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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Priscila Ferreira (NIMA, Universidade do Minho); Mark Taylor (ISER, University of Essex) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether data routinely collected in household surveys and surveys of workers can be used to construct a measure of underlying match quality between worker and firm which helps test matching models and predict subsequent labour market outcomes of workers. We use subjective data from employees both on reported levels of job satisfaction with various aspects of the current job and on whether they would like a new job with a new employer to construct a measure of underlying match quality. We then use this to test several implications of matching models relating to wage-tenure profiles, wages, separations. |
| Keywords: | panel data, wages, job mobility, match effects, BHPS |
| JEL: | C33 J28 J31 J62 J63 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nim:nimawp:40/2010&r=lab |
| By: | Sónia Cabral; Cláudia Duarte |
| Abstract: | Using matched employer-employee data, we examine the main characteristics of immigrants in the Portuguese labour market in the 2002-2008 period. We find substantial differences in labour market outcomes between native and immigrant workers and among different nationality groups, in terms of age, gender, tenure, worker flows, geographical and sectoral concentration, and education levels. As in other countries, the wages of immigrants in Portugal are lower than the wages of natives, though growing at a higher pace in the period analysed. Moreover, downward wage rigidity appears to be slightly higher for immigrants than for natives. |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201031&r=lab |
| By: | Nidhiya Menon (Department of Economics, Brandeis University); Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how the 2008-2009 surges in international food and fuel prices and coinciding global financial crisis impacted the Philippine labor market, with a focus on gendered outcomes. A battery of descriptive statistics and probit regressions based on repeated cross sections of the Philippine Labor Force Survey indicate that both men and women experienced declines in the likelihood of employment, especially in 2008 and in manufacturing. While men’s job losses were limited to wage employment, women lost job opportunities in wage- and self-employment, and they experienced increases in unpaid family work. Real wages fell for men and women, with much of the decline at the upper tails of the wage distribution. If one considers education as a proxy for skill, results suggest that unskilled workers were affected most adversely when the crisis began, especially in terms of employment losses, but as the crisis conditions wore on, skilled workers experienced negative impacts as well, especially in terms of real wage cuts. |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:17&r=lab |
| By: | Cunningham, Wendy; Salvagno, Javier Bustos |
| Abstract: | Using panel data from labor force surveys in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico, the paper maps out young people's paths from the classroom to the work place during the 1980s through the early 2000s. By decomposing transition matrices into propensity to move and rate of separation and estimating duration matrices, the authors follow young people's movements between school and work and between employment sectors to better understand the dynamics of youth employment, including where youth go upon leaving school, how long they spend in each state, and where they go upon leaving various employment states. The main conclusion of the study is that young people across all three countries follow a similar trend over their life cycle: they leave school to spend a short time in the informal sector, move to a formal position for longer spells, and finally become self-employed. The authors find evidence of decreasing segmentation between formal and informal sectors as workers age, a lower propensity for formal sector employees to return to school than workers in the same age cohort who are not in the formal sector, and that entry to self-employment is not subject to income constraints. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Youth and Governance,Adolescent Health,Tertiary Education,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5521&r=lab |
| By: | Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | Contrary to what happened before NAFTA, wage inequality in Mexico decreased after 1994. This paper investigates the forces behind the post NAFTA decrease in wage inequality. Using a quantile decomposition, I show that the decline in wage inequality is driven by a decline in the returns to education and potential experience, especially at the top of the wage distribution. Supply and demand are the main contributors for this change. On the supply side, there were substantial increases in college enrollment rates after 1994, which translated into an increase in the proportion of workers with a college degree. However, this increase in supply was not met by an increase in demand for the highly educated: the proportion of the workforce in top qualified occupations and close to the top occupations did not increase as much as the increase in supply. As a result, college educated workers put wage pressures in top and less than top qualified occupations. A Bound and Johnson (1992) decomposition confirms that changes in relative supply are the main determinant behind the decrease in wage inequality. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, Mexico, education, employment |
| JEL: | J20 J31 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-15&r=lab |
| By: | Demombynes, Gabriel; Holland, Peter; Leon, Gianmarco |
| Abstract: | Uniquely among Latin American and Caribbean countries, Haiti has a largely non-public education system. Prior to the earthquake of January 2010, just 19 percent of primary school students were enrolled in public schools, with the remainder enrolled in a mix of religious, for-profit, and non-governmental organization-funded schools. This paper examines changes in Haitian schooling patterns in the last century and shows the country experienced tremendous growth in school attainment, driven almost entirely by growth in the private sector. Additionally, it provides evidence that the private market"works"to the extent that primary school fees are higher for schools with characteristics associated with education quality. The paper also analyzes the demand and supply determinants of school attendance and finds that household wealth is a major determinant of attendance. Given these findings, the authors conclude that in the near-term paying school fees for poor students may be an effective approach to expanding schooling access in Haiti. |
| Keywords: | Education For All,Tertiary Education,Primary Education,Disability,Gender and Education |
| Date: | 2010–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5503&r=lab |
| By: | Edwin van Gameren (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | A brief review of the aging of the Mexican population, the high labor force participation of elderly, and the lack of retirement pensions, is followed by a causal empirical analysis using a panel data set (Mexican Health and Aging Study, MHAS) of Mexicans aged 50 and more. We find that the labor force participation of elderly men is affected by their economic situation; in particular the availability of a retirement pension (after contributions to a pension plan earlier in their life) reduces participation. A better health raises male participation rates, while the health effect is absent for women. The opposite effect, from labor force participation on health status, is negligible for both genders. Access to health services, which is obtained if the partner or a child is working, reduces participation rates. Additional analysis indicates that the same variables influence the choice for a job in the formal or the informal sector, and whether a job is held in addition to a pension. The results suggest that a redesign of the social security including retirement pensions and health care services has implications for the individuals’ participation decisions, and therefore for future contributions to the insurance and pension plans. |
