Economics of LGBTQ+ Individuals Virtual Seminar Series
Tuesdays at Noon ET (16:00 UTC)
The one-hour seminar includes a 35-minute presentation by the author and 25 minutes for questions and discussion. Please contact Michael Martell at mmartell@bard.edu with any questions or feedback.
Please sign up to receive the link to the Zoom meeting each week.
Click here for a list of previous seminars: 2020 | 2021 | 2022
Upcoming Seminars
ALL SEMINARS ON TUESDAYS AT 12:00 (NOON) ET
January 31, 2023
Book Club Hosted by Bitsy Perlman (elisabeth.perlman@census.gov)
February 7, 2023
Settling in the Shadow of Sexual Orientation: Bias and Marital Asset Division
Jennifer Bennett Shinall with John Roberts
jennifer.shinall@vanderbilt.edu
Abstract: Previous work has found that legal decisionmakers are biased against women and against non-breadwinning spouses when dividing the marital assets of divorcing, opposite-sex couples. This paper extends the marital asset division literature to divorcing, same-sex couples. Using experimental methods, the paper finds that subjects divide marital assets between spouses equivalently, regardless of whether the divorcing couple is same-sex or opposite-sex. Subjects' own sexual orientation, however, influences how they divide marital assets between divorcing spouses. Furthermore, the paper documents a mitigation of prior experimental subject bias against women and non-breadwinning spouses after the #metoo movement and the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 21, 2023
Local Income, Race, and Mortality
EK Green (ekgreen42@email.arizona.edu)
Racial disparities in infant mortality are persistent and significant even today, though some progress has been made in reducing infant mortality rates and closing these racial gaps. There is a significant literature studying the reasons for these gaps and how it has changed over time. Economic literature has considered the relationship between economic features, and health outcomes. My project bridges these two literatures and in particular considers the changes in these relationships over time. My paper makes a unique contribution in considering local economic features, rather than national shocks, by looking at state and county level income and income changes, and also by looking at county-level mortality measures. The period considered in this research, 1959-2001, includes particularly steep declines in infant mortality, particularly for Black Americans.
Throughout analyses of the data, several key patterns emerge. As expected given documented disparities, non-white infants and non-white individuals in general are more likely to face higher mortality rates. A consistent pattern suggests that living in higher-average-income states or counties is associated with lowering infant mortality and overall mortality rates more per dollar for non-whites, though this does not outweigh the overall effect of higher mortality rates for non-whites. Considering results by time, earlier periods tend to show worse mortality disparities for non-whites, as well as steeper declines per dollar of average income for their state or county of residence. These patterns point to potential avenues for further investigation, such as considering unemployment alongside income, or considering hospital availability in relation to local income.
March 7, 2023
Taste-Based Discrimination against Sexual Minorities: Evidence from Information Provision Experiment
Gayane Baghumyan (baghumyangayane@gmail.com)
Abstract: Understanding the underlying drivers of discriminatory behavior is important for finding the best strategy to combat it. In this paper, we first document the prevalence of discrimination against individuals with same-sex partners in Russia: male, religious, married, conservative and older participants discriminate more than other subgroups. Next, we explore one potential way of attenuating sexual-orientation discrimination by focusing on people's beliefs about the origins of homosexuality. To measure discriminatory behavior, we use money allocation tasks. We exogenously manipulate participants' beliefs about the origins of sexual orientation by integrating randomized provision of research evidence that supports biological causes of homosexuality. This allows us to causally identify the impact of information on discriminatory behavior. Our results suggest that exposure to research evidence about biological causes of homosexuality negatively affects discriminatory behavior. Participants in the treatment group allocate less money to profiles with same-sex partners, relative to participants in the baseline group. Possible explanations might be that: (i) receiving a belief-inconsistent information creates cognitive discomfort, causes irritation and exacerbates discrimination; (ii) information induces beliefs that individuals with same-sex partners are dissimilar from "us", even biologically, and thus increases social distance between participants and those sexual minority groups fostering discrimination further.
March 21, 2023
Your place or mine? Private spaces of interaction among people in same-sex relationships and their friends
Mirjam Fischer (mail@mirjamfischer.com)
Abstract: I examine structural differences between people in same-sex and mixed sex relationships in terms of their (almost) exclusive use of private spaces to socialize with friends in the Netherlands. Further, I test two sets of hypotheses to better understand the people in same-sex relationships who predominantly spend their time in private social settings rather than in public spaces. The first set of hypotheses concerns the use of safe spaces outside the home (i.e., public LGBTQI* community spaces); the second set of hypotheses is about minority stress and resilience, which may explain why some people in same-sex couples retreat from public spaces of interaction and others do not.
