Discussion Ma (2024)

The Rise of Professional Women and Anti-Discrimination Policies - Evidence from the CPA Profession

Caspar David Peter

Rotterdam School of Management

October 9, 2024

Contributions

My view

graph TD
    A[Contributions] 
    A -->|Yes| B[Research Idea] 
    A -->|Yes| D[Research Design]
    A -->|Not yet| C[Practical Implications?]
    B --> |"👷"|E[Causal effect of Title IX]
    C --> |"👷"|F[Implications for \npeople/regulators? ]
    D --> |"👷"|G[Add to identification?]

My suggestions

Separate your study better from Rim (2021) and link to Sutherland, Uckert, and Vetter (2024)
Highlight the creativity of your idea and identification strategy
Showcase and exploit the data (more)
Discuss the economic/practical implications of your findings
- Related to current regulation and access to technology?
- Welfare effects?

Contribution

Separate your study better from Rim (2021)

My view

My suggestions

What is the main econ. theory behind your idea?
What is the bigger picture?
- Disentangling the causal effect of Title IX from other events
What makes investigating the CPA profession different?
- One male-dominated profession from Rim (2021)’s results
- Highlight the identification strategy
Add Sutherland, Uckert, and Vetter (2024) to the discussion and/or contribution
- 150-Hour Rule led to a “13% greater entry decline […] for minority […] CPAs” (p. 453)

What is the main econ. theory behind it?
- Taste-based discrimination?
- Female labor market participation?
- “just” occupational licensing?
What is the bigger picture?
- Female labor force participation e.g. Acemoglu, Autor, and Lyle (2004), or
- (Taste-based) Discrimination in CPA education and the labor market e.g.
- Disentangling the the causal effect of Title IX?
What makes investigating the CPA profession different?
- You pick one male-dominated profession and replicate Rim (2021)’s results
- Highlight the identification strategy - What can you do better (at what costs)?
- Association versus causality Specifically, we find a 13% greater entry decline following enactment for minority than nonminority CPAs. Our analyses of parental income and financial aid availability point to a socioeconomic status chan- nel explaining the differential entry declines.

Research idea

Highlight your creativity and advantages of the setting

My view

My suggestions

Provide and exploit the nuances of your setting
- List requirements for each state!
- Discuss (or exploit) “Combined and/or Substitute”
- Political economy of the CPA profession, see Colbert and Murray (2013)?
- Determinants of states’ education requirements?
- Changes in education requirements, e.g. Alabama, Maryland, or Louisiana?
Replace AccEdu with an index for difficulty in meeting education/entry requirements
Follow-up: Exploit discrete changes in the index across states, like Dessaint, Golubov, and Volpin (2017) ⛄

Research design

Data

My view

graph TD
    Z[Paper] --> A[CPA Database]
    Z[Paper] --> E[CPA Database]
    A[CPA Database] 
    E[CPA Database] 
    A -->|select| C[Name] 
    C -->|collect| D[Data]
    E -->|select| G[Name] 
    E -->|select| F[State] 
    G -->|collect| H[Data]
    F -->|collect| H[Data]
    H --> I[Overview]
    D -->|append| I[Overview]
     -->|CPAverify ID| J[Details]

My experience

Collecting data from the CPA database is a time-consuming process
It is not trivial (even with LLM support)
It requires…
- Python skills
- building a data pipeline
- handling and storing millions of licenses (SQL skills)
- infrastructure skills (e.g. cloud vs. local storage)
SSRN paper that describes the process and data in detail 🔥
Describe differences in data item availability between cpaverify and state board as in Vetter (2019)

Research design

Identification strategy and more

My view

Provisions in CPA Laws & Regulation 1972

My suggestions

Clarify “timing argument”
How exactly is AccEDU defined?
- 4-years & Accounting education or “only” the latter?
Exploit variation in experience accepted?
- Public, private or governance…
Add-ons
- Ex-ante higher female labor market participation, e.g. Acemoglu, Autor, and Lyle (2004)
- Disentangle IX and EEOA - gender vs. minorities via first-name, e.g. Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004)
- Number of local CPA firms or IRS offices?
Add “Vietnam war” alternative explanation test from Rim (2021)

Minor Comments

Include all variables used in the descriptive statistics table
Think about measuring controls at t-1 and interact with Post
Think of fully interacted model with state and year fixed effects
Include a variable description table with sources?
- Where does the information for public firms in 1971/72 come from?
- What year(s) do you use in the R’s gender function and why?
- License number versus cpe_id?
- Which states are significantly affected by (EEOA) and why? Add a table.
Why does the number of observations drop to 1,300 while using widely(?) available state variables?
- Is it caused by population or GDP per capita and why?
- Other econometric reasons?
- Add more CPA related state-level controls from e.g. Cascino, Tamayo, and Vetter (2021) or Sutherland, Uckert, and Vetter (2024)
Why do observations drop in EITC test?
Do you construct a balanced panel and replace no female entry in state with 0? If so, clarify that in the text.
Typo Figure 5 Panel B - LogAcc description
Table 6 last column t-statistics are missing
Typo: page 13, “…othogonalized to FE groupings (i.e., firm(?) …)”
Barrios (2022) not in references
Podcast: What it was like to be a female CPA in the 1970s
IRS offices
State society of CPAs Board members

Thank you for your attention and good luck with your research!

References

Acemoglu, Daron, David H Autor, and David Lyle. 2004. “Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury.” Journal of Political Economy 112 (3): 497–551.

Bertrand, Marianne, and Sendhil Mullainathan. 2004. “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination.” American Economic Review 94 (4): 991–1013.

Cascino, Stefano, Ane Tamayo, and Felix Vetter. 2021. “Labor Market Effects of Spatial Licensing Requirements: Evidence from CPA Mobility.” Journal of Accounting Research 59 (1): 111–61.

Colbert, Gary J, and Dennis F Murray. 2013. “Have CPAs Captured State Accountancy Boards?” Accounting and the Public Interest 13 (1): 85–104.

Dessaint, Olivier, Andrey Golubov, and Paolo Volpin. 2017. “Employment Protection and Takeovers.” Journal of Financial Economics 125 (2): 369–88.

Ma, Hao. 2024. “’The Rise of Professional Women and Anti-Discrimination Policies Evidence from the CPA Profession’.” Job Market Paper.

Rim, Nayoung. 2021. “The Effect of Title IX on Gender Disparity in Graduate Education.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 40 (2): 521–52.

Sutherland, Andrew G, Matthias Uckert, and Felix W Vetter. 2024. “Occupational Licensing and Minority Participation in Professional Labor Markets.” Journal of Accounting Research 62 (2): 453–503.

Vetter, Felix. 2019. “Peer Review Mandates and CPA Entrepreneurship.” Available at SSRN 3481398.