Gordon Dahl is collaborating with Helmut Rainer and others to explore what makes diversity unifying in some settings but divisive in others. In their study, they examine how the mixing of ethnic groups in German schools affects intergroup cooperation and trust.

Mr. Dahl’s research interests are in labor economics and applied microeconomics, with work that often addresses public policy questions affecting families. He has explored the subtle biases parents have for sons versus daughters, the effect of unexpected emotional cues on intimate partner violence, and the effect of schooling on cognitive skills. Another line of research asks the question of whether there are intergenerational links in welfare use. During his stay, Mr. Dahl will continue to work with Helmut Rainer and others at CES and the ifo Institute on the links between diversity and discrimination in classroom environments.

David Neumark was one of the original contributors to the “new minimum wage research,” helping to pioneer the use of state-level minimum wage variation to estimate minimum wage effects. His subsequent work moved well beyond the debate over employment effects, to research on the effects of minimum wages on the income distribution, long-run effects of minimum wages on human capital and earnings, and complementarities between minimum wages and the EITC.

Mr. Neumark has made research contributions in numerous areas of labor economics that intersect with important public policy issues. His research on labor market discrimination has opened up new methods of measuring discrimination. He  has authored many studies on age discrimination and the economics of aging. Recently, he has studied how stronger age discrimination laws complement policy reforms intended to increase labor supply of older workers, conducted a large-scale field experiment testing for age discrimination, and developed methods to test for age stereotypes in job ads and explore how these influence job search of older workers.