April 4, 2023
Sexual orientation and entrepreneurship: evidence from Sweden
Erwan Dujeancourt (erwan.dujeancourt@ju.se)
Abstract: We provide the literature’s first evidence on sexual orientation, entrepreneurship, and firm success using population register data from Sweden matched to business registry data from 1995-2020. Over this period, we identify over 19,000 individuals who ever entered a legal same-sex union, and compare their entrepreneurship and firm success outcomes with individuals who were only ever observed in different-sex unions. We find that sexual minority men are 7.8 percent less likely than comparable heterosexual men to be entrepreneurs, while sexual minority women are 4.7 percent more likely than comparable heterosexual women to be entrepreneurs. Both differences are statistically significant. Interestingly, we do not find that these gaps change much over the long sample period, despite tangible improvements in attitudes toward sexual minorities. We also find that firms founded by sexual minority women fail more quickly than observably similar firms founded by heterosexual women, with no such survival difference observed for sexual minority men.
April 18, 2023
Conversion Therapy, Suicidality, and Running Away: An Analysis of Transgender Youth in the U.S.
Travis Campbell (Campbelt1@sou.edu) and Yana van der Meulen Rodgers
Abstract: This study provides evidence of the deleterious effects of conversion therapy on the mental health and wellbeing of transgender youth in the U.S. We create a retrospective panel of transgender youth using the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey to test how exposure to conversion therapy impacts the likelihood of attempting suicide and running away from home using a difference-in-differences design. Results indicate that conversion therapy substantially increases the likelihood a transgender adolescent will attempt suicide and run away. The average treatment effect on treated (ATT) of conversion therapy on ever having attempted suicide is an increase of 17 percentage points, which amounts to a 55% increase in the risk of attempting suicide, and the ATT on the risk of running away is an increase of 7.8 percentage points, which more than doubles the risk of running away. These effects are largest when conversion therapy begins at a young age (11-14).
May 2, 2023
Does publicly-provided health insurance mitigate the health-at-birth effects of prenatal air pollution?
Anderson Ospino (aospino@ucdavis.edu)
Abstract: Does free health insurance mitigates prenatal air pollution's effects on health at birth?Environmental and epidemiological research has linked prenatal air pollution exposure to the incidence of fetal and infant death, adverse birth outcomes, and worse outcomes in adulthood and across generations. Additionally, the effects of ambient air pollution depend on social and economic factors. This paper tests whether healthcare access mitigates the adverse health effects of exposure to air pollution in-utero. I study how the expansion of Medicaid (publicly-provided health insurance for low-income households) changed the effect of prenatal exposure to sulfur dioxide (SO2) on fetal death and adverse birth outcomes. Theoretically, the effect is ambiguous because there could be a substitution between access to health insurance and pollution avoidance. I find that Medicaid's expansion reduced fetal deaths linked to SO2 in low-pollution areas and decreased the marginal damage of SO2 on birthweight in highly polluted areas. However, Medicaid’s expansion impact on SO2’s effects on birthweight is likely biased downward in low-pollution areas because the infants marginally saved by Medicaid are negatively selected. I overcome this bias by analyzing the number of non-low birth weight (i.e., healthy) infants per woman of reproductive age (nlbw/w) instead. Using this dependent variable, the impacts of Medicaid through the intensive and extensive margin go in the same direction. I find that 24-hour SO2 concentrations above 8 parts per billion reduced the number of healthy infants per woman of reproductive age, and Medicaid’s expansion reduced this effect in low-pollution areas and at the national level.
May 16, 2023
Intra-Household Inequality and Tax Planning of Same-Sex Couples
Johannes Köckeis (johannes.koeckeis@fit.fraunhofer.de)
Abstract: In my paper, I present differences in income, intra-household inequality and tax planning between mixed and same-sex couples. By using unique administrative tax data, I find that household incomes of same-sex couples are significantly higher than those of heterosexual couples. While there is no difference in intra-household inequality between heterosexual couples and male same-sex couples, lesbian couples have significantly lower intra-couple income inequality. This is in line with previous research. When it comes to tax planning, there are major differences between heterosexual couples and homosexual couples. While tax planning in heterosexual couples often leads to a high marginal tax burden for the secondary earner, this is not the case for same-sex couples.
