Seth Maxon

In a new paper, [Professor Marianne] Bertrand argues that the home environment is more likely to influence boys’ socio-emotional behavior and, subsequently, their educational outcomes than it does girls.

In “The Trouble with Boys: Social Influences and the Gender Gap in Disruptive Behavior,” Bertrand and Jessica Pan […] studied more than 20,000 American children whom they tracked for more than a decade. They found the gender gap particularly pronounced in children’s tendency to “externalize problems” or “act out.”

Read more at Chicago Booth Magazine.

The sky-high debt levels of American households may be responsible for the high unemployment rate that continues to weigh on the economy, according to research by Amir Sufi, professor of finance, and Atif Mian of the University of California – Berkeley Haas School of Business.

In a working paper that has drawn the attention of blogs published by the New York Times and Mother Jones, Sufi argues that depressed consumer spending is causing high unemployment, and spending has fallen because of deep household debt.

Read more at Chicago Booth Magazine.