inequality (with Yannis Ioannides) May 2024. Revised Version Coming Soon!
Abstract: We approach the literature on housing and inequality from two angles. One is the impact of inequality in endowments on that of housing consumption and wealth. A second is the associational (or memberships) inequality associated with neighborhoods, that is households’ location both in physical jointly with social space. The review elaborates on those two dimensions of inequality. We focus on three distinctive features of housing: consumption, location and capital. For owner occupants consumption and capital are bundled together in a single good. For both renters and owner-occupants, housing consumption, access to good neighborhoods and housing wealth follow from endowments inequality. Housing is a propagation mechanism for inequality through the location-specific returns to human capital investment and for owner-occupants the ability to use housing as collateral to finance investments. The paper uses this approach to analyse key aspects of housing and inequality and pays special attention to the impacts of racial discrimination and segregation.
· To Own or to Rent? The Effects of Transaction Taxes on Housing Markets (with Lu Han and Kevin Sheedy), June 2023.VoxEU Column. CFM-DP2023-17
Previous version, July 2022 CEPR DP17520
Abstract: Using sales and leasing data, this paper finds three novel effects of a higher property transaction tax: higher buy-to-rent transactions alongside lower buy-to-own transactions, despite both being taxed; lower sales-to-leases and price-to-rent ratios; and longer time-on-the-market. This paper explains these facts by developing a search model with entry of investors and households choosing to own or rent in the presence of credit frictions. A higher transaction tax reduces homeowners’ mobility and increases the demand for rental properties, which reduces the homeownership rate. The deadweight loss from the tax is large at 113% of revenue, with more than half of this due to distorting decisions to own or rent.
Publications
· Ins and Outs of Selling Houses: Understanding Housing-Market Volatility (with Kevin Sheedy), International Economic Reivew. 2024, 65(3): 1415-1440. Online Appendix
Previous versions: IZA DP16603
Abstract: This paper documents the role of inflows (new listings) and outflows (sales) in explaining the volatility and co-movement of housing-market variables. An ‘ins versus outs’ decomposition shows that both flows are quantitatively important for housing-market volatility. The correlations between sales, prices, new listings, and time-to-sell are stable over time, while the signs of their correlations with houses-for-sale are found to be time varying. A calibrated search-and-matching model with endogenous inflows and outflows and shocks to housing demand matches many of the stable correlations and predicts that the correlations with houses-for-sale depend on the source and persistence of shocks.
· Taxes, Subsidies and Gender Gaps in Hours and Wages (with Robert Duval-Hernandez and Lei Fang), Economica 100 Series, 2023, 90: 373-408.
Online Appendix -- Proofs and calibration procedures
Previous versions: CEPR DP12292. CFM 2018-04 (VoxEU Column). SOEP paper No 962
Abstract: Using micro data from 17 OECD countries, this paper documents a negative cross-country correlation between gender gaps in market hours and wages. We find that the cross-country differences in market hours are mostly accounted for by female market hours and the size of the sector that produces close substitutes to home production. We quantify the role played by taxes and family care subsidies on the two gender gaps in a multi-sector model with home production. Higher taxes and lower subsidies reduce the marketization of home production, leading to lower market hours. The effect is largely on women because both home production and the production of its market substitutes are female-intensive. The larger fall in female market hours reduces relative female labor supply, contributing to a higher female to male wage ratio.
· Time Use and Gender in Africa in Times of Structural Transformation (with Taryn Dinkelman), Journal of Economic Perspective Winter 2022, 36(1): 57-80.
(VoxEU Column) Video interview by CEPR VoxEU.
Keywords: Home production, female time allocation, time use surveys in Africa, structural transformation.
· Rising inequality and trends in leisure (with Timo Boppart). Journal of Economic Growth June 2021, 26(2): 153-185.
Keywords: Trends in leisure, inequality, balance growth path.
· Home Production, Women's Market Work and Structural Transformation (Taryn Dinkelman), April 2021. Structural Transformation and Economic Growth
STEG Pathfinding Paper.
Keywords: Female time allocation, home production, structural transformation.
· The decision to move house and aggregate housing-market dynamics (with Kevin Sheedy). Journal of the European Economic Association, Oct 2020, 18(5): 2487-2531. (VoxEU Column )
Previous title "Moving House". CEPR DP10346. CFM 2016-21
Keywords: housing market, search and matching, endogenous moving, match quality investment, mismatch
· China's mobility barriers and employment allocations (with Chris Pissarides and Jin Wang). Journal of the European Economic Association, Oct 2019, 17(5): 1617-53. (VoxChina Column) Republished in JEEA Editor's Choice Collection.
Keywords: Mobility barriers, China's Hukou system, land policy, location-based social subsidies, structural transformation, urbanization
· Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy (with Barbara Petrongolo). American Economic Journal -- Macroeconomics, October 2017, 9(4): 1-44. (note)
2018 AEJ: Macroeconomics Best Paper Award
A nice video on the main idea of the paper produced by the American Economic Association.
Previous title "Structural Transformation, Marketization and Female Employment". CEP DP1204. CEPR DP 9970.
Keywords: gender gaps, structural transformation, home production, rise in female market hours, fall in male market hours, rise in gender wage ratio
· Hot and Cold Seasons in the Housing Market (with Silvana Tenreyro). (Web Appendix), American Economic Review, December 2014, 104(12): 3991-4026.
Keywords: seasonality, the U.K. and the U.S. housing markets, match-specific quality, thick-market effect.
· Taxes, Social Subsidies and the Allocation of Work Time (with Chris Pissarides), American Economic Journal - Macroeconomics, October 2011, 3(4): 1-26.
Previous title: "Welfare Policy and the Sectoral Distribution of hours of Work".
Keywords: time allocation, home production, welfare policy (taxes and subsidies), 19 OECD countries
· Accounting for Research and Productivity Growth Across Industries (with Roberto Samaniego), Review of Economic Dynamics, July 2011, Volume 14, p. 475-495.
Keywords: cross-industry productivity growth, endogenous growth model, R&D.
· Mapping Prices into Productivity in Multisector Growth Models (with Roberto Samaniego), Journal of Economic Growth, September 2009, Volume 14, p.183-204.
Keywords: input-output table, intermediate goods, investment-specific technical change (ISTC).
· Multisector Models, International Encyclopedia of The Social Sciences, April 2008, 333-335.
· Trends in Hours and Economic Growth (with Chris Pissarides), Review of Economic Dynamics, April 2008, Volume 11, p. 239-256.
Previous Title: "Trends in Labour Supply and Economic Growth"
Keywords: structural transformation, marketization, home production, trends in aggregate market hours, aggregate balanced growth path.
· Employment outcomes in the welfare state (with Chris Pissarides), Revue economique 2008, 59(3) p413-436.
Keywords: marketization, home production, social subsidies and taxes.
· Public Enterprises and Labour Market Performance (with Johannes Hörner and Claudia Olivetti), International Economic Review, May 2007, Volume 48, No. 2, p. 363-384.
Keywords: Unemployment, public sector employment, economic turbulence
· Structural Change in a Multisector Model of Growth (with Chris Pissarides), American Economic Review, March 2007, Volume 97, No. 1, p. 429-443.
A longer working paper version: CEPR DP 4763. Previous title: "Balanced Growth with Structural Change".
Keywords: multi-sector growth model, structural change (Kuznets' facts), aggregate balanced growth path (Kaldor's facts)
· Barriers and the Transition to Modern Growth, Journal of Monetary Economics, October 2004, Volume 51, Issue 7, p. 1353-1383.
Keywords: cross-country income differences, stagnation to growth, transitional dynamics.