returns to an MBA

In a recent issue of Economic Inquiry, Wayne Grove (Le Moyne) and Andrew Hussey (U Memphis) estimate the expected return from earning an MBA. They compare the effects of field of study and school quality. From their abstract:

We find approximately 7% returns for most MBAs but roughly double that for finance and management information systems (MIS). Thus, MBA area of study can matter as much or more than program quality: only attending a top 10, but not 11-25, MBA program trumped studying finance and MIS at a nontop 25 program.

Read the paper here.

short criminals

A recent NBER working paper looks at the relationship between a person's hight and criminal activity in the late 19th century. Using prison records, they show that (1) inmates tend to be shorter than the average person in the population, and (2) the likelihood of being a criminal is decreasing in height. That is, the taller someone is, the less likely they end up behind bars. They argue that these results are consistent with taller people having a labor market advantage.

The paper was written by Howard Bodenhorn (Clemson), Carolyn Moehling (Yale), and Gregory N. Price (Morehouse). Download it here.

how siblings affect labor market mobility

Helmut Rainer, Elmut Rainer (both St Andrews), and Thomas Siedler (Essex) develop a model of labor market mobility in which whether or not you have siblings affects your decisions to move. The paper appears in a recent issue of Economica. The abstract:

This paper formulates a model to explain how parental care responsibilities and family structure interact in affecting children's mobility characteristics. Our main result is that the mobility of young adults crucially depends on the presence of a sibling. Siblings compete in location and employment decisions to direct parental care decisions towards their preferred outcome. Only children are not exposed to this kind of competition. This causes an equilibrium in which siblings exhibit higher mobility than only children, and also have better labour market outcomes. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we find evidence that confirms these patterns.