| Keywords: | labor force participation, pension, health, insurance |
| JEL: | J14 J22 C35 D13 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-06&r=lab |
| By: | Edwin van Gameren (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the participation and childcare decisions made by mothers in two-parent households with children aged 0-12 in the Netherlands, paying special attention to the role of attitudes regarding work and care. In a multinomial logit model we distinguish between not working, a small parttime job, and a larger job. For working mothers we consider no childcare, informal, and formal childcare. We account for potential endogeneity of attitudes. The results show that the role of the price of formal childcare in the decision-making process is negligible. A higher earnings capacity increases the take-up of larger jobs and formal childcare. Modern attitudes have a strong impact on the decisions to work and to use childcare. |
| Keywords: | labor force participation, childcare use, attitudes about childcare, multinomial logit |
| JEL: | J13 J22 C35 D13 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-05&r=lab |
| By: | Benjamín Villena Roldán |
| Abstract: | In this paper I introduce a novel source of residual wage dispersion. In the model, workers are heterogenous in productivity and randomly apply to ex ante identical posted vacancies. Each employer simultaneously meets several applicants, offers the position to the best candidate and bargains with her about the wage. Since the outside option of the employer is to hire the second-best worker, the wage paid to the best applicant decreases in the productivity of her closest competitor. Because the assignment of workers to vacancies is random in equilibrium, each worker faces a nondegenerate distribution of wages given her productivity before applying to a job. The framework suggests that the capability of search models to generate residual wage dispersion must be restricted to match-specific shocks. The model also predicts (i) residual wage dispersion of level wages increasing in productivity; (ii) residual wage dispersion of log wages decreasing in productivity; (iii) a negative relation between unemployment and residual wage dispersion and (iv) positive relation between productivity dispersion and residual wage dispersion. To assess these empirical predictions, I calibrate the model to match the mean and variance of the log wages in CPS data 1985-2006. The model's predictions are strongly supported in the data. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:270&r=lab |
| By: | Dhaval M. Dave; Nancy E. Reichman; Hope Corman; Dhiman Das |
| Abstract: | Exploiting variation in welfare reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, this study estimates the effects of welfare reform on an important source of human capital acquisition among women at risk for relying on welfare: vocational education and training. The results indicate that welfare reform reduced enrollment in full-time vocational education and had no significant effects on part-time vocational education or participation in other types of work-related courses, though there is considerable heterogeneity across states with respect to the strictness of educational policy and the strength of work incentives under welfare reform. In addition, we find heterogeneous effects by prior educational attainment. We find no evidence that the previously-observed negative effects of welfare reform on formal education (including college enrollment), which we replicated in this study, have been offset by increases in vocational education and training. |
| JEL: | I3 I38 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16659&r=lab |
| By: | Eva O. Arceo Gómez (CIDE); Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | In the last couple of decades, and in particular during the last couple of administrations, the Mexican government has implemented various social programs targeted specifically to women, such as PROGRESA/Oportunidades, a child care program, and a gender equality program (PROIGUALDAD). The impact that those programs may have on the work behavior of women largely depends on the form that the female labor supply takes, and in particular, on the labor supply elasticities with respect to own wages, and the husband’s wages. Despite this fact, the literature on female labor supply in Mexico is very scarce. To our knowledge, there is no estimate of the female labor supply elasticities at the national level. This paper fills in this gap in the literature. Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Mexican Census of Population, we estimate a structural model of labor supply through an application of Wooldridge’s (2002) threestep procedure. We …nd that the female labor supply elasticities had a rather sharp decrease between 1990 and 2000, which suggests that women are getting increasingly attached to the labor market. We also find evidence of heterogenous effects for women with young children and women of different cohorts. Even though female are now less responsive to changes in wages, the elasticities that we …nd are still large enough so that social programs aimed at modifying females´ work behavior through incentives might still be very successful. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, Mexico, labor supply, employment, married women |
| JEL: | J20 J31 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-16&r=lab |
| By: | Benjamín Villena Roldán |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a general equilibrium model of nonsequential employer search with recruiting selection and heterogeneous workers, and characterizes its equilibrium. I depart from the standard search model by allowing firms to simultaneously meet several applicants and choose the best candidate. Recruiting selection is important: firms interview a median of 5 applicants per vacancy and spend 2.5% of their total labor cost-about US$4200 per recruit - in these activities. The model provides an endogenous matching process with heterogeneous workers in which the hazard rate out of unemployment increases in productivity. The model also accounts for the empirical evidence of negative duration dependence of both hazard rates and re-employment wages. Under recruiting selection, lifetime inequality increases relative to the sequential search benchmark because low wage workers go through longer and more volatile unemployment spells, and have less valuable outside options to bargain with firms. I also show that stronger recruiting selection worsens the productivity of the unemployed and may not generate a more efficient job assignment at the aggregate level. Search frictions coupled with recruiting selection generate new kinds of externalities that affect not only transition probabilities, but also the expected productivity of recruited workers. The calibrated model can replicate moments of the distribution of wages and unemployment durations in CPS data. Using this parametrization, I also show that an increase of screening costs reduces inequality and productive efficiency, and decreases negative externalities on other employers. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:271&r=lab |
| By: | Boothby, Daniel; Drewes, Torben |
