This paper investigates the effect of a large negative agricultural shock, the boll weevil, on black-white inequality in the first half of the twentieth century. To do this we use complete count census data to generate a linked sample of fathers and their sons. We find that the boll weevil induced enormous labor market and social disruption as more than half of black and white fathers moved to other counties following the arrival of the weevil. The shock impacted black and white sons differently. We compare sons whose fathers initially resided in the same county and find that white sons born after the boll weevil had similar wages and schooling outcomes to white sons born prior to its arrival. In contrast, black sons born after the boll weevil had significantly higher wages and years of schooling, narrowing the black-white wage and schooling gaps. This decrease appears to have been driven by relative improvements in early life conditions and access to schooling both for sons of black fathers that migrated out of the South and sons of black fathers that stayed in the South.

This paper proposes a new methodology for estimating teacher value-added. Rather than imposing a normality assumption on unobserved teacher quality (as in the standard empirical Bayes approach), our nonparametric estimator permits the underlying distribution to be estimated directly and in a computationally feasible way. The resulting estimates fit the unobserved distribution very well regardless of the form it takes, as we show in Monte Carlo simulations. Implementing the nonparametric approach in practice using two separate large-scale administrative data sets, we find the estimated teacher value-added distributions depart from normality and differ from each other. To draw out the policy implications of our method, we first consider a widely-discussed policy to release teachers at the bottom of the value-added distribution, comparing predicted test score gains under our nonparametric approach with those using parametric empirical Bayes. Here the parametric method predicts similar policy gains in one data set while overestimating those in the other by a substantial margin. We also show the predicted gains from teacher retention policies can be underestimated significantly based on the parametric method. In general, the results highlight the benefit of our nonparametric empirical Bayes approach, given that the unobserved distribution of value-added is likely to be context-specific.

Public schooling systems are an essential feature of modern states. These systems often developed at the expense of religious schools, which undertook the bulk of education historically and still cater to large student populations worldwide. This paper examines how Indonesia’s long-standing Islamic school system responded to the construction of 61,000 public elementary schools in the mid-1970s. The policy was designed in part to foster nation building and to curb religious influence in society. We are the first to study the market response to these ideological objectives. Using novel data on Islamic school construction and curriculum, we identify both short-run effects on exposed cohorts as well as dynamic, long-run effects on education markets. While primary enrollment shifted towards state schools, religious education increased on net as Islamic secondary schools absorbed the increased demand for continued education. The Islamic sector not only entered new markets to compete with the state but also increased religious curriculum at newly created schools. Our results suggest that the Islamic sector response increased religiosity at the expense of a secular national identity. Overall, this ideological competition in education undermined the nation-building impacts of mass schooling.

Most jobs require teamwork. Are some people good team players? In this paper we design and test a new method for identifying individual contributions to group performance. We randomly assign people to multiple teams and predict team performance based on previously assessed individual skills. Some people consistently cause their group to exceed its predicted performance. We call these individuals “team players”. Team players score significantly higher on a well-established measure of social intelligence, but do not differ across a variety of other dimensions, including IQ, personality, education and gender. Social skills – defined as a single latent factor that combines social intelligence scores with the team player effect – improve group performance about as much as IQ. We find suggestive evidence that team players increase effort among teammates.

Pressure is growing across the board for large corporations to do more to protect the environment and the climate. Even institutional investors like Blackrock head Larry Fink are joining the chorus of voices calling for change.

Greed, envy, poor leadership and a poisonous internal culture: New York Times journalist David Enrich has written a book about Deutsche Bank that also sheds light on the financial institution's relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Freelancers and small companies are getting hit especially hard by the corona crisis. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the federal government is planning a massive financial aid package. It would mark the end of Germany’s balanced budget policy.

De Niro, 76, also voiced his support for Joe Biden as a presidential candidate on "The Late Show," and was critical of President Trump’s handling of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

The coronavirus crisis has forced another 3.2 million Americans to file for jobless aid, bringing the total number to 33.5 million in the seven weeks since the pandemic forced millions of companies to close and layoff huge amounts of staff.

Weather extreme enough to shatter records across large swaths of the U.S. is heading our way this weekend, just in time for Mother’s Day. A storm system heading into the Northeast on Friday will smash into the polar vortex as it makes swing down from the Arctic, reported NBC News. This might sock the region in with heavy, wet snow all the way into New England.

Elon Musk is cruising toward another major payday.

He’ll need a better defense than the one his favorite team managed against LSU last year.

Brya Bishop was arrested days before her 25th birthday and charged with three felonies.

Audio recordings of two 911 calls placed moments before Ahmaud Arbery was killed confirm that at least two people were concerned that a black man was running in their Georgia neighborhood.

The Social Security Administration will not release its list of popular baby names this year.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son Travis have been charged with murdering Arbery.

A Southwest jet traveling from Dallas fatally struck a person as it touched down at a Texas airport Thursday night, authorities said.

California is slated to be refunded the $247 million it paid to a Chinese car company under a massive $1 billion deal for face masks, which were not federally certified by the agreed upon deadline.

Pete Davidson, who recently said he quit using drugs, urged people not to drop off any weed or other illegal substances at his mom’s Staten Island house after a stranger did just that a few days ago.

Gov. Cuomo is down with Robert De Niro portraying him in a movie about the coronavirus pandemic, should there be one, and he also took a moment to play the role of the Manhattan-born actor.

President Trump on Friday called the viral video of Ahmaud Arbery’s killing “very, very disturbing,” but he said he’s confident that Georgia’s law enforcement authorities will handle the case properly despite a slow-moving investigation and conflict-of-interest questions surrounding the incident. “So I saw the tape, and it’s very, very disturbing," he said in a Fox New phone interview. “I looked at a picture of that young man. He was in a tuxedo... And I will say that that looks like a really good, young guy.”

The claim seeks damages in connection with the release of cellphone pictures taken by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene of the Jan. 26 tragedy in Calabasas.

An already-unlikely motive in the Ahmaud Arbery murder case became even more suspicious on Friday. The two Georgia men who were caught on video shooting the unarmed jogger to death in February claim they were chasing a suspect behind a series of burglaries in the area. But a local police official said the last break-in the neighborhood was reported nearly two months before the shooting.

Disney World is beginning to spring into action. Disney Springs, the company’s outdoor dining, shopping and entertainment complex near its Florida theme parks, is set to begin a phased reopening on May 20 following closures to reduce the spread of coronavirus.

Chris Cornell’s widow is firing back at her husband’s Soundgarden bandmates, calling the lawsuit they filed against her Wednesday an attempt to “browbeat” her into giving up “copyrighted works.”

The wildly influential singer and pianist established rock ’n’ roll as a genre with just one rule — there are no rules.

New research from Chambers Ireland shows that the tourism, hospitality, entertainment and local services sectors all show signs of having been particularly negatively hit by the outbreak of Covid-19.

The numbers of staff earning over €100,000 at the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) last year increased by 31 to 374.

The Covid-19 outbreak is having a negative impact on personal relationships and well-being, while it has also led to an increase in the consumption of alcohol.

Electric scooters are coming to New York and, with a little planning and preparation, they can safely thrive here. To understand how, it helps to start with some context.

Manhattan: With no sports to watch, I’m relying on my memory for gratification. My greatest sports memory happens to coincide with the great moment in New York Knicks’ history, which happened 50 years ago today, on May 8, 1970, when the team won its first championship.