Revisiting gender identity and relative income within households: A cautionary tale on the potential pitfalls of density estimators

B-Tier
Journal: Journal of Applied Econometrics
Year: 2021
Volume: 36
Issue: 7
Pages: 1065-1073

Score contribution per author:

0.670 = (α=2.01 / 3 authors) × 1.0x B-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

We show that Bertrand et al.'s (QJE, 2015, ) finding of a sharp drop in the relative income distribution within married couples at the point where wives start to earn more than their husbands is unstable across different estimation procedures and varies across contexts. We apply the estimators by McCrary (JoE, 2008, McC) and Cattaneo et al. (JASA, 2020, CJM) to administrative data from the United States and Germany and compare their performance in a simulation. Large bins cause McC to substantially overreject the null hypothesis, and mass points close to the potential discontinuity affect McC more than CJM.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:wly:japmet:v:36:y:2021:i:7:p:1065-1073
Journal Field
Econometrics
Author Count
3
Added to Database
2026-01-26