| Abstract: | The paper exploits the newly available Census data on the earnings of individuals in the apprenticeable trades to examine the returns to apprenticeship training. Only a small minority of males work in these trades, concentrated in the construction, production and mechanical trades where their weekly earnings premia over completed high school range from 9 to 14 percent. An even smaller minority of women report working in apprenticeable trades and it appears that many of them mistakenly report having apprenticed. In the largest single trade for women, personal services and culinary arts, the earnings premium is actually negative, although weekly earnings compare more favourably against the earnings of women without completed high school. Given reasonably large returns for men, late entry into apprenticeships is a puzzling phenomenon requiring further investigation. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Wage Differentials, Canada |
| JEL: | J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2010–12–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2010-36&r=lab |
| By: | Frédéric Docquier; Çaǧlar Özden; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we simulate the long-run effects of migrant flows on wages of high-skilled and low-skilled non-migrants in a set of countries using an aggregate model of national economies. New in this literature we calculate the wage effect of emigration as well as immigration. We focus on Europe and compare the outcomes for large Western European countries with those of other key destination countries both in the OECD and outside the OECD. Our analysis builds on an improved database of bilateral stocks and net migration flows of immigrants and emigrants by education level for the years 1990 through 2000. We find that all European countries experienced a decrease in their average wages and a worsening of their wage inequality because of emigration. Whereas, contrary to the popular belief, immigration had nearly equal but opposite effects: positive on average wages and reducing wage inequality of non-movers. These patterns hold true using a range of parameters for our simulations, accounting for the estimates of undocumented immigrants, and correcting for the quality of schooling and/or labor-market downgrading of skills. In terms of wage outcomes, it follows that prevalent public fears in European countries are misplaced; immigration has had a positive average wage effect on native workers. Some concerns should be focused on the wage effect of emigration, instead. |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16646&r=lab |
| By: | Regis Barnichon; Michael Elsby; Bart Hobijn; Aysegül Sahin |
| Abstract: | The negative relationship between the unemployment rate and the job openings rate, known as the Beveridge curve, has been relatively stable in the U.S. over the last decade. Since the summer of 2009, however, the U.S. unemployment rate has hovered between 9.4 and 10.1 percent in spite of firms reporting more job openings. We decompose the recent deviation from the Beveridge curve into different parts using data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). We find that most of the current deviation from the Beveridge curve can be attributed to a shortfall in the vacancy yield, which measures hires per vacancy. This shortfall is broad-based across all industries and is particularly pronounced in construction, transportation, trade, and utilities, and leisure and hospitality. Construction alone accounts for more than a third of the Beveridge curve gap. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment ; Employment (Economic theory) ; Labor market |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2010-32&r=lab |
| By: | Carlos Chiapa (El Colegio de México); José Luis Garrido (El Colegio de México); Silvia Prina (Case Western Reserve University) |
| Abstract: | Investment in human capital is an important tool for reducing poverty. However, the poor may lack the capacity to aspire, which often results in underinvestment in their children’s education. This paper studies the effect of a social program on the educational aspirations of the poor, and explores the role of exposure to educated professionals as a possible channel for increasing aspirations. First, using differences-in-differences, we show that beneficiary parents of the Mexican antipoverty program PROGRESA have higher educational aspirations for their children of a third of a school year than do non-beneficiary parents. This effect corresponds to a 15% increase in the proportion of parents who aspire for their children to finish college. Then, we exploit the design of the program whose requirements cause its target population to have different levels of mandated exposure to doctors and nurses. Our triple difference estimate shows that, educational aspirations for children from high-exposure households (relative to low- exposure households) in treatment villages (relative to control villages) were a third of a school year higher six months after the start of the program (relative to before its introduction). These results suggest that the change in aspirations is driven by exposure to highly educated professionals. |
| Keywords: | social programs, educational aspirations, poverty, educational aspirations |
| JEL: | I32 I21 I22 I38 H53 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-11&r=lab |
| By: | David Autor; Alan Manning; Christopher L. Smith |
| Abstract: | We reassess the effect of state and federal minimum wages on U.S. earnings inequality, attending to two issues that appear to bias earlier work: violation of the assumed independence of state wage levels and state wage dispersion, and errors-in-variables that inflate impact estimates via an analogue of the well known division bias problem. We find that erosion of the real minimum wage raises inequality in the lower tail of the wage distribution (the 50/10 wage ratio), but the impacts are typically less than half as large as those reported in the literature and are almost negligible for males. Nevertheless, the estimated effects of the minimum wage on points of the wage distribution extend to wage percentiles where the minimum is nominally non-binding, implying spillovers. We structurally estimate these spillovers and show that their relative importance grows as the nominal minimum wage becomes less binding. Subsequent analysis underscores, however, that spillovers and measurement error (absent spillovers) have similar implications for the effect of the minimum on the shape of the lower tail of the measured wage distribution. With available precision, we cannot reject the hypothesis that estimated spillovers to non-binding percentiles are due to reporting artifacts. Accepting this null, the implied effect of the minimum wage on the actual wage distribution is smaller than the effect of the minimum wage on the measured wage distribution. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2010-60&r=lab |
| By: | Simon Burgess; Deborah Wilson; Jack Worth |
| Abstract: | We test the hypothesis that the publication of school performance tables raises school effectiveness. Our data allow us to implement a classic difference-in-difference analysis comparing outcomes in England and Wales, before and after the abolition of the tables in Wales. We find significant and robust evidence that this reform markedly reduced school effectiveness in Wales. There is significant heterogeneity across schools: schools in the top quartile of the league tables show no effect. We also test whether the reform reduced school segregation in Wales, and find no systematic significant impact on either sorting by ability or by socioeconomic status. |
| Keywords: | school accountability, school effectiveness, performance tables, segregation |
| JEL: | I20 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:10/246&r=lab |
