New from the NBER

With respect to the third article, I'm not surprised to hear that people marry within their class in America. Indeed, given the international prevalence of such activity, I'd be surprised if that were not so. Nevertheless, the tails of wealth are long indeed, and the PSID captures very little of the extremes in wealth. They look at top quintile (more than 500k) and over 100k. In contrast, the top decile is over 3 million in net worth. I don't think this separates out well if the children of the rich are marrying the children of the upper middle class.

The second paper looks like an interesting one.

I'd want to see how they weight the different deferred response values.

Apparently I could get 5000 pesos for responding now, but 8000 if I waited a month and mailed it in.

I think there could be factors regarding how far I live from the post office, how much I value my time (since the difference in absolute terms is still only about $3), how much I trust the mail, and how much I trust the people making the offer that could affect my decisions without informing one way or the other on my overall time preferences.

For what it is worth, I probably would end up waiting the month and sending it in for my $3 extra -- it's just my way. :D

Rather than using a value-laden term like "impatient," it would have been better to just call it discount rates for future selves.

#3 falls into the "No Sh_t, Sherlock" category.

With respect to paper #2:

"I have never paid any attention. If you ask me what--whatever assets I have, what the allocation is now, the only honest answer I can give you is I haven't the vaguest idea. And if you asked me that question at any time in the past sixty years, I would have given you the same answer." - Robert Solow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HrTD5J2qP0

you might be interested in this article on hyper - credentialism in professional service firm hiring.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41354100

Personally, as someone who has hired hundreds of professionals and seen thousands of resumes, I question the scope of the research; it can only capture a very few firms' hiring practices. I find the last sentence of the article to describe my own firm's hiring practices. But you may find it interesting.