Previous Seminars
2020
April 15, 2020
Ian Burn, University of Liverpool (with Mike Martell)
"Gender Typicality and Sexual Orientation Earnings Differentials"
April 22, 2020
Shuai Chen, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (with Jan van Ours)
"Mental Health Effects of Same-Sex Marriage Legalization"
April 29, 2020
David Schwegman, American University (with Mattie Mackenzie-Liu and Leonard Lopoo)
"Do Foster Care Agencies Discriminate Against Gay Couples? Evidence from a Correspondence Study"
May 6, 2020
Kitt Carpenter, Vanderbilt University (with Gilbert Gonzales Jr. Tara McKay and Dario Sansone)
"Effects of the Affordable Care Act Dependent Coverage Mandate on Health Insurance Coverage for Individuals in Same-Sex Couples"
May 13, 2020
Charlie Whittington (she/her), Human Rights Campaign Foundation (with Dan Stewart (he/him))
"The Moderating Role of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in the Relationship Between Income and Complications During COVID-19 Infection"
May 20, 2020
Ian Chadd, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (with Billur Aksoy)
"Queer Preferences for Competition"
May 27, 2020
Travis Campbell, University of Massachusetts - Amherst (with Lee Badgett and Everest Brennan)
"Beyond the Gender Binary: Transgender Labor Force Status in the United States 2014-2017"
June 3, 2020
Emily Nix, University of Southern California (with Martin Eckhoff Andresen)
"What Causes the Child Penalty and How Can it be Reduced? Evidence from Same-Sex Couples and Policy Reforms"
June 10, 2020
Matthew Shannon, University College, Dublin
"The Labour Market Outcomes of Transgender Individuals"
June 17, 2020
Connor Redpath, University of California, San Diego
"Access to Marriage Affects Couples’ Assortativeness: Evidence from Same-Sex Marriage Legalization"
June 24, 2020
Michael Martell, Bard College
"Tolerance and the Labor Supply of Gays and Lesbians"
July 1, 2020
Joanne Hadaad, University of Ottawa (with Abel Brodeur)
"Institutions, Attitudes and LGBT: Evidence from the Gold Rush"
July 15, 2020
Ralph Dehaas, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, CEPR, and Tilburg University (with Victoria Baranov and Pauline Grosjean)
"Men. Roots and Consequences of Masculinity Norms"
August 26, 2020
Raquel Fernandez, New York University (with Sahar Parsa and Martina Viarengo)
"Coming Out in America"
September 16, 2020
Roberto Ivo da Rocha Lima Filho, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
"Decision Neuroscience Applied to a Trading Environment: An EEG Approach"
September 23, 2020
Nir Eilam, University of Texas, Austin (with Scott Delhommer)
"PrEP and Moral Hazard"
October 7, 2020
Luca Fumarco and Eva Dils, Tulane University (with Patrick Button, Benjamin Harrell, and David J. Schwegman)
"Gender Identity, Race, and Ethnicity Discrimination in Access to Mental Health Care: Evidence from an Audit Field Experiment"
October 14, 2020
William Delgado, University of Chicago
"Teachers’ Comparative Advantage, School Segregation, and Educational Mobility in Chicago Public Schools"
October 21, 2020
Hyunmin Park, University of Chicago
"Specific Human Capital and Employment Dynamics"
October 28, 2020
Hani Mansour, University of Colorado, Denver
"Voting and Political Participation in the Aftermath of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic"
November 18, 2020
Ylva Moberg, Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) (with Marie Evertsson and Maaike van der Vleuten)
"The child penalty in same-sex and different-sex couples in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland"
December 2, 2020
Raquel Fernandez, New York University (with Sahar Parsa and Martina Viarengo)
"Coming Out in America"
December 9, 2020
Lucas Tilley will present "The Labor Market and Health Effects of Gender Dysphoria: Evidence from Sweden" (with Ian Burn, Ylva Moberg and Emma von Essen)
December 16, 2020
Sheheryar Banuri (University of East Anglia) "On the process of discrimination in healthcare: A field experiment with Pakistan’s Transgender community" (with Husnain F. Ahmad and Farasat Bokhari)
2021
February 2, 2021
Samuel Mann, Swanswea University
"Sexual Orientation, Political Trust, and Same-Sex Relationship Recognition Policies: Evidence from Europe"
samuel.mann@swansea.ac.uk
February 16, 2021
Marcus Dillender, University of Illinois at Chicago
"Does Place-Based Federal Health Funding Work? Evidence and Lessons from the Fight against HIV/AIDS"
modillen@uic.edu
March 2, 2021
Bridget Hiedemann and Lisa Brodoff, Seattle University
"Marriage Equality and Activity Limitations among Older Adults in Same-Sex Relationships"
bgh@seattleu.edu
March 16, 2021
Travis Campbell, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
"Health insurance coverage and health outcomes among transgender adults in the U.S."