| By: | Cheung, Maria (Department of Economics); Perotta, Maria (Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Food for education (FFE) programs, which consist of meals served in school and in some cases take-home rations and deworming programs conditional on school attendance, are considered a powerful tool to improve educational out- comes, particularly in areas where school participation is initially low. Com- pared to other programs, such as conditional cash transfers and scholarships, school meals may provide a stronger incentive to attend school because chil- dren must be in school in order to receive the rations, and have the potential to improve nutritional and general health status as well. In this paper, we nd that the Cambodia FFE, that was implemented in six Cambodian regions be- tween 1999 and 2003, increased enrollment, school attendance and completed education. We also ask who bene ted the most, and how cost-eective such a program is compared to other types of interventions. |
| Keywords: | School meals; Primary education; Program evaluation; Cambodia |
| JEL: | D61 I20 I38 O22 O53 |
| Date: | 2011–01–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iiessp:0766&r=lab |
| By: | FANG Zheng (Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798); Chris SAKELLARIOU (Division of Economics, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798) |
| Abstract: | The Vietnam “renovation” reforms were implemented during the 1990s, but their full effect was only felt many years later. We present evidence on the developments in real wage growth and inequality in Vietnam from 1998 to 2008. For men, wage growth was underpinned by both increases in endowments of productive characteristics (mainly education) as well as changes in the wage structure (mainly associated with experience) and residual changes. For women, the wage structure effect was the main contributor to wage growth and the most important determinant was the change in the pattern of the returns to experience: younger, less experienced workers enjoyed a premium compared to more experience workers, reversing the previous, opposite pattern. Conventional measures of inequality as well as background analysis show that wage inequality decreased sharply through the 1990s until 2006, but increased subsequently. Over the entire 10-year period, wage inequality increased slightly and more so for women. |
| Keywords: | Wage inequality, counterfactual decompositions, Asia, Vietnam |
| JEL: | D33 J31 J42 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nan:wpaper:1006&r=lab |
| By: | Julie Berry Cullen; Mark C. Long; Randall Reback |
| Abstract: | Beginning in 1998, all students in the state of Texas who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school classes were guaranteed admission to any in-state public higher education institution, including the flagships. While the goal of this policy is to improve college access for disadvantaged and minority students, the use of a school-specific standard to determine eligibility could have unintended consequences. Students may increase their chances of being in the top ten percent by choosing a high school with lower-achieving peers. Our analysis of students’ school transitions between 8th and 10th grade three years before and after the policy change reveals that this incentive influences enrollment choices in the anticipated direction. Among the subset of students with both motive and opportunity for strategic high school choice, as many as 25 percent enroll in a different high school to improve the chances of being in the top ten percent. Strategic students tend to choose the neighborhood high school in lieu of more competitive magnet schools and, regardless of own race, typically displace minority students from the top ten percent pool. The net effect of strategic behavior is to slightly decrease minority students’ representation in the pool. |
| JEL: | D10 H31 H73 I28 J60 J78 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16663&r=lab |
| By: | Elhanan Helpman; Oleg Itskhoki; Stephen Redding |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews a new framework for analyzing the interrelationship between inequality, unemployment, labor market frictions, and foreign trade. This framework emphasizes firm heterogeneity and search and matching frictions in labor markets. It implies that the opening of trade may raise inequality and unemployment, but always raises welfare. Unilateral reductions in labor market frictions increase a country's welfare, can raise or reduce its unemployment rate, yet always hurt the country's trade partner. Unemployment benefits can alleviate the distortions in a country's labor market in some cases but not in others, but they can never implement the constrained Pareto optimal allocation. We characterize the set of optimal policies, which require interventions in product and labor markets. |
| JEL: | F12 F16 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16662&r=lab |
| By: | Arnstein Aassve; Bruno Arpino; Alice Goisis |
| Abstract: | Using data from seven countries drawn from the Generations and Gender Survey, we study the relationship between informal childcare provided by grandparents and mothers’ employment. The extent of formal childcare varies substantially across European countries and so does the role of grandparents in helping out rearing children. The extent of grandparenting also depends on their attitudes, which in turn relates to social norms and availability of public childcare, and hence the country context where individuals reside matters considerably. Within families, attitudes toward childcare are associated with attitudes towards women’s working decisions. The fact that we do not observe these attitudes may bias the estimates. By using instrumental variable techniques we find that only in some countries mothers’ employment is positively and significantly associated with grandparents providing childcare. In other countries, once we control for unobserved attitudes we do not find this effect. |
| Keywords: | female labour market participation, grandparents, childcare, attitudes, omitted variable bias |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:don:donwpa:036&r=lab |
| By: | José A. F. Machado; Pedro Portugal; Pedro S. Raposo |
| Abstract: | The U.S. labor market has been experiencing unprecedented high average unemployment duration. The shift in the unemployment duration distribution can be traced back to the early nineties. In this paper, censored quantile regression methods are employed to analyze the changes in the US unemployment duration distribution. We explore the decomposition method proposed by Machado and Mata (2005) to disentangle the contribution of compositional vis-à-vis structural changes. The data used in this inquiry are taken from the nationally representative Displaced Worker Surveys of 1988 and 2008. Apart from the effect of economic improvement we find that the sensitivity of joblessness duration to education and the aging of the population were the two main forces behind the increase of the unemployment duration, in the last twenty years. We tentatively argue that firms use education as a signaling device during recessions, but the signaling power of education during the recent low-unemployment environment faded significantly. |
| JEL: | C14 C21 C41 J64 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201033&r=lab |
| By: | Mason, Patrick L. |
| Abstract: | This study explores important statistical issues on the appropriate functional form and model specification of the value-added educational achievement equation. We also wish to estimate the causal effect of a teacher’s institution of academic preparation and pedagogical training. Standardized test scores, viz., the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCAT), provide a measure of pupil academic achievement. Accordingly, this study uses a value-added regression model to establish whether there is a “college preparation effect” on the average pupil’s FCAT reading and mathematics scores. We find that value-added regression analysis fails to uncover robust and substantive college preparation effects. Regardless of race (African American, Hispanic, or white), male or female status, or FCAT mathematics versus FCAT reading, pupil academic achievement does not vary substantively according to a teacher’s college of preparation. Further, the statistical significance of teacher program effects also depends on the functional form and specification of the value-added model. |
