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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒06‒16
34 papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | Stichnoth, Holger; Yeter, Mustafa |
| Abstract: | Based on a 1% sample of the German population, we study how fertility rates in the country of origin-a proxy for cultural imprint-influence the fertility outcomes of first- and second-generation female immigrants. We use both total fertility rates in the year of migration and a new measure of completed cohort fertility rates in the countries of origin as well as direct survey measures of fertility norms. Our large data set allows us to focus on a relatively narrow range for age at migration and to estimate models that rely on within-country variation only, leading to more credible identification. We find a statistically significant, sizeable and robust effect of country-of-origin fertility rates on fertility outcomes. The effect is strongest for the first generation and becomes weaker, though still statistically significant, for 'generation 1.5' (migrants arriving as children) and the second generation. It is stronger for women with low education and for women who live with a partner from the same country of origin. -- |
| Keywords: | Immigration,fertility,assimilation,intergenerational transmission,Germany |
| JEL: | J13 J15 J16 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13023&r=dem |
| By: | Michaela Kreyenfeld (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Gunnar Andersson (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Studies that have investigated the role of unemployment in childbearing decisions have often provided conflicting results. We argue that many of the inconsistencies of prior research may be attributed to a neglect of group-specific differences in behavior. In this study, we examine how the effects of unemployment on fertility vary by socio-demographic subgroups using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and from Danish population registers. We find that male unemployment leads to a postponement of first and second childbearing in both countries. The role of female unemployment is less clear at these parities. Both male and female unemployment is positively correlated with third birth risks. More importantly, our results show that there are strong educational gradients in the unemployment and fertility nexus, and that the relationship between unemployment and fertility varies by socioeconomic group. Fertility tends to be lower during periods of unemployment among highly educated women and men, but not among their less educated counterparts. |
| Keywords: | Germany, fertility |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2013-008&r=dem |
| By: | Michaela Kreyenfeld (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Anja Vatterrott (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses recently available data from linked pension and employment registers for Germany, which contain complete fertility histories of women as well as longitudinal information of firm-specific characteristics where these women have been employed. It is examined how occupational sex segregation of the labor market (measured by the share of female employees in a firm) is related to first, second and third birth risks. In line with previous research, we find a strong sex segregation of the German labor market. We also find strong support for a close relationship of occupational sex segregation and fertility behavior. Women who are employed in female-dominated firms have substantially higher first, second and third birth risks than other women. |
| Keywords: | Germany, fertility |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2013-009&r=dem |
| By: | Nathalie Guilbert (PSL, Université Paris-Dauphine, IRD,LEDa, UMR DIAL) |
| Abstract: | (english) This paper uses data from recent Senegalese Demographic and Health Surveys to explore the link between female empowerment and child mortality via early marriage, defined as marriage before age 16. There exist three channels through which early marriage reduces a mother's ability to take good care of her children: the harmful physical consequences of early sex and pregnancy; a disrupted education; and reduced autonomy and bargaining power. Controlling for the first two of these allows us to isolate the empowerment effect of early marriage. We estimate that it increases the probability that the mother experience at least one son death by 4.43%, and raises the number of dead sons per mother by 0.074. Particular attention is paid to discuss and address endogeneity issues. We also further investigate the heterogeneity of impact by current age and marriage duration. Findings suggest that we effectively identify the empowerment channel. _________________________________ (français) Cet article utilise les données des Enquêtes Démographiques et de Santé collectées en 2005 et en 2010 au Sénégal pour explorer le lien entre autonomisation des femmes et mortalité infantile, via la pratique du mariage précoce. Le mariage précoce est défini comme tout mariage ayant lieu avant que la jeune fille ait atteint 16 ans. Cette pratique est encore très répandue au Sénégal où 34,4% des femmes mariées sont concernées. Il existe trois canaux via lesquels le mariage précoce réduit l’aptitude des femmes à prendre bien soin de leurs enfants. Le premier est lié aux conséquences physiques désastreuses des rapports sexuels et grossesses précoces. Le deuxième découle du manque d’éducation formelle et informelle reçue par ces jeunes femmes pour lesquelles toute opportunité d’aller à l’école est