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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Fabrizio Mazzonna (IDEP and CEPRA, Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera.); Franco Peracchi (Istituto Einaudi per l'Economia e la Finanza (EIEF) and Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza Facoltà di Economia Università degli Studi di Roma "Tor Vergataâ€, Roma, Italia.) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal effect of retirement on health and cognitive abilities by exploiting the variation between and within European countries in old age retirement rules. We show negative and significant effect of retirement on both health and cognitive abilities. We also show evidence of significant heterogeneity across occupational groups. In particular, the negative effect of retirement disappears and turn to be even positive for those working in very physically demanding jobs. |
| Keywords: | Aging, cognitive abilities, retirement, occupation, SHARE |
| JEL: | C26 I14 J14 J24 J26 |
| Date: | 2014–02–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lug:wpidep:1401&r=dem |
| By: | Karolina Goraus (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw); Krzysztof Makarski (National Bank of Poland, Warsaw School of Economics); Joanna Tyrowicz (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw; National Bank of Poland) |
| Abstract: | The objective of this paper is to analyze the welfare effects of raising the retirement age. With aging populations, in many countries de iure retirement age has been raised. With a standard assumption that individuals prefer leisure to work, such policy necessitates some welfare deterioration. This could be outweighed by lower taxation (defined benefit schemes becoming more balanced) or higher pension benefits (defined contribution schemes yield higher effective replacement rate). Moreover, it is often argued that actuarially fair pension systems provide sufficient incentives for individuals to extend the number of working years, which undermines the need to change de iure retirement age. In this paper we construct an OLG model in which we analyze welfare effects of extending the retirement age under PAYG defined benefit, PAYG defined contribution and partially funded defined contribution pension schemes. We find that such policy is universally welfare improving. However, postponed retirement translates to lower savings, which implies decrease in per capita capital and output. |
| Keywords: | PAYG, retirement age, pension system reform, time inconsistency, welfare |
| JEL: | C68 E17 E25 J11 J24 H55 D72 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2014-03&r=dem |
| By: | Rey Dang; Anne-Françoise Bender; Marie-José Scotto |
| Abstract: | Our research aims at exploring individual’s characteristics of women on Boards in the French context. In the first part of our paper, we discuss the different theoretical frameworks which supported the business case of gender diversity on Boards of Directors and expose our hypothesis regarding differences in women and men characteristics. The second part presents our methods, measurements and data. Then, we focus on our empirical study. Our sample consists of the French Index SBF 120 companies. We studied the profile of 1,250 directors collecting information from the firms’ annual reports of year 2010, using various scales defined by previous research on that field in the Anglo–Saxon literature. Our findings confirm that integrating women on boards has an impact on the Human and Social Capital of Boards but not as much as might have been expected. It is worth noting that men and women board members seem to build their human and social capital through the same educational process in France. Nonetheless, our work shows significant differences between men and women regarding professional experience and board member status. |
| Keywords: | Corporate Governance, Boards of Directors, Diversity, Gender, Board Composition |
| Date: | 2014–01–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipg:wpaper:2014-054&r=dem |
| By: | Boll, Christina; Leppin, Julian Sebastian |
| Abstract: | Germany's occupational and sectoral change towards a knowledge-based economy calls for high returns to education. Nevertheless, female graduates are paid much less than their male counterparts. We wonder whether overeducation affects sexes differently and whether this might answer for part of the gender pay gap. We decompose total year of schooling in years of over- (O), required (R), and undereducation (U). As ORU earnings estimations based on German SOEP cross-section and panel data indicate, overeducation pays off less than required education in the current job even when unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account. Moreover, analyses of job satisfaction and self-assessed overeducation point to some real mismatch. However, overeducation does not matter for the gender pay gap. By contrast, women's fewer years of required education reasonably do, answering for 7.61 pp. of the East German (18.79 %) and 2.22 pp. of the West German (32.98 %) approximate gap. Moreover, job biography and the household context affect the gap more seriously in the old Bundesländer than in the new ones. Overall, the West German pay gap almost doubles the East German one, and different endowments answer for roughly three quarters of the approximate gap in the Western but only for two thirds in the Eastern part. We conclude that the gendered earnings gap among German graduates is rather shaped by an employment behaviour suiting traditional gender roles and assigned gender stereotypes than being subject to gendered educational inadequacy. -- |
| JEL: | J31 J24 J16 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:hwwirp:147&r=dem |