| Keywords: | teacher quality; value-added model; historically black colleges and universities; HBCU; teacher productivity; education and value-added |
| JEL: | J45 I2 J44 J15 J48 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27903&r=lab |
| By: | Alexander Muravyev; Oleksandr Talavera |
| Abstract: | This paper takes advantage of a recent policy experiment in Ukraine's secondary education system to study the effect of stricter requirements for proficiency in the state language on linguistic minority students' demand for, as well as opportunities to pursue, further studies at the university level. The reform that we consider obligated all minority students, including those studying in public schools with a full cycle of education in minority languages, to take a standardized school exit test (which is also a university entry test) in Ukrainian, the state language, thus denying them previously granted access to translated tests. Using school-level data and employing the difference-in-difference estimator we find evidence that the reform resulted in a decline in the number of subjects taken by minority students at the school exit test. There was also a notable shift in the take-up of particular subjects, with fewer exams taken by minority students in more linguistically-demanding subjects such as History, Biology, and Geography, and more exams taken in foreign languages and Math. Overall, our results suggest some distortions in the accumulation of human capital by linguistic minority students induced by the language policy. |
| Keywords: | language policy, economics of minorities, education, Ukraine |
| JEL: | I28 J15 |
| Date: | 2010–12–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uea:aepppr:2010_23&r=lab |
| By: | Patricia M. Anderson; Kristin F. Butcher; Elizabeth U. Cascio; Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the impact of attending school on body weight and obesity. We use school starting age cutoff dates to compare weight outcomes for similar age children with different years of school exposure. As is the case with academic outcomes, school exposure is related to unobserved determinants of weight outcomes because some families choose to have their child start school late (or early). If one does not account for this endogeneity, it appears that an additional year of school exposure results in a greater BMI and a higher probability of being overweight or obese. When actual exposure is instrumented with expected exposure based on school starting dates and birthday, the significant positive effects disappear, and most point estimates become negative and insignificant. However, for children not eating the school lunch, there is a significant negative effect on the probability of being overweight. |
| JEL: | I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16673&r=lab |
| By: | Jan Brůha (Czech National Bank, Na P?íkop? 28, 115 03 Praha 1, Czech Republic.); Beatrice Pierluigi (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, D-60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.); Roberta Serafini (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, D-60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.) |
| Abstract: | A small labour market model for the six largest euro area countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium) is estimated in a state-space framework. The model entails, in the long run, four driving forces: a trend labour force component, a trend labour productivity component, a long-run inflation rate and a trend hours worked component. The short run dynamics is governed by a VAR model including six shocks. The state-space framework is convenient for the decomposition of endogenous variables in trends and cycles, for shock decomposition, for incorporating external judgement, and for running conditional projections. The forecast performance of the model is rather satisfactory. The model is used to carry out a policy experiment with the objective of investigating whether euro area countries differ in the labour market adjustment to a reduction in labour costs. Results suggest that, following the 2008-09 recession, moderate wage growth would significantly help delivering a more job-intense recovery. JEL Classification: C51, C53, E17, J21. |
| Keywords: | Labor market, Forecasting, Kalman filter. |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20111284&r=lab |
| By: | Kristinn Hermannsson (Department of Economics, Strathclyde University); Katerina Lisenkova (Department of Economics, Strathclyde University); Patrizio Lecca (Fraser of Allander Institute, Strathclyde University); Peter McGregor (Fraser of Allander Institute, Strathclyde University); Kim Swales (Department of Economics, Strathclyde University) |
| Abstract: | There have been numerous attempts to assess the overall impact of Higher Education Institutions on regional economies in the UK and elsewhere. There are two disparate approaches focussing on: demand-side effects of HEIs, exerted through universities’ expenditures within the local economy; HEIs’ contribution to the “knowledge economy”. However, neither approach seeks to measure the impact on regional economies that HEIs exert through the enhanced productivity of their graduates. We address this lacuna and explore the system-wide impact of the graduates on the regional economy. An extensive and sophisticated literature suggests that graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies through the employment of their graduates. However, there is some dispute over the extent to which the graduate wage premium reflects innate abilities rather than the impact of higher education per se. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. We conduct a range of sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of our results. While the detailed results do, of course, vary with alternative assumptions about future graduate retention rates and the size of the graduate wage premium, for example, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most “impact” studies. |
| Keywords: | Supply side impact; higher education institutions; computable general equilibrium model |
| JEL: | I23 E17 D58 R13 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:str:wpaper:1026&r=lab |
| By: | Ronald P. Wolthoff |
| Abstract: | A large part of the literature on frictional matching in the labor market assumes bilateral meetings between workers and firms. This ignores the frictions that arise when workers and firms meet in a multilateral way and cannot coordinate their application and hiring decisions. I analyze the magnitude of these frictions. For this purpose, I present an equilibrium search model of the labor market with an endogenous number of contacts between workers and firms. Workers contact firms by applying to vacancies, whereas firms contact applicants by interviewing them. Sending more applications and interviewing more applicants are both costly activities but increase the probability to match. In equilibrium, contract dispersion arises endogenously and workers spread their applications over the different types of contracts. Estimation of the model on the Employment Opportunities Pilot Projects data set provides values for the fundamental parameters of the model, including the cost of an application, the cost of an interview, and the value of non-market time. These estimates are used to determine the loss in social surplus compared to a Walrasian world. Frictions on the worker and the firm side each cause approximately half of the 4.7% loss. There is a potential role for activating labor market policies, because I show that for the estimated parameter values welfare is improved if unemployed workers increase their search intensity. |