interrompue précocement par le mariage. Le troisième ressort de l’absence de pouvoir de négociation des femmes au sein de leur ménage et de leur absence d’autonomie. En contrôlant pour les deux premiers canaux, nous sommes en mesure d’isoler l’impact spécifique du canal d’autonomisation des femmes sur la mortalité infantile. On estime alors que cette absence de pouvoir de négociation des femmes, exacerbée dans le cas des mariages précoces, accroît la probabilité d’une femme de voir un de ses fils décédés avant l’âge de 5 ans de 4,43% et leur nombre de 0,074. L’impact sur la mortalité des filles est non significatif. Une attention particulière a été portée à discuter et résoudre les problèmes d’endogénéité auxquels nous faisons face dans cette étude. Nous avons aussi creusé l’hétérogénéité de l’impact en fonction de l’âge actuel de la femme et du nombre d’années passées dans l’union, ceci afin de confirmer que l’on identifie bien le canal d’autonomisation des femmes. En effet, avec le temps, la connaissance du ménage d’accueil et un âge plus élevé qui confère un certain statut social, il est probable que l’effet « pouvoir de négociation » du mariage précoce s’amenuise. C’est effectivement ce que l’on observe. |
| Keywords: | Early marriage, Senegal, Fertility, Child Mortality, Women Empowerment, Bargaining Power, Mariage précoce, Sénégal, fécondité, mortalité infantile, autonomisation des femmes, pouvoir de négociation. |
| JEL: | J12 J13 I14 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt201305&r=dem |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser; Yueran Ma |
| Abstract: | What determines beliefs about the ability and appropriate role of women? An overwhelming majority of men and women born early in the 20th century thought women should not work; a majority now believes that work is appropriate for both genders. Betty Friedan (1963) postulated that beliefs about gender were formed by consumer good producers, but a simple model suggests that such firms would only have the incentive to supply error, when mass persuasion is cheap, when their products complement women’s time in the household, and when individual producers have significant market power. Such conditions seem unlikely to be universal, or even common, but gender stereotypes have a long history. To explain that history, we turn to a second model where parents perpetuate beliefs out of a desire to encourage the production of grandchildren. Undersupply of female education will encourage daughters’ fertility, directly by reducing the opportunity cost of their time and indirectly by leading daughters to believe that they are less capable. Children will be particularly susceptible to persuasion if they overestimate their parents’ altruism toward themselves. The supply of persuasion will diminish if women work before childbearing, which may explain why gender-related beliefs changed radically among generations born in the 1940s. |
| JEL: | J16 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19109&r=dem |
| By: | Tom Vogl |
| Abstract: | Discussions of cross-sectional fertility heterogeneity and its interaction with economic growth typically assume that the poor have more children than the rich. Micro-data from 48 developing countries suggest that this assumption was false until recently. Over the second half of the twentieth century, the association of economic status with fertility and the association of the number of siblings with their education flipped from generally positive to generally negative. Because large families switched from investing in more education to investing in less, heterogeneity in fertility across families initially increased but now largely decreases average educational attainment. While changes in GDP per capita, women's work, sectoral composition, urbanization, and population health do not explain the reversal, roughly half of it can be attributed to the rising aggregate education levels of the parent generation. The results are consistent with two classes of theories of the fertility transition: (1) those based on changing preferences over the quality and quantity of children and (2) those incorporating subsistence consumption constraints. |
| JEL: | E24 I25 J1 O1 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19128&r=dem |
| By: | Westermaier, Franz; Morefield, Brant; Mühlenweg, Andrea M. |
| Abstract: | We examine how parental health shocks affect children's non-cognitive skills. Based on a German mother-and-child data base, we draw on significant changes in selfreported parental health as an exogenous source of health variation to identify effects on outcomes for children at ages of three and six years. At the age of six, we observe that maternal health shocks in the previous three years have significant negative effects on children's behavioral outcomes. The most serious of these maternal health shocks decrease the observed non-cognitive skills up to half a standard deviation. Paternal health does not robustly affect non-cognitive outcomes. -- |
| Keywords: | Human capital,health,non-cognitive skills |
| JEL: | I00 J24 I10 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13032&r=dem |
| By: | Inna Cintina (University of Hawaii at Manoa Economic Research Organization) |
| Abstract: | The minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) requirements can affect teen fertility rates through changes in alcohol-induced risky sexual behavior. The direction of the effect can vary depending on changes in alcohol consumption context and intensity. Using micro-level data, I find that a decrease in the MLDA increases the probability of unwanted first pregnancy among 15-20 year-old blacks and poor whites. The effect on non-poor whites is not statistically significant. I find some evidence that the individual eligibility status at the time of first pregnancy rather than the state MLDA might affect fertility among non-poor whites. |
