Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm, I examine the firm’s response to the 1996 federal minimum wage increase. Compulsory increases in average wages had negative but statistically insignificant effects on overall employment. However, increases in the relative wages of teenagers...

Using data from a large U.S. retail firm, we examine how differences in race, age, and gender between a manager and a subordinate affect the subordinate’s rate of quits, dismissals, and promotions. These differences can have statistically significant and sometimes large effects— especially...

Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm with more than 700 stores nationwide, this study examines the firm’s response to the 1996 federal minimum wage increase. First, increases in average wages had negative, but statistically insignificant effects on overall employment. Second,...

Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm, we examine whether the race of the hiring manager affects the racial composition of new hires. We exploit manager changes at hundreds of stores to estimate models with store fixed effects. We find significant effects of manager race and...

Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm with more than 700 stores nationwide, this study examines how the 1996 federal minimum wage increase affected both the level of employment at each store and also the fraction of teenagers employed. Because the minimum wage caused the relative...

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this paper examines why married parents of boys are less likely than parents of girls to become separated or divorced. Two prominent theories attribute differential divorce rates to: (1) the fathers’ preferences for sons; or (2)...