Contact Info


t. 216.579.3021

f. 216.579.3050

To arrange an interview, contact our media coordinator at 216.774.2514 or .

Dionissi Aliprantis |

Research Economist

Dionissi Aliprantis, Research Economist

Dionissi Aliprantis is a research economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. He is primarily interested in applied econometrics, labor and urban economics, and education. His current work investigates neighborhood effects on education and labor market outcomes.

Dionissi completed his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in May 2010. He earned his BS in mathematics and BA in economics and Spanish at Indiana University.

  • Fed Publications
  • Other Publications
Title Date Publication Author(s) Type

 

 May, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 12-12 ; Daniel R Carroll; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper uses an overlapping-generations dynamic general equilibrium model of residential sorting and intergenerational human capital accumulation to investigate effects of neighborhood externalities. In the model, households choose where to live and how much to invest toward the production of their child's human capital. The return on the parent's investment is determined in part by the child's ability and in part by an externality from the average human capital in their neighborhood. We use the model to test a prominent hypothesis about the concentration of poverty within racially-segregated neighborhoods (Wilson 1987). We first impose segregation on a model with two neighborhoods and match the model steady state to income and housing data from Chicago in 1960. Next, we lift the restriction on moving and compute the new steady state and corresponding transition path. The transition implied by the model qualitatively supports Wilson's hypothesis: high-income residents of the low-average-human-capital neighborhood move out, reducing the returns to investment in their old neighborhood. Sorting increases citywide human capital, but it also produces congestion in the high-income neighborhood, increasing the average cost of housing. As a result, average welfare decreases by 2.2 percent of steady state consumption, and the loss is greatest for those initially in the low-income neighborhood.
top

 

 March, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 12-08 ; Francisca G-C Richter; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper estimates Local Average Treatment Effects (LATEs) of neighborhood quality from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing mobility experiment in a generalized model with multiple treatment levels. We propose a new approach to identifying parameters that exploits the identification of unobservables in the multi-level model. The variation in neighborhood quality induced by MTO only allows us to identify LATEs of moving from the first to the second decile of the national distribution of quality, but in other applications the approach may allow for the estimation of Marginal Treatment Effects. Estimated LATEs on employment, labor force participation rates, earnings, income, welfare receipt, and body mass index are consistent with standard theories of neighborhood externalities.
top

 

 February, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 11-22R ; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper investigates which parameters can be identified by the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) housing mobility experiment. Program effects and neighborhood effects are shown to be conceptually distinct parameters defined in different models with different identifying assumptions. Four assumptions identifying neighborhood effects are given special consideration: strong ignorability (SI), essential heterogeneity (EH), the Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTVA), and that individuals are observed in all treatment states. Empirical evidence is presented that the variation in neighborhoods induced by MTO does not identify effects from moving to high-quality neighborhoods. Relaxing SI by assuming EH leaves many of the remaining neighborhood effects of interest unidentified by MTO. Under EH neighborhood effects vary across individuals over a unit interval, and MTO identifies the average effect over a subinterval determined by selection into treatment. One implication is that programs designed around measures other than poverty might have larger effects than MTO. [This paper has been substantially revised from previous versions. Previous versions: September 2011 (PDF) | January 2011 (PDF)].
top

 

 January, 2012 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 12-01 ; Working Papers
Abstract: The international community has pledged $11 billion to Haiti, a country where nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) provide nearly all public goods and services. This paper addresses two questions about these NGOs: How can they most effectively perform their own work, and how can they integrate their programs into broader efforts organized by public institutions? I evaluate the community-based model of Haiti Outreach (HO), which trains communities to manage wells after they have been constructed. The effect of this training is identified by comparing the outcomes of HO's wells with a control group of wells that were refurbished by HO but then managed by other groups. Wells managed under the community-based approach are 8.7 percentage points more likely to be functioning after one year. I also propose a social planner's problem to quantify the tradeoff between equity and efficiency created by user fees that may be applied to many development programs. A social planner indifferent between standard and community-based interventions has strong preferences for sporadically providing water to the poorest members of a community at the expense of sustainably providing water to the majority of community members. Policymakers deciding between alternative interventions should also give consideration to the community-based approach for its ability to build political institutions.
top

 

 December, 2011 ; Mary Zenker; Economic Commentary
Abstract: Although the U.S. poverty rate was the same in 2000 as it was in 1970, the geographic distribution of the poor has become more concentrated. A higher concentration of poor in poor neighborhoods is a concern because it may mean the poor are exposed to fewer opportunities that affect their outcomes in life, like employment and income. We show where and how poverty has become more concentrated in the United States, and who is most likely to be affected. Online appendix.
top

 

 October, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper no. wp11-26 ; Working Papers
Abstract: Kindergarten-entrance-age effects are difficult to identify due to the nonrandom allocation of entrance-age and simultaneous relative-age effects. This paper presents evidence that instrumental variable frameworks do not identify age effects for the youngest children of a cohort using the results of statistical tests for essential heterogeneity in initial enrollment decisions. Restricting attention to the oldest children in a cohort yields a sample with quasirandom variation in entrance and relative ages. This variation is used to identify the parameters of education production functions in which both entrance and relative ages are inputs for achievement. Estimates of entrance-age parameters from the ECLS-K data set are positive, large, and persist until the spring of third grade. Relative-age parameters are smaller, tend to be negative, and fade-out for math achievement by third grade. For the average child in our sample these estimates imply that both an earlier entrance cutoff date and an earlier birthdate will increase achievement if the child remains eligible. There is extreme heterogeneity in effects by gender and home environment, and these results are likely to be the most relevant for policy.
top

 

 October, 2011 ; Timothy Dunne; Kyle Fee; Economic Commentary
Abstract: Workers with more education typically earn more than those with less education, and the difference has been growing in recent decades. Not surprisingly, the percentage of the population going after and getting a college degree has been rising as well. Since the late 1970s, though, the increase in college attainment has stalled for men and gathered steam for women. Among college-age individuals, more women now graduate than men. Changes in labor market incentives appear to explain the increased investment in education made by women. But men's investments in education have been much less responsive to the same incentives.
top

 

 January, 2011 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, working paper no. 11-01 ; Working Papers
Abstract: This paper has been updated and expanded. For the new version, see WP 11-22.
top

 

 September, 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland working paper, no. 10-12 ; Working Papers
Abstract: A wide literature uses date of birth as an instrument to study the causal effects of educational attainment. This paper shows how parents delaying their children’s initial enrollment in kindergarten, a practice known as redshirting, can make estimates obtained through this identification framework all but impossible to interpret. A latent index model is used to illustrate how the monotonicity assumption in this framework is violated if redshirting decisions are made in a setting of essential heterogeneity. Empirical evidence is presented from the ECLS-K data set that favors this scenario; redshirting is common and heterogeneity in the treatment effect of educational attainment is likely a factor in parents’ redshirting decisions.
top
Title Date Publication Author(s) Type
Redshirting, Compulsory Schooling Laws, and Educational Attainment

 

 April, 2012 Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, vol. 37, pp. 316-338. ; Journal Article
Abstract: A wide literature uses date of birth as an instrument to study the causal effects of educational attainment. This paper shows how parents delaying their children's initial enrollment in kindergarten, a practice known as redshirting, can make estimates obtained through this identification framework all but impossible to interpret. A latent index model is used to illustrate how the monotonicity assumption in this framework is violated if redshirting decisions are made in a setting of essential heterogeneity. Empirical evidence is presented from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K) data set that favors this scenario; redshirting is common and heterogeneity in the treatment effect of educational attainment is likely a factor in parents' redshirting decisions.
top