| By: | Almås, Ingvild (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Cappelen, Alexander W. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Sørensen, Erik Ø. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Tungodden, Bertil (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of family background in explaining differences in the willingness to compete. By combining data from a lab experiment conducted with a representative sample of adolescents in Norway and high quality register data on family background, we show that family background is fundamental in two important ways. First, boys from low socioeconomic status families are less willing to compete than boys from better off families, even when controlling for confidence, performance, risk preferences, time preferences, social preferences, and psychological traits. Second, family background is crucial for understanding the large gender difference in the willingness to compete. Girls are much less willing to compete than boys among children from better off families, whereas we do not find any gender difference in willingness to compete among children from low socioeconomic status families. Our data suggest that the main mechanism explaining the role of family background is that the father’s socioeconomic status has a large effect on the boys’ willingness to compete, but no effect on the girls. We do not find any effect on the willingness to compete for boys or girls of the mother’s socioeconomic status or other family characteristic that may potentially shape competition preferences, including parental equality and sibling rivalry. |
| Keywords: | Family background; socioeconomic status; lab experiment. |
| JEL: | C91 C92 D63 |
| Date: | 2014–02–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2014_003&r=dem |
| By: | Andrén, Daniela (Örebro University School of Business); Andrén, Thomas (The Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the non-targeted earned income tax credit (EITC) introduced in Sweden in 2007 has affected the labor supply of men and women living together in two-adault households and the extent to which children affect related outcomes. Using a structural discrete labor supply model for two adult households, we estimate the impact of the EITC on both labor supply and disposable income separately for households with and without children. Our results suggest that wage elasticities differ for men and women with or without children, a result that is in line with earlier literature. However, women increased their labor supply bu 0.9 percent regardless of children in the household, whereas men with children increased their labor supply by approximately 0.5 percent and those without children increased their labor supply by 0.7 percent. |
| Keywords: | structural discrete labor supply model; EITC; younger children; two-adult households |
| JEL: | I30 I38 J18 |
| Date: | 2014–01–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2014_001&r=dem |
| By: | Emla Fitzsimons (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Institute of Education, University of London); Bansi Malde (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Alice Mesnard (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Marcos Vera-Hernandez (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London) |
| Abstract: | Incorrect knowledge of the health production function may lead to inefficient household choices, and thereby to the production of suboptimal levels of health. This paper studies the effects of a randomised intervention in rural Malawi which, over a six-month period, provided mothers of young infants with information on child nutrition without supplying any monetary or in-kind resources. A simple model first investigates theoretically how nutrition and other household choices including labour supply may change in response to the improved nutrition knowledge observed in the intervention areas. We then show empirically that, in line with this model, the intervention improved child nutrition, household consumption and consequently health. These increases are funded by an increase in male labor supply. We consider and rule out alternative explanations behind these findings. This paper is the first to establish that non-health choices, particularly parental labor supply, are affected by parents’ knowledge of the child health production function. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:14/02&r=dem |
| By: | Richard B. Freeman; Wei Huang |
| Abstract: | This study examines the ethnic identify of the authors of over 1.5 million scientific papers written solely in the US from 1985 to 2008. In this period the proportion of US-based authors with English and European names fell while the proportion of US-based authors with names from China and other developing countries increased. The evidence shows that persons of similar ethnicity co- author together more frequently than can be explained by chance given their proportions in the population of authors. This homophily in research collaborations is associated with weaker scientific contributions. Researchers with weaker past publication records are more likely to write with members of ethnicity than other researchers. Papers with greater homophily tend to be published in lower impact journals and to receive fewer citations than others, even holding fixed the previous publishing performance of the authors. Going beyond ethnic homophily, we find that papers with more authors in more locations and with longer lists of references tend to be published in relatively high impact journals and to receive more citations than other papers. These findings and those on homophily suggest that diversity in inputs into papers leads to greater contributions to science, as measured by impact factors and citations. |
| JEL: | J01 J1 J15 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19905&r=dem |
| By: | Richard Blundell (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Michael Graber (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Magne Mogstad (Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | What do labor income dynamics look like over the life-cycle? What is the relative importance of persistent shocks, transitory shocks and heterogeneous profiles? To what extent do taxes, transfers and the family attenuate these various factors in the evolution of life-cycle inequality? In this paper, we use rich Norwegian data to answer these important questions. We let individuals with different education levels have a separate income process; and within each skill group, we allow for non-stationarity in age and time, heterogeneous experience profiles, and shocks of varying persistence. We find that the income processes differ systematically by age, skill level and their interaction. To accurately describe labor income dynamics over the life-cycle, it is necessary to allow for heterogeneity by education levels and account for non-stationarity in age and time. Our findings suggest that the progressive nature of the Norwegian tax-transfer system plays a key role in attenuating the magnitude and persistence of income shocks, especially among the low skilled. By comparison, spouse's income matters less for the dynamics of inequality over the life-cycle. |