| Keywords: | Minimum Legal Drinking Age (MLDA), Pregnancy, Fertility, Sexual Behavior, Alcohol Consumption, Discrete Hazard |
| JEL: | J13 J18 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:201309&r=dem |
| By: | Agne Suziedelyte (The University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to determine if there is a causal relationship between children's time spent on media related activities and their weight. Since the beginning of 1980s, childhood obesity rates in the U.S. and other developed countries have been increasing. It has been suggested in the literature that changes in children's media use is an important explanation for the observed increase in children's weight. I investigate whether or not this hypothesis is supported by data. Additionally, I compare the eects of television, or old media, with the eects of computers and video games, or new media. The Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used for the analysis. To address the endogeneity of children's media use, I use the child xed eects and correlated random effects models. I find no evidence that media use contributes to weight gain among children. On average, a one hour per week increase in a child's video game or computer time is estimated to decrease his/ her body mass index slightly and to not affect signicantly the probability of being overweight or obese. The estimated effects of television time on weight are not significantly different from zero. These findings, especially the results related to children's computer or video game time, are robust to a number of sensitivity checks. Additionally, there is heterogeneity in the effects of media time by child and family characteristics. |
| Keywords: | obesity; body weight; media use; time use; children |
| JEL: | D13 I12 J13 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2012-38&r=dem |
| By: | Gabriela Aparicio (Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University); Paul E. Carrillo (Department of Economics/Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University); M. Shahe Emran (Department of Economics/Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | Sunday birth rates in Ecuador have sharply declined, and the drop is larger among young cohorts in urban areas. These trends are attributed to an increase in cesarean births, which are generally scheduled during regular hospital hours. Multiple rounds of Health Surveys confirm that mothers with higher levels of education and socioeconomic status are more likely to give birth via cesarean and less likely to give birth on Sunday. Using administrative birth and earnings records we find that this selection process is strong enough to create differences in education and earnings between individuals born on Sunday and individuals born on other days. After controlling for age, education, gender and marital status, workers born on Sunday earn 2 percent less than comparable workers born on other days of the week. Similarly, workers born on Sunday are 0.6 percent less likely to attain a high school diploma than their counterparts. The Sunday-born education and earnings gap is larger for young cohorts in Quito and Guayaquil, precisely the same cohorts and urban locations where the decline in Sunday birth rates is largest. |
| Keywords: | Sunday baby, weekend births, earnings regression, earnings gap, developing country, Ecuador |
| JEL: | H26 H32 O12 |
| Date: | 2013–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2013-2&r=dem |
| By: | Mahlberg, Bernhard; Freund, Inga; Crespo Cuaresma, Jesús; Prskawetz, Alexia |
| Abstract: | Current demographic developments are expected to challenge the sustainability of welfare in industrialised economies. Persistent low fertility levels and increasing survival rates to older age imply a decreasing share of younger individuals within the labour force that needs to support an increasing share of old people out of the labour force. We use matched employeremployee data for Austria at the firm level in order to study the link between the age structure and labour productivity and concentrate on the role played by regional location and sector affiliation. We apply multilevel estimation techniques in order to account for systematic variation of the age-productivity pattern with regard to these two dimensions. Our results indicate that the age-productivity pattern differs significantly across regions and across sectors and that sectoral differences are the more sizable source of heterogeneity in the link between the age structure and firm productivity. -- |
| Keywords: | age-productivity profile,firm heterogeneity,employer-employee data,multilevel regression methods,regional variability,sectoral variability |
| JEL: | C21 J14 J24 J82 R11 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuweco:012013&r=dem |
| By: | Alma Espino (Universidad de la República (Uruguay). Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración. Instituto de Economía) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the gender wage gap considering the effect of gender occupational segregation and its impact on those differences and imbalances in labor skills. It also investigates to what extent these mismatches are in turn an impact that collaborates in maintaining gender wage gaps. Occupational segregation is measured and then included as an explanatory variable together with others like those related to job skills mismatches to estimate the gender wage gaps. The results show that segregation is essential to understand the persistence of gender wage gaps (though a substantial portion of it remains explained by sex) and over qualification among women. These results have implications for public policy, stressing the importance of creating mechanisms breaking gender stereotypes that lead to a pronounced economic discrimination. |