tbcampbell@umass.edu
March 30, 2021
Silvia Palmaccio, KU Leuven
"Early Labor Market Outcomes of Children in Same-Sex Families: Evidence from Population Data"
silvia.palmaccio@kuleuven.be
April 13, 2021
Joshua Martin, West Virginia University
"The Effect of Same-Sex Partnership Laws on Adoptions and Family Formation in the US"
jcm0067@mix.wvu.edu
April 20, 2021
Max Lee, San Francisco State University
"Schooling and Coming Out: Education as a Coping Mechanism"
mclee@sfsu.edu
May 4, 2021
Billur Aksoy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
"Hidden Identity and Social Preferences: Evidence From Sexual Minorities"
billuraksoy@gmail.com
May 18, 2021
Raquel Fernandez, New York University (with Sahar Parsa and Martina Viarengo)
"Coming Out in America"
raquel.fernandez@nyu.edu
July 20, 2021
Mike Martell, Bard College
“Labor market differentials estimated with researcher-inferred and self-identified sexual orientation”
August 31, 2021
Billur Aksoy, Christopher “Kitt” Carpenter, and Dario Sansone
"Survey Experiments on LGBTQ Individuals: A Preliminary Design"
September 14th at 12:00 ET:
Moving for Love? Migration in Same-Sex and Opposite-Sex Relationships
Etienne Makdissi (etienne.masson.makdissi@mail.utoronto.ca)
September 21 at 12:00 ET:
Heated Tobacco Products (HTP) Taxation and Tobacco Use in Japan and Korea
Shaoying Ma (shaoyingma13@gmail.com), Ce Shang, Kai-Wen Cheng, Hye Myung Lee, Hong Gwan Seo, Sungkyu Lee, Sujin Lim, Sung-il Cho, Shannon Gravely, Steve Xu, Anne C. K. Quah and Geoffrey T. Fong
September 28th at 12:00 ET:
How Does the Earned Income Tax Credit Affect Household Expenditures for Single Female Heads of Households?
Arian Seifoddini (seifoddini@ucdavis.edu)
October 5th at 12:00 ET:
Duration Dependence: Learning from Advance Notice
Div Bhagia (bhagia@bc.edu)
October 12th at 12:00 ET:
Gender Differences in the Cost of Corrections in Group Work
Yuki Takahashi (yuki.takahashi2@unibo.it)
October 19th at 12:00 ET:
Estimating the nature of corruption: evidence from a policy experiment in Brazil
Murilo Ramos (murilo@berkeley.edu)
October 26th at 12:00 ET:
From Taxation to Fighting for the Nation: Historical Fiscal Capacity and Military Draft Evasion during WWI
Luca Bagnato (lucabgn@gmail.com)
November 2nd at 12:00 ET:
Same-Sex Couples and Parental Earnings Dynamics
Rachel Nesbit (rachel.nesbit@census.gov) (with Barbara Downs, Lucia Foster, and Danielle Sandler)
November 9th at 12:00 ET:
The effects of anti-LGBTQ+ curriculums: Evidence from Utah's 'no promo homo' repeal
Santiago Deambrosi (santiagodeambrosi@gmail.com)
November 16th at 12:00 ET:
Do gender-nonconforming peers influence their classmates' life outcomes?
Abigail R. Banan (abanan@purdue.edu)
November 23rd at 12:00 ET:
N/A
December 7th at 12:00 ET:
Employer Sponsored Health Insurance and Labor Market Outcomes for Gay Men: Evidence from the Advent of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis
Conor Lennon (conor.lennon@louisville.edu)
December 14th at 12:00 ET:
The introduction of Prep and HIV: Incidence, Mortality and Heterogeneity
Sebastian Tello-Trillo (dst2c@virginia.edu)
2022
February 1, 2022
“Economic Outcomes for Transgender People in the United States: First Estimates from a Nationally Representative Sample”
Christopher S. Carpenter (christopher.s.carpenter@vanderbilt.edu) with Maxine J. Lee and Laura Nettuno
February 15, 2022
“Elite Endorsement of Emergent Issues in Weak States: Survey Experimental Evidence on Same-sex Marriage in Nepal”
Siddhartha Baral (sbaral@ucsd.edu) with Sarah Rich-Zendel
February 22, 2022
“Identifying Effective Strategies to Improve Livelihoods of LGBTI People” and a panel on Research Opportunities related to Development.