| Keywords: | labor, search, recruitment, frictions, efficiency |
| JEL: | J64 J31 E24 D83 |
| Date: | 2010–12–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-418&r=lab |
| By: | Rucker C. Johnson |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent and ways in which childhood school quality factors causally influence subsequent adult socioeconomic and health outcomes. The study analyzes the life trajectories of children born between 1950 and 1970, and followed through 2007, using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The PSID data are linked with multiple data sources that describe the neighborhood attributes and school quality resources that prevailed at the time these children were growing up. I estimate the long-run impacts of court-ordered school desegregation plans on adult attainments by exploiting quasi-random variation in the timing of initial court orders, which generated differences in the timing and scope of the implementation of these plans during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Difference-in-differences estimates, sibling-difference estimates, and 2SLS/IV estimates indicate that school desegregation and the accompanied increases in school quality resulted in significant improvements in adult attainments for blacks. I find that, for blacks, school desegregation significantly increased educational attainment and adult earnings, reduced the probability of incarceration, and improved adult health status; desegregation had no effects on whites across each of these outcomes. The results suggest that the mechanisms through which school desegregation led to beneficial adult attainment outcomes for blacks include improvement in access to school resources reflected in reductions in class size and increases in per-pupil spending. This narrowed black-white adult socioeconomic and health disparities for the cohorts exposed to integrated schools during childhood. The results highlight the significant impacts of educational attainment on future health status and risk of incarceration, and point to the importance of school quality in influencing socioeconomic mobility prospects, which in turn have far-reaching impacts on health. |
| JEL: | I00 I21 I28 J15 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16664&r=lab |
| By: | Steven Proud |
| Abstract: | The magnitude and characteristics of the effect of a child’s peers on their outcomes has long interested researchers and policy makers. In this paper, I take advantage of the correlation between the average outcomes a child’s peer group attains with the distribution of ages within the cohort to construct an instrument for the ability of the peer group in order to estimate the peers effects on children’s outcomes at age 11. IV results suggest there is a significant positive effect of a more able peer group. Furthermore, the results suggest that there is more benefit for children who are close to the ability of the peer group than those whose ability is not close. |
| Keywords: | peer groups, primary education |
| JEL: | I21 I38 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:10/248&r=lab |
| By: | Cãtãlin BURSUC (National Defense University “Carol I”); Andreea NEAGU (Master in psychology, General Staff) |
| Abstract: | Labor integration is a process with a high degree of complexity that involves reciprocal changes in state of the elements of this relationship. The transformation has a clear asymmetric nature of intensity and speed of this process, to the detriment of the individual. Speaking of work integration, specific problems arise, and these ones directly mark the person and the quality of life. The nowadays socio-economical bad fund amplifies the unwanted consequences and offers a great importance to the process of work inegration. The situation of graduates find themselves at the moment of work integration is even more difficult as the set of skills and capabilities - as provided by the educational institution - is not well suited to new tasks. This discrepancy can be eliminated by aligning the Romanian education system. |
| Keywords: | work integration, skills, conflictual process. |
| JEL: | F15 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rom:km2010:50&r=lab |
| By: | Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez (El Colegio de México); Melissa A. Knox (University of Washington) |
| Abstract: | Mexico created Seguro Popular in 2002 with the goal of providing free or subsidized health insurance coverage to 47 million uninsured people by the year 2013. Only individuals lacking the social security protections granted to all formal sector workers and their families are eligible. Hence, one unintended consequence of the program could be an increase in the size of the informal sector. The introduction of the Seguro Popular program was conducted in stages, across municipalities and time. We exploit this variation and implement a differences-in-differences approach in order to identify the causal effect of the program in formal employment outcomes. We analyze the effect of Seguro Popular using 33 large and relatively rich cities from labor force surveys conducted from 2001 to 2004. In order to measure the effect for poorer municipalities, we also use the individual-level Oportunidades dataset that covers 136 municipalities from 2002 to 2004. We find little evidence of any correlation between Seguro Popular and the decision of workers to be employed in the formal or informal sector. One possible explanation of our findings is the low enrollment of the Seguro Popular program during the period we study. We provide suggestive evidence from the 33 cities that the result holds for the 2005 to 2006 period as well. We conclude that the recent increase in informal employment in Mexico is due to other causes. |
| Keywords: | Mexico, informality, employment |
| JEL: | J4 O1 |
| Date: | 2010–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-14&r=lab |
| By: | Buttenheim, Alison; Alderman, Harold; Friedman, Jed |
| Abstract: | Despite the popularity and widespread implementation of school feeding programs, evidence on the impact of school feeding on school participation and nutritional status is mixed. This study evaluates school feeding programs in three northern districts of the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). Feeding modalities included on-site feeding, take-home rations, and a combination. District-level implementation of the intervention sites and selective take-up present considerable evaluation challenges. To address these limitations, the authors use difference-in-difference estimators with propensity-score weighting to construct two plausible counterfactuals. They find minimal evidence that the school feeding schemes increased enrollment or improved children’s nutritional status. Several robustness checks and possible explanations for null findings are presented. |
| Keywords: | Education For All,Youth and Governance,Nutrition,Primary Education,Food&Beverage Industry |
| Date: | 2011–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5518&r=lab |
| By: | Mason, Patrick L. |
| Abstract: | Some teacher preparation institutions may provide higher quality teachers than others. Pupil academic achievement is one measure of the quality of teaching. Standardized test scores, e.g., the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests (FCAT), provide a measure of pupil academic achievement. This study seeks to ascertain whether Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University (FAMU) has a “college preparation effect” on the average pupil’s FCAT reading and mathematics scores. We find that the quality of FAMU’s teachers is statistically indistinguishable from the quality of teachers prepared by all other public colleges and universities in the state of Florida. This appears to be a robust conclusion. Our results are roughly the same regardless of whether we confine the sample to pupils matched with traditionally trained teachers (college of education graduates), all teachers, all traditionally trained African American teachers, or all African American teachers. |