| Keywords: | Segregation, wage gap, overqualification, underqualification |
| JEL: | J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulr:wpaper:dt-20-12&r=dem |
| By: | Jesper Bagger; Javier A. Birchenall; Hani Mansour; Sergio Urzúa |
| Abstract: | We introduce a general framework to analyze the trade-off between education and family size. Our framework incorporates parental preferences for birth order and delivers theoretically consistent birth order and family size effects on children's educational attainment. We develop an empirical strategy to identify these effects. We show that the coefficient on family size in a regression of educational attainment on birth order and family size does not identify the family size effect as defined within our framework, even when the endogeneity of both birth order and family size are properly accounted for. Using Danish administrative data we test the theoretical implications of the model. The data does not reject our theory. We find significant birth order and family size effects in individuals' years of education thereby confirming the presence of a quantity-quality trade off. |
| JEL: | C23 C26 D50 E20 E24 J12 J13 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19111&r=dem |
| By: | Claudia Olivetti |
| Abstract: | This paper provides additional evidence on the U-shaped relationship between the process of economic development and women's labor force participation. The experience of the United States is studied in a comparative perspective relative to a sample of rich economies observed over the period 1890-2005. The analysis confirms the existence of a U-shaped female labor supply function, coming from both cross-country and within country variation. Further analysis of a large cross section of economies observed over the post-WWII period suggests that the timing of a country's transition to a modern path of economic development affects the shape of women's labor supply. |
| JEL: | J22 N11 N12 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19131&r=dem |
| By: | UNAYAMA Takashi |
| Abstract: | This paper extends the analysis of Unayama (2010; 2011), which identifies the evolution of the compatibility of jobs and marriage/child birth using repeated cross-sectional data from the population census from 1980 to 2005, adding the latest data from the 2010 Population Census. Using the same methodology, this paper finds that the compatibility of jobs and marriage/child birth has greatly improved since 2005, while there was almost no change between 1980 and 2005. The availability of nursery schools, which is identified as the main determinant of the compatibility, has also improved. |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:rdpsjp:13039&r=dem |
| By: | Valente, Christine |
| Abstract: | Between 1996 and 2006, Nepal experienced violent civil conflict as a consequence of a Maoist insurgency, which many argue also brought about an increase in female empowerment. This paper exploits variations in exposure to conflict by birth cohort, survey date, and district to estimate the impact of the insurgency on education outcomes. Overall conflict intensity, measured by conflict casualties, is associated with an increase in female educational attainment, whereas abductions by Maoists, which often targeted school children, have the reverse effect. Male schooling tended to increase more rapidly in areas where the fighting was more intense, but the estimates are smaller in magnitude and more sensitive to specification than estimates for females. Similar results are obtained across different specifications, and robustness checks indicate that these findings are not due to selective migration. |
| Keywords: | Primary Education,Population Policies,Education For All,Education and Society,Post Conflict Reconstruction |
| Date: | 2013–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6468&r=dem |
| By: | Wolfgang Maennig (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg); Malte Steenbeck (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg); Markus Wilhelm (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses time-dependent rhythms in happiness in three aspects. We show that the Sunday neurosis exists exclusively for men with a medium level of education and both men and women with high levels of education. Men with high levels of education may even experience a weekend neurosis. This study is the first to test for intra-monthly rhythms and to demonstrate that men with a lower educational background may suffer from negative effects on happiness towards the end of the month, potentially due to liquidity problems. The study is also the first to demonstrate that – even when controlling for health and income effects – happiness exhibits seasonal effects over the annual period, depending on gender and education. |
| Keywords: | Happiness; life satisfaction; weekend neurosis; rhythms in time |
| JEL: | I31 N70 Q48 |
| Date: | 2013–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hce:wpaper:046&r=dem |