| Date: | 2014–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:14/01&r=dem |
| By: | Kuzey Yilmaz (Department of Economics, University of Rochester) |
| Abstract: | To design an optimal education policy, it is essential to account for the fertility differential between the poor and the rich because it affects the human capital investment through the child quantity-quality tradeoff of children. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium in which parents choose the quantity of children, transfer a preschool ability to their children, determine the quality of children by choosing private expenditures on basic education in addition to public expenditures on basic education, leave a bequest that could be used to finance college education. Moreover, there is an uncertainty in college completion depending on ability and endogenous wage determination based on the amount of schooling in the economy. It is very important to consider general equilibrium effects because the change in either fertility behavior or college outcomes as a result of policy changes leads to a large change in aggregate skill distribution. We find that ignoring fertility behavior, especially differential fertility substantially underestimates the role of credit constraints in the economy. We also analyze the impact of basic education subsidies and college subsidies on welfare, inequality, and intergenerational mobility. Strikingly, the choice between these two policies is found to be dependent on the magnitude of differential fertility rate. |
| Keywords: | differential fertility; human capital investment; education subsidies; general equilibrium; inequality; intergenerational mobility. |
| JEL: | H2 I2 D5 J1 J3 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:koc:wpaper:1403&r=dem |
| By: | Neuberger, Doris; Räthke-Döppner, Solvig |
| Abstract: | To sustain growth in an aging economy, it is important to ease the financing of small firms by bank loans. Using bank internal data of small business loans in Germany, we examine the determinants of loan rates in the period 1995-2010. Beyond characteristics of the firm, the loan contract, and the lending relationship, demographic aspects matter. However, collateral and relationship lending play a larger role in loan pricing than the entrepreneur's age. Banks do not seem to discriminate older borrowers by higher loan rates. We rather find statistical discrimination of younger borrowers because of their lower wealth. Single entrepreneurs obtain cheaper loans than married ones. Firms in peripheral regions with low population density are disadvantaged by higher loan rates compared to those in agglomerated regions. -- |
| Keywords: | small business finance,savings banks,relationship lending,aging,demographic change |
| JEL: | D14 E43 G21 J14 L26 |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:roswps:134&r=dem |
| By: | Remi Jedwab (Department of Economics/Institute for International Economic Policy, George Washington University); Edward Kerby (London School of Economics and Political Science); Alexander Moradi (University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the extent and forces of urban path dependence in developing countries. Railroad construction incolonialKenyaprovidesanaturalexperimenttostudytheemer- gence and persistence of this spatial equilibrium. Using new data ataï¬nespatialleveloveronecenturyshowsthatcolonialrailroads causally determined the location of European settlers, which in turn decided the location of the main cities of the country at inde- pendence. Railroads declined and settlers left after independence, yet cities persisted. Their early emergence served as a mechanism to coordinate investments in the post-independence period, yield- ing evidence for how path dependence influences development. |
| Keywords: | Path Dependence; Urbanisation; Transportation; Colonialism |
| JEL: | R11 R12 R40 O18 O33 N97 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2014-02&r=dem |
| By: | Cheng, Terence Chai (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Powdthavee, Nattavudh (London School of Economics); Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | There is a large amount of cross-sectional evidence for a midlife low in the life cycle of human happiness and well-being (a 'U shape'). Yet no genuinely longitudinal inquiry has uncovered evidence for a U-shaped pattern. Thus some researchers believe the U is a statistical artefact. We re-examine this fundamental cross-disciplinary question. We suggest a new test. Drawing on four data sets, and only within-person changes in well-being, we document powerful support for a U-shape in unadjusted longitudinal data without the need for regression equations. The paper's methodological contribution is to exploit the first-derivative properties of a well-being equation. |
| Keywords: | life-cycle happiness, subjective well-being, longitudinal study, U shape |
| JEL: | I31 D01 C18 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7942&r=dem |
| By: | Pope, Devin G. (University of Chicago Booth School of Business); Price, Joseph (Brigham Young University); Wolfers, Justin (University of Michigan) |
| Abstract: | Can raising awareness of racial bias subsequently reduce that bias? We address this question by exploiting the widespread media attention highlighting racial bias among professional basketball referees that occurred in May 2007 following the release of an academic study. Using new data, we confirm that racial bias persisted in the years after the study's original sample, but prior to the media coverage. Subsequent to the media coverage though, the bias completely disappeared. We examine potential mechanisms that may have produced this result and find that the most likely explanation is that upon becoming aware of their biases, individual referees changed their decision-making process. These results suggest that raising awareness of even subtle forms of bias can bring about meaningful change. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, implicit bias |
| JEL: | J15 J7 L83 K31 |
| Date: | 2014–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7945&r=dem |