| Keywords: | teacher quality; value-added model; historically black colleges and universities; HBCU; teacher productivity; education and value-added |
| JEL: | J45 I2 J44 J48 J15 |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27904&r=lab |
| By: | Rich Harris |
| Abstract: | This paper offers an extensive review and bibliography of the literature on school choice, and its effects on social and ethnic segregation between English schools. It finds that the evidence concerning whether “school choice” legislation has acted to increase or decrease the socio-ethnic mix within schools is open to multiple interpretations, affected by how segregation is conceptualised and measured. Difficulties in reaching definite conclusions are compounded by the changing economic and demographic landscapes that confound attempts to show whether policies of school choice cause or reduce segregation. By the author’s judgement the policies have reinforced geographies of social segregation and of ethnic polarization in some places. However, this is not a failure of the principle of choice necessarily. Rather, it is a function of the constraints placed on that choice and an implicit if less spoken recognition of the value of local schooling. |
| Keywords: | Schools, choice, social segregation, ethnic segregation, segregation indices, education policy |
| JEL: | I28 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:cmpowp:10/251&r=lab |
| By: | Backiny-Yetna, Prospere; Wodon, Quentin |
| Abstract: | This paper uses a recent, nationally representative household survey for the Republic of Congo—the 2005 ECOM (Enquête Congolaise auprès des Ménages) survey—to test the unitary model of household consumption. The study finds that a higher labor income share obtained by women does lead to a higher share of household consumption allocated to investments in human capital (as proxied through spending for food, education, health, and children’s clothing). The impact is not negligible and it is statistically significant, suggesting long-term benefits through children from efforts to increase female labor income. |
| Keywords: | Gender; Labor Income; Consumption Patterns; Republic of Congo |
| JEL: | D13 J22 J16 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27737&r=lab |
| By: | Picot, Garnett; Piraino, Patrizio |
| Abstract: | We use longitudinal tax data linked to immigrant landing records to estimate the earnings growth of immigrants from three entering cohorts since the early 1980s. Selective attrition by low-earning immigrants might result in lower earnings growth with years since migration in longitudinal data compared to repeated cross-sections. Existing studies on U.S. data have found exactly this result (Lubotsky 2007, JPE). We ask whether a similar bias is observed in the Canadian data and find that it is not. We show that while low-earnings immigrants are more likely to leave the cross-sectional samples over time, the same is true for the Canadian born population. We conclude that there is no evidence of selective labour force participation patterns among immigrants in Canada compared to the native born population. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, assimilation, longitudinal data, selection bias |
| JEL: | J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2010–12–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ubc:clssrn:clsrn_admin-2010-35&r=lab |
| By: | Joshua Angrist; Philip Oreopoulos; Tyler Williams |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effects of academic achievement awards for first and second-year college students on a Canadian commuter campus. The award scheme offered linear cash incentives for course grades above 70. Awards were paid every term. Program participants also had access to peer advising by upperclassmen. Program engagement appears to have been high but overall treatment effects were small. The intervention increased the number of courses graded above 70 and points earned above 70 for second-year students, but there was no significant effect on overall GPA. Results are somewhat stronger for a subsample that correctly described the program rules. We argue that these results fit in with an emerging picture of mostly modest effects for cash award programs of this type at the post-secondary level. |
| JEL: | I21 I22 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16643&r=lab |
| By: | Lai, Chung-Hui; Wang, Vey |
| Abstract: | This paper extends an R&D-based growth model of the Rivera-Batiz and Romer-type [Quarterly Journal of Economics 106 (1991) 531] endogenous growth model by embodying a union with elastic labor to investigate the effects of unionization on employment and growth by highlighting the essence of internal conflict within the union. It is shown that an increase in the union’s bargaining power or a union which is more employment-oriented boosts employment and economic growth when the balanced growth equilibrium is determinate. On the other hand, if the union is more wage-oriented, employment and economic growth are enhanced when the balanced growth equilibrium is indeterminate. |
| Keywords: | Union; Collective bargaining; R&D; Indeterminacy; Economic growth |
| JEL: | O30 O40 J50 |
| Date: | 2010–11–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27748&r=lab |
| By: | Adriana RΪNOVEANU (“Carol I” National Defense University); Letiþia TRIF (“1 Decembrie” University, Alba Iulia) |
| Abstract: | Reward and sanction are reactions of a person or an instance to a behavior that supports, respectively affects norms, values and people that are part of a constituted group (the collective of a classroom that is supervised by a teacher or the school community). If reward is always accompanied by positive affective states which value people and place them in a positive light, sanction, which has the role of correcting by showing that the way things are in the present is wrong becomes a “two blade knife”: it can do good (fix things by showing the right way they need to be done) or wrong (by humiliating the person who is sanctioned, by punishing), depending on how it is designed and used. Our purpose in the present article is to present several considerations on the rather non-educational way in which sanction is used in Romanian schools. |
| Keywords: | sanction, educational sanction, non-educational sanction |
| JEL: | I23 |
| Date: | 2010–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rom:km2010:7&r=lab |
| By: | Boehm, Michael J.; Watzinger, Martin |
| Abstract: | Recent research in labor economics has highlighted the substantial and long-lasting adverse effect of recessions on employment prospects and earnings. In this paper, we study whether individuals react to these shocks by changing career paths and thereby affect the selection of talent into sectors. More concretely, we examine how the publication success and career choice of graduates from the leading US economics PhD programs varies with the state of the business cycle at application and at graduation. Our results strongly support the predictions of a Roy-style model of self-selection into sectors: We find that adverse macroeconomic conditions at application lead to a substantially more productive selection of individuals into academia and at graduation they lead to more PhDs deciding to stay in academia. |
| Keywords: | Sectoral Selection, Skill Composition, Business Cycle, Careers |
| JEL: | I29 J44 J24 |
| Date: | 2010–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:27463&r=lab |