| By: | Loretti I. Dobrescu (University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a dynamic structural life-cycle model to study how heterogeneous health and medical spending shocks a¤ect the savings behavior of the elderly. Individuals are allowed to respond to health shocks in two ways: they can directly pay for their health care expenses (self-insure) or they can rely on health insurance contracts. There are two possible insurance options, one through formal contracts and another through informal care provided by family. Formal contracts may be a¤ected by asymmetric information problems, whereas informal insurance depends on social ties (cohesion) and on bequeathable wealth. I estimate the model on SHARE data using simulated method of moments for four levels of wealth in a sample of single retired Europeans. Counterfactual experiments show that health, medical spending and health insurance are indeed the main drivers of the slow wealth decumulation in old age. I also fi?nd that social cohesion rises with age, declines with wealth and is higher in Mediterranean countries than in Central European and Scandinavian countries. Finally, high social cohesion appears typically associated with increased life expectancy. |
| Keywords: | savings, health, health insurance, social cohesion, life expectancy |
| JEL: | D1 D31 E27 H31 H51 I1 |
| Date: | 2012–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2012-51&r=dem |
| By: | Erkan Goeren (University of Oldenburg - Department of Economics and Statistics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the economic growth impact of cultural diversity, both domestically and in neighbouring countries, in a balanced panel of 94 countries covering the period 1970 to 2004. The measures of cultural diversity used in this article were derived from a recently developed computer algorithm intended primarily to measure linguistic distances in an automated fashion. The empirical analysis suggests that the degree of cultural diversity in contiguous neighbouring countries has substantial positive effects on domestic per capita income growth, even controlling for a broad set of regional, institutional, religious and other proximate factors of economic growth. The conclusion is that culturally homogeneous countries gain a strategic advantage over their culturally diverse neighbours. |
| Keywords: | cultural diversity, ethnic diversity, economic growth |
| JEL: | O11 O5 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zen:wpaper:16&r=dem |
| By: | Leen Meeusen; Annemie Nys |
| Abstract: | Over the last two decades, the number of individuals entitled to work incapacity (WI) benefits increased strongly in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. The caseload has consequently increased but this has happened at a very different pace and to a very different degree. In order to draw correct conclusions regarding the actual growth in national caseload and to gain a new perspective on the very large cross-national variation, we introduce corrections on the growth of WI benefit uptake. By controlling for the evolution of the labor force and its respective gender and age components, we are able to formulate an answer to the following question: 'To what extent can the increase and cross-national variation in work incapacity caseload be explained by the evolution of the labor force and its components?' The results show that the evolution of the female labor force, and this mainly in the age brackets 15-49, had the greatest impact on the growth of WI caseload. We conclude that the corrections, based on the evolution of the different components of the labor force, reduce the growth rate of national WI caseload and narrow the gap in cross-national variation. Nevertheless, a proportion of national growth and cross-national variation remains unexplained. |
| Keywords: | labor force, female labor force participation rate, work incapacity caseload |
| JEL: | J21 Y10 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hdl:wpaper:1303&r=dem |
| By: | Alessandro Bucciol (Department of Economics (University of Verona)); Marcella Veronesi (Department of Economics (University of Verona)) |
| Abstract: | While the importance of saving is widely accepted, our understanding on how to encourage people to save is still quite weak. We provide robust evidence of the effect of alternative parental teaching strategies on the propensity to save and the amount saved by their child-ren during adulthood. Using a panel dataset from the Dutch DNB Household Survey we find that parental teaching has a significant and large effects on saving attitude. Although the best teaching strategy involves a combination of different methods (giving an allow-ance, controlling how children spend their money, and talking about saving and budgeting), just giving an allowance is ineffective. Individuals who received no parental teaching tend to procrastinate their savings as long as they can. |
| Keywords: | saving, teaching to save, children, allowance |
| JEL: | J13 D12 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:10/2013&r=dem |
| By: | Stauvermann, Peter Josef; Kumar , Ronald |
| Abstract: | Using an over-lapping generations (OLG) model, we show how small open economies can enhance their growth through educational subsidies financed via government debt. In our model, we endogenize human capital and fertility without the strong assumptions of altruism or positive spill over effects from human capital accumulation. We show that subsidizing education through government debt leads to a Pareto improvement of all generations. Even if a country is a net borrower in the international capital market, we show that this subsidy-policy can help, under certain conditions, to improve its net borrowing position. Especially, our analysis can be applied to less developed countries, which are locked in a low development trap. A further desirable outcome of our analysis is that fertility rates decline for the small and less developed countries. |
