IZA - Electronic Archive

M. Hoekstra | S. Carrell | K. F. Zimmermann

At the traditional IZA reception during the Annual Meeting of the Allied Social Science Associations (ASSA), held in San Diego in January 2013, IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann presented the 2012 IZA Young Labor Economist Award to Scott Carrell (UC Davis) and Mark Hoekstra (Texas A&M) for their article "Externalities in the Classroom: How Children Exposed to Domestic Violence Affect Everyone's Kids" (American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2010).

The award-winning paper studies whether children from troubled families generate negative spillovers on the educational achievements of their peers. The authors constructed a unique dataset in which children’s school records are matched to domestic violence cases from court records in a Florida county. They find that about 5% of the children in their sample are exposed to domestic violence. This implies that about 70% of the classes have at least one kid that has been exposed to domestic violence. The academic records show that children from troubled homes not only have lower test scores themselves, but they also decrease the performance of their peers. There is a statistically significant reduction in math and reading test scores and a significant increase in misbehavior at school, relative to classes without troubled children. Troubled boys and children from low-income families are the main drivers of these negative spillovers: Adding one more troubled boy to a classroom of 20 students increases the number of disciplinary infractions committed by other boys by 40 percent. These findings have important implications for education policy. They provide clean and strong evidence of the "bad apple" effect. The paper also shows that addressing family violence has a double dividend – while improving the life of the most troubled students, it can also positively affect these children's peers.

[More about the YLEA]

On January 22, 1963, France and Germany signed their historic friendship treaty. But after 50 years, both countries still go separate ways in the core areas of economic and social policy. IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann: "The current European financial and growth crisis that threatens the cohesion of the European community can only be resolved convincingly if two leading powers, France and Germany, coordinate their strategies in fields of economic, financial and labor market policy." This includes harmonization of tax policies and budget plans, as well as coordinated labor market policies with common standards in vocational training. In this context, IZA also contributes to the report of the French government to tackle youth unemployment and to improve vocational training.

IZA Director Zimmermann: "It must be applauded that France is finally aiming at reforms for a more flexible labor market, similar to Germany’s Agenda 2010." Vice versa, Germany could learn a lot from France when it comes to family policy strategies to cope with demographic change. "The 50th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty should remind us that Europe can only 'function' if the Paris-Berlin axis is functional," said Zimmermann.

Read the IZA press release (in German).

S. Polachek

The Research in Labor Economics series, co-edited by IZA since 2007, celebrates its 35th anniversary with a retrospective edition containing 20 of the most influential RLE articles along with new introductory prefatory updates. Written by the original authors, these new prefaces emphasize recent developments that each article might have inspired, and they also discuss remaining unanswered questions. Solomon Polachek, who has edited the series since 1995, presented the anniversary volume at the IZA reception in San Diego (see article below).

Since its inception in 1977, the RLE series has published over 350 articles encompassing a wide range of themes in labor economics, such as labor supply, work effort, schooling, on-the-job training, earnings distribution, discrimination, migration, and the effects of government policies on worker well-being. It aims to apply economic theory and econometrics to analyze important policy-related questions, often with an international focus.

More information:
- Preface of the anniversary volume
- RLE homepage