| By: | Alexandre Janiak |
| Abstract: | I assess the impact of product market regulation on unemployment in a large-firm model of the labor market with search frictions and firm entry and exit. Two regulatory frictions are considered: administrative costs of establishing a new firm and the share of capital entrepreneurs recover when exiting. Product market regulation explains half the unemployment gap between Continental Europe and the United States in the calibrated model. More precisely, exit regulation is responsible for the entire explained gap, entry regulation playing no role. The degree of returns to scale and the presence of fixed capital in the model are important assumptions behind those results. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:274&r=lab |
| By: | Nidhiya Menon (Department of Economics, Brandeis University); Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | In a study of the effect of war on women’s work, this paper examines how Nepal’s 1996-2006 civil conflict affected women’s decisions to engage in employment. Using three waves of Nepal Demographic and Health Survey, we employ a difference-in-difference approach to identify the impact of war on women’s employment decisions. Results indicate that as a result of the Maoist-led insurgency, women’s employment probabilities were substantially higher in 2001 and 2006 relative to the outbreak of war in 1996. These employment results also hold for self-employment decisions, and they hold for smaller sub-samples that condition on husband’s migration status and women’s status as widows or household heads. Robustness checks of the difference-in-difference estimates based on alternative empirical methods provide substantial evidence that women’s likelihood of employment increased as a consequence of the conflict. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:19&r=lab |
| By: | Mariano Bosch (Universidad de Alicante); Raymundo M. Campos-Vázquez (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | In 2002, the Mexican government began a tremendous financial effort to provide health insurance, Seguro Popular (SP), to the 50 million uninsured in Mexico. In doing so, the states and municipalities offered virtually free health insurance to uncovered self-employed and informal salaried workers substantially altering the incentives for workers and firms to operate in the formal economy. We take advantage of the staggered implementation of the program across municipalities to estimate the effects of the SP in the labor market. We find that the SP had a negative effect in the creation of formal jobs, especially in small and medium sized firms. According to our estimates, had the program not been in place, 31.000 more employers and 300.000 new formal jobs should have been registered with Mexican social security. These represent 3.8% and 2.4% of the stock of registered employers and employees in 2002 when the program started. |
| Keywords: | social assistance program, informality, labor market, Mexico |
| JEL: | O12 I18 O15 I38 O17 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2010-12&r=lab |
| By: | Sanchez, Alan (Banco Central de Reserva del Perú) |
| Abstract: | The recent literature on human capital highlights the importance of investments during the first few years after birth as a determinant of economic outcomes later in life, including labour productivity. This paper assesses the relationship between conflict exposure -a transitory, aggregate, shock- and early nutrition. The relationship between conflict exposure and human capital outcomes can be put into doubt due to the endogenous nature of conflict. In this paper I use a rich dataset that permits me to trace the intensity of a country-specific, large-scale, conflict across regions and over time at the monthly frequency over a 20-year period. I use this data to link conflict exposure prevalent around the time of birth to child-level outcomes of birth cohorts born over an analogous time period. The identification strategy exploits differences in the intensity of exposure between siblings in turn determined by year-month of birth. Results show that, on average, early exposure to conflict did not have an effect on infant mortality but had large negative effects on short-term nutritional outcomes, particularly for the poor. These results suggest that, unless compensatory investments were at place, the Peruvian conflict might have had long-term effects on human capital accumulation through a nutritional channel. |
| Keywords: | Health Production, Human Capital, Conflict, Children |
| JEL: | I12 J24 J13 O15 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rbp:wpaper:2010-020&r=lab |
| By: | Larry L. Howard (California State University, Fullerton); Nishith Prakash (Cornell University, CReAM, and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This article examines the effects of school lunch subsidies provided through the meanstested component of the National School Lunch Program on the dietary patterns of children age 10- to 13 yr in the USA. Analyzing data on 5,140 public school children in 5th grade during spring 2004, we find significant increases in the number of servings of fruit, green salad, carrots, other vegetables, and 100 percent fruit juice consumed in one week for subsidized children relative to unsubsidized children. The effects on fruit and other vegetable consumption are stronger among the children receiving a full subsidy, as opposed to only a partial subsidy, and indicate the size of the subsidy is an important policy lever underlying the program's effectiveness. Overall, the findings provide the strongest empirical evidence to date that the means-tested school lunch subsidies increase children’s consumption over a time period longer than one school day. |
| Keywords: | National School Lunch Program, Dietary Patterns, Means-Tested Subsidies. |
| JEL: | H51 I12 I38 |
| Date: | 2011–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:201101&r=lab |
| By: | Alexandre Janiak; Paulo Santos Monteiro |
| Abstract: | There is substantial evidence of a negative correlation between government size and output volatility. We put forward the hypothesis that large governments stabilize output fluctuations because in economies with high tax rates the share of total market hours supplied by demographic groups exhibiting a more volatile labor supply is lower. This hypothesis is motivated by the observation that employment volatility is larger for young workers than for prime aged workers, and that the share of hours worked by the young workers is lower in countries with high tax rates. This paper illustrates these empirical facts and assesses in a calibrated model their quantitative importance for the relation between government size and macroeconomic stability. |
| Date: | 2010 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:edj:ceauch:272&r=lab |
| By: | Nidhiya Menon (Department of Economics, Brandeis University); Yana van der Meulen Rodgers (Rutgers University) |
| Abstract: | The study provides new evidence on gender differences in educational attainment, labor market status, health status, and land titling in Vietnam. Up-to-date statistical evidence on household well-being in Vietnam is particularly important given the heavy weight the government has placed on meeting the needs of vulnerable members of the population, reducing overall poverty, and improving societal well-being. Vietnam’s government has placed priority emphasis on achieving gender equality in the 2006 Law on Gender Equality. One of the major themes addressed in this report is Vietnam’s demonstrated progress in achieving social development targets. The study also identifies a few areas where female outcomes lag those of men, and suggests policies that might help to reduce the observed gaps. |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brd:wpaper:18&r=lab |