| Keywords: | fertility; human capital; education subsidy; government debt. |
| JEL: | E60 H63 O41 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:47453&r=dem |
| By: | Ferdi Botha |
| Abstract: | This paper explores various dynamics in the relationship between life satisfaction and education in South Africa using the 2008 National Income Dynamics Survey. The results indicate a strong positive association between educational attainment and individual satisfaction with life, which is true in the overall sample and for men and women. This positive relationship also holds for Black and Coloured individuals, but is insignificant in the Asian and White samples. Evidence indicates that education is a positional good, in that people who have attained more than the mean level of education in their relevant cluster are significantly more satisfied with life compared to those possessing less than the mean education. |
| Keywords: | subjective wellbeing, positional concerns, Education, South Africa |
| JEL: | I2 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:349&r=dem |
| By: | Andrea Otero |
| Abstract: | The main mortality causes for Colombia in 2010 are in the direction of the phenomenon known as Epidemiologic Transition. Among these we can find neoplasms and heart diseases as the factors with highest death incidence. Physical aggressions and homicides also cause a large number of deaths in the country, especially among male population. By regions, neoplasms are the main mortality cause for women, in 30 of 33 departments of the country, and homicides are the main cause for men, in 29 of 33 departments. Also it is important to point out that in some departments of the Amazon Region the acute respiratory infections are still among the top three of mortality causes. This result shows that these areas have suffered a systematic lack of targeted public policies to improve their quality of life and that they are lagged behind in comparison with the rest of the country in terms of economic and social development. RESUMEN: Las principales causas de mortalidad en Colombia para 2010 responden al fenómeno de la transición epidemiológica. Entre estas se encuentran las neoplasias y las enfermedades isquémicas del corazón, por el lado de las enfermedades. Por el lado de las causas externas, las agresiones físicas y homicidios también tienen un gran impacto sobre la mortalidad del país, sobre todo para los hombres. Por regiones, las neoplasias son la principal causa de muerte para las mujeres en 30 de los 33 departamentos estudiados y para los hombres son los homicidios en 29 de 33 departamentos. También es importante señalar que en algunos departamentos de la región de la Amazonía las infecciones respiratorias agudas siguen siendo una de las tres principales causas de mortalidad. Este resultado pone en evidencia la pobreza y rezago económico y social que existe en estas zonas y la falta sistemática de políticas públicas enfocadas en combatir sus problemas específicos. |
| Date: | 2013–06–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000102:010831&r=dem |
| By: | Norma B. Coe; Mashfiqur R. Khan; Matthew S. Rutledge |
| Abstract: | Eligibility for Medicare at age 65 is widely viewed as an important factor in retirement decisions. However, it has been difficult to quantify the influence of Medicare because eligibility for Medicare came at the same age as Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (FRA). The recent rise in the FRA, along with other changes, has decoupled the age-related incentives in the two programs, making it easier to estimate the effect of Medicare eligibility on the timing of retirement. This brief, based on a recent study, provides such estimates of the importance of Medicare on retirement decisions. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section discusses the relationship between Medicare eligibility and the timing of retirement. The second section describes the metric used for assessing the timing of retirement and the effect of Medicare eligibility. The third section reports the findings. The fourth section concludes that Medicare eligibility is a significant factor in the retirement decision, but that changes in the availability of health insurance for retirees could alter its importance going forward. |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:issbrf:ib2013-7&r=dem |
| By: | Bodo Knoll; Nadine Riedel; Eva Schlenker |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to assess if parents exert an influence on the occupation choices of their children. Using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we find a high persistency of occupational decisions across fathers and children using nested and conditional logit models. To separate effects related to genetic factors (nature) and parental education or role models (nurture), we determine the persistency separately for children who grew up with their biological fathers and for those who did not. Our results suggest that especially nurture plays a decisive role in explaining the choice of one's occupation. |
| Keywords: | Occupational choice, SOEP, parental educational investment |
| JEL: | J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp561&r=dem |
| By: | Rakhshanda, Kousar; Awudu, Abdulai |
