@article {625449, title = {Why Do Women Earn Less Than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {Female workers earn $0.89 for each male-worker dollar even in a unionized workplacewhere tasks, wages, and promotion schedules are identical for men and women by design.We use administrative time card data on bus and train operators to show that the earningsgap can be explained by female operators taking, on average, 1.5 fewer hours of overtimeand 1.3 more hours of unpaid time-off per week than male operators. Female operators,especially those who have dependents, pursue schedule conventionality, predictability, andcontrollability more than male operators. Analyzing two policy changes, we demonstratethat while reducing schedule controllability can reduce the earnings gap, it can also makeworkers{\textemdash}particularly female workers{\textemdash}worse off.}, author = {Valentin Bolotnyy and Natalia Emanuel} } @article {625448, title = {Graduate Student Mental Health: Lessons from American Economics Departments}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {We study the mental health of graduate students at Economics PhD programs in the U.S. Using clinically validated surveys, we find that 18\% of graduate students experience moderate or severe symptoms of depression and anxiety {\textemdash} more than three times the population average {\textemdash} and 11\% report suicidal ideation in a two-week period. The average PhD student reports greater feelings of loneliness than does the average retired American. Only 26\% of Economics students report feeling that their work is useful always or most of the time, compared with 70\% of Economics faculty and 63\% of the working age population. Depression and symptoms of anxiety increase with time in the program: 25\% of students in years 5+ of their programs experience moderate or severe symptoms of depression or anxiety compared with 14.5\% of first-year students. Many students with significant symptoms of mental distress are not in treatment. We provide recommendations for students and faculty on ways to improve student work conditions, productivity, and mental health.}, author = {Paul Barreira and Matthew Basilico and Valentin Bolotnyy} } @article {625447, title = {The Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants and the Native-Born: Evidence from Sweden}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {We use administrative Swedish data to show that, conditional on parent income, immigrant children have similar incomes and higher educational attainment in adulthood than native-born Swedes. This result, however, masks the fact that immigrant children born into poor families are more likely than similar natives to both reach the top of the income distribution and to stay at the bottom. Immigrant children from high-income families are also more likely than natives to regress to the economic bottom. Notably, however, children from predominantly-refugee sending countries like Bosnia, Syria, and Iran have higher intergenerational mobility than the average immigrant child in Sweden.}, author = {Valentin Bolotnyy and Bratu, Cristina} } @article {625446, title = {Scaling Auctions as Insurance: A Case Study in Infrastructure Procurement}, year = {Working Paper}, abstract = {Most U.S. government spending on highways and bridges is done through {\textquotedblleft}scaling{\textquotedblright} procurement auctions, in which private construction firms submit unit price bids for each piece of material required to complete a project. Using data on bridge maintenance projects undertaken by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), we present evidence that firm bidding behavior in this context is consistent with optimal skewing under risk aversion: firms limit their risk exposure by placing lower unit bids on items with greater uncertainty. We estimate bidders{\textquoteright} risk aversion, the risk in each auction, and the distribution of bidders{\textquoteright} private costs. Simulating equilibrium item-level bids under counterfactual settings, we estimate the fraction of project spending that is due to risk and evaluate auction mechanisms under consideration by policymakers. We find that scaling auctions provide substantial savings relative to lump sum auctions and show how our framework can be used to evaluate alternative auction designs.}, author = {Valentin Bolotnyy and Shoshana Vasserman} } @article {646231, title = {The Federal Funds Network and Monetary Policy Transmission: Evidence from the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis}, journal = {Journal of Monetary Economics}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Using a network approach, we show how the federal funds market was transformed during the financial crisis through the collapse of the ABCP market in 2007, changes in monetary policy implementation, and an increase in counterparty credit risk. For both aggregate and bank-level network metrics, we find that increases in counterparty and liquidity risk are associated with reduced lending activity within the network. We also provide evidence that network peer effects are strong and influence banks{\textquoteright} holdings of reserve balances and rates paid in the federal funds market. Finally, we document how these changes to the network structure dampened the transmission of monetary policy.}, url = {https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304393219302193}, author = {Daniel O. Beltran and Valentin Bolotnyy and Elizabeth C. Klee} } @workingpaper {305226, title = {Un-Networking: The Evolution of Networks in the Federal Funds Market}, journal = {Federal Reserve Board of Governors Finance and Economics Discussion Paper Series}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Using a network approach to characterize the evolution of the federal funds market during the Great Recession and financial crisis of 2007-2008, we document that many small federal funds lenders began reducing their lending to larger institutions in the core of the network starting in mid-2007. But an abrupt change occurred in the fall of 2008, when small lenders left the federal funds market en masse and those that remained lent smaller amounts, less frequently. We then test whether changes in lending patterns within key components of the network were associated with increases in counterparty and liquidity risk of banks that make up the core of the network. Using both aggregate and bank-level network metrics, we find that increases in counterparty and liquidity risk are associated with reduced lending activity within the network. We also contribute some new ways of visualizing financial networks.}, url = {http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015055pap.pdf}, author = {Daniel O. Beltran and Valentin Bolotnyy and Elizabeth C. Klee} } @article {305221, title = {The Government-Sponsored Enterprises and the Mortgage Crisis: The Role of the Affordable Housing Goals}, journal = {Real Estate Economics}, volume = {41}, number = {3}, year = {2013}, pages = {724-755}, abstract = {I use regression discontinuity analysis to measure the effect of one of the Affordable Housing Goals, the Underserved Areas Goal (UAG), on the number of whole single-family mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (GSEs) in undeserved census tracts for 1996{\textendash}2002. Focusing additionally on tracts that became UAG-eligible in 2005{\textendash}2006, I measure the effect of the UAG during peak years for the subprime market. The results suggest a small UAG effect and challenge the view that the goals caused the GSEs to supply substantially more credit to high-risk borrowers than they otherwise would have supplied during the subprime boom.}, url = {http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1540-6229.12031/abstract}, author = {Valentin Bolotnyy} }