Lee Badgett (lbadgett@econs.umass.edu) with James Heintz
March 1, 2022
“The LGBTQ+ Gap: Recent Estimates for Young Adults in the United States”
Marc Folch (mfolch@uchicago.edu)
March 8, 2022
“The Impact of Sodomy Law Repeals on Crime”
Riccardo Ciacci (riccardo.ciacci@gmail.com) and Dario Sansone
March 15, 2022
“Gender and LGB Pay Gaps in the National Health Service: The Puzzle of Observability and Disclosure”
Karen Mumford (karen.mumford@york.ac.uk)
March 29, 2022
“Do Same-Sex Couples Induce Gentrification?”
Daniel J. Henderson (djhender@cba.ua.edu) with Mia Goodnature and Amanda Ross
April 5, 2022
“Gender Affirming Care and Transgender Health: Evidence fromMedicaid Coverage”
Samuel Mann (samuel.j.mann@vanderbilt.edu) with Travis Campbell and Duc Hien Nguyen
April 12, 2022
“Effects of Legal Same-Sex Marriage on Employer Offers of Domestic Partner Health Benefits”
Ben Harrell (benjamin.harrell@vanderbilt.edu) with Christopher S. Carpenter and Thomas Hegland
April 19, 2022
“Public Health Insurance Expansions and The Spread of Infectious Disease”
Shyam Raman (sr2297@cornell.edu) with Katherine Wen, Ben Harrell, Sam Mann, and Alex Hollingsworth
April 26, 2022
“Intergenerational Mobility of LGBTQ+ Individuals”
Santiago Deambrosi (santiagodeambrosi@gmail.com)
June 14, 2022
Matching on Gender and Sexual Orientation
Edoardo Ciscato and Marion Goussé (marion.gousse@gmail.com)
July 12, 2022
Commuting to work and gender-conforming social norms: evidence from same-sex couples
Sonia Oreffice (s.oreffice@exeter.ac.uk ) and Dario Sansone
August 16, 2022
Do LGBTQ-related Events Drive Individual Online Disclosure Decisions?
Jason Jones (jason.j.jones@stonybrook.edu)
Fall 2022 Seminar Schedule
Job Market Candidates:
September 6: Conversion Therapy Bans, Suicidality, and Mental Health
Benjamin Harrell (benjamin.harrell@vanderbilt.edu)
September 13: Anti-Discrimination Laws and Mental Health: Evidence from Sexual Minorities
Samuel Mann (Samuel.j.mann@vanderbilt.edu)
September 20: Power to the teens: collective labor supply model with parents and teenager
José Alfonso (jalfonso.munoza@tse-fr.eu)
September 27: Local Income, Race, and Mortality
EK Green (ekgreen42@email.arizona.edu)
October 4: The Effect of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) on Suicide Rates
Hasan Shahid (hshahid1@gsu.edu).
October 11: Mechanisms of Misinformation Diffusion
Jimmy Narang (jimmy.narang@berkeley.edu)
October 18: The Effects of Post-Release Supervision on Crime and Recidivism
By Abigail R. Banan (abanan@purdue.edu)
October 25: Bikesharing, Metro Stations, and House Prices: Evidence from Washington’s Capital Bikeshare System
Xinxin Cao (xinxin_cao@gwu.edu)
November 1: Criminal Activity Nuisance Ordinances and Drug Mortality
Ashley Bradford (asbrad@iu.edu)
November 8: #IamLGBT: Social networks and coming out in a hostile environment
Jan Gromadzki (jangromadzkiecon@gmail.com), Przemyslaw Siemaszko
November 15: Do LGBTQ-related Events Drive Individual Online Disclosure Decisions?
Jason J. Jones (jason.j.jones@stonybrook.edu)
November 29: If You (Re)Build It, Will They Come? Evidence from California Hospitals
Zach Levin (levin611@umn.edu)
LGBTQ+ Papers by non-JMCs
December 6
Inclusive Law and Democrats Votes - Evidence from Law of Same-Sex Marriage in the U.S.
Luyang Chen (luyang.chen@bristol.ac.uk)
December 13
Understanding Labor Market Discrimination Against Transgender People: Evidence from a Double List Experiment and a Survey
Billur Aksoy (billuraksoy@gmail.com) (with Christopher S. Carpenter and Dario Sansone)
December 20
Gender, Sexual Identity, and Competitiveness
Ian Chadd (chaddi@rpi.edu) (with Billur Aksoy)