| Abstract: | This article examines the impact of non-farm work on household welfare, differentiated by female, for rural households in the Punjab province of Pakistan. We employ an endogenous switching regression approach that accounts for selection bias due to observable and unobservable factors to examine the factors that influence the household’s decision to participate in non-farm work and the impact of participation on household welfare. Given we find no substantial selection bias on unobservable factors; we also use PSM approach to check the robustness of our results from the ESR estimates. Separate estimates are also provided for male and female to address gender heterogeneity. The empirical results reveal that participation in non-farm work significantly increases per head expenditures and reduces household poverty level. This confirms the potential role of non-farm work in improving rural household welfare and poverty alleviation in rural areas of developing countries. |
| Keywords: | non-farm work, household welfare, impact assessment, Pakistan, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Labor and Human Capital, J16, J22, Q1, |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aiea13:149890&r=dem |
| By: | Agne Suziedelyte (The University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate whether there is a causal relationship between video game playing and children's cognitive and non-cognitive skills. According to the literature, video games have a potential to improve children's cognitive abilities. Video games may also positively aect such non-cognitive skills as the ability to sustain attention and pro-social behavior. On the other hand, there are concerns that video games can teach children to behave aggressively. The Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics is used for the analysis. The key advantages of this data set are its panel nature, which allows addressing the endogeneity of video game playing, and the time diary component, which provides a reliable measure of children's video game time. I nd that video game playing has a positive statistically signicant eect on some of the cognitive skills. More specically, an increase in video game time is found to improve children's ability to solve problems. There is no statistically signicant effect of video game playing on children's reading skills, once other variables are held fixed. The findings of this study support the hypothesis that video game playing may improve certain non-cognitive skills. Moreover, there is no evidence that video game playing increases aggressiveness in children. |
| Keywords: | cognitive and non-cognitive skills; human capital; video game playing; time use; children |
| JEL: | D13 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2012-37&r=dem |
| By: | Salamanca Acosta N.; Feld J.F.; Hamermesh D. (GSBE) |
| Abstract: | The immense literature on discrimination treats outcomes as relative One group suffers compared to another. But does a difference arise because agents discriminate against othersare exophobicor because they favor their own kindare endophilic This difference matters, as the relative importance of the types of discrimination and their inter-relation affect market outcomes. Using a field experiment in which graders at one university were randomly assigned students exams that did or did not contain the students names, on average we find favoritism but no discrimination by nationality, and neither favoritism nor discrimination by gender, findings that are robust to a wide variety of potential concerns. We observe heterogeneity in both discrimination and favoritism by nationality and by gender in the distributions of graders preferences. We show that a changing correlation between endophilia and exophobia can generate perverse predictions for observed market discrimination. |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umagsb:2013026&r=dem |
| By: | Christopher C. Afendulis; Michael E. Chernew; Daniel P. Kessler |
| Abstract: | Medicare currently allows beneficiaries to choose between a government-run health plan and a privately- administered program known as Medicare Advantage (MA). Because enrollment in MA is optional, conventional observational estimates of the program's impact are potentially subject to selection bias. To address this, we use a discontinuity in the rules governing MA payments to health plans that gives greater payments to plans operating in counties in Metropolitan Statistical Areas with populations of 250,000 or more. The sharp difference in payment rates at this population cutoff creates a greater incentive for plans to increase the generosity of benefits and therefore enroll more beneficiaries in MA in counties just above versus just below the cutoff. We find that the expansion of MA on this margin reduces beneficiaries' rates of hospitalization and mortality. |
| JEL: | I1 I18 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19101&r=dem |
| By: | E. M. Parilina; A. Tampieri |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study marriage formation through a two-sided secretary problem approach. We consider individuals with nontransferable utility and two different dimensions of heterogeneity, a characteristic evaluated according to the idiosyncratic preferences of potential partners, and an universally-rankable characteristic. There are two possible states of the world, one in which people meet their partner randomly, and one in which the meeting occurs between individuals with similar characteristics. We show that individuals with higher universal characteristic tend to be more picky in their marriage hunting. This does not necessarily mean that they marry later than other individuals, since the higher expected quality of their potential partners in the assortative meeting state can make them marry earlier than individuals with a lower universal characteristic. |
| JEL: | C73 C78 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bol:bodewp:wp886&r=dem |
| By: | Peter Coles (Harvard Business School); Ran Shorrer (Harvard University and Harvard Business School) |
| Abstract: | Since no stable matching mechanism can induce truth-telling as a dominant strategy for all participants, there is often room in matching markets for strategic misrepresentation (Roth [25]). In this paper we study a natural form of strategic misrepresentation: reporting a truncation of one's true preference list. Roth and Rothblum [28] prove an important but abstract result: in certain symmetric, incomplete information settings, agents on one side of the market (“the women”) optimally submit some truncation of their true preference lists. In this paper we put structure on this truncation, both in symmetric and general settings, when agents must submit preference lists to the Men-Proposing Deferred Acceptance Algorithm. We first characterize each woman's truncation payoffs in an incomplete information setting in terms of the distribution of her achievable mates. The optimal degree of truncation can be substantial: we prove that in a uniform setting, the optimal degree of truncation for an individual woman goes to 100% of her list as the market size grows large, when other women are truthful. In this setting, we demonstrate the existence of an equilibrium where all agents use truncation strategies. Compared to truthful reporting, in any equilibrium in truncation strategies, welfare diverges for men and women: women prefer the truncation equilibrium, while men would prefer that participants truthfully report. In a general environment, we show that the less risk averse a player, the greater the degree of her optimal truncation. Finally, when correlation in preferences increases, players should truncate less. While several recent papers have focused on the limits of strategic manipulation, our results serve as a reminder that without the pre-conditions ensuring truthful reporting, even in settings where agents have little information, the potential for manipulation can be significant. |
| Keywords: | Matching Markets, Truncation |
| JEL: | C78 C62 D61 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2013.49&r=dem |
| By: | Andrén, Daniela (Örebro University School of Business); Andrén, Thomas (Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations (Saco) and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Although the economic integration of immigrants has been the subject of a large number of studies, the research on the effect of intermarriage on immigrants' economic integration/assimilation is scarce and has no equivalence in the literature on the receipt of social assistance. This study fills this gap in the literature by estimating the structural state dependence in social assistance in Sweden during 1990-1999 by different types of households, which were grouped by the country of birth of the sampled individual and his/her partner. Using a dynamic discrete choice model that controls for unobserved heterogeneity and the initial conditions problem, we find that state dependence in Swedish social assistance was relatively strong during 1990-1999, and differed extensively across different household types. Although Swedish-born partners who separated are one of the groups with the lowest receipt of social assistance (i.e., 1.08-1.76%), these individuals exhibit the highest state dependence (24.4 percentage points). Foreign-born singles have almost the same value for the state dependence, but these individuals also have the highest receipt of social assistance (18.47%). Surprisingly, the group with the lowest receipt of social assistance (0.27-3.06%) and the lowest state dependence (4.7 percentage points) are the foreign-born women living together with a Swedish-born man. |
| Keywords: | social assistance; state dependence; unobserved heterogeneity; initial conditions; dynamic probit model; GHK simulator |
| JEL: | I30 I38 J18 |
| Date: | 2013–05–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2013_007&r=dem |
| By: | Furio Camillo Rosati (University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and UCW); Jacobus de Hoop (University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and UCW) |
| Abstract: | Using data from BRIGHT, an integrated program that aims to improve school participation in rural communities in Burkina Faso, we investigate the impact of school subsidies and increased access to education on child work. Regression discontinuity estimates demonstrate that, while BRIGHT substantially improved school participation, it did not reduce – in fact may have increased - children’s participation in economic activities and household chores. This combination of increased school participation and work can be explained by the introduction of a simple non convexity in the standard model of altruistic utility maximizing households. If education programmes are implemented to achieve a combination of increased school participation and a reduction in child work they may either have to be combined with different interventions that effectively reduce child work or they may have to be tuned more carefully to the incentives and constraints the child labourer faces. |
| Keywords: | Burkina Faso, child labour, regression discontinuity, school participation. |
| JEL: | I25 J22 J24 O12 O55 |
| Date: | 2013–05–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:282&r=dem |