|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Mizala, Alejandra (University of Chile); Nopo, Hugo (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the extent to which teachers are underpaid vis-à-vis workers in other professional and technical occupations in Latin America circa 2007. These labor earnings differences, attributed to observable socio-demographic and job characteristics, are assessed using a matching methodology (Ñopo, 2008). Teachers' underpayment is found to be stronger than what has been previously reported in the literature, especially among pre-school and primary teachers. Nonetheless, behind the region averages there is an important cross-country heterogeneity. Teachers' underpayment is more pronounced among males, older workers, household heads, part-timers, formal workers, those who work in the private sector, and (mostly) among those with complete tertiary education. Two amenities of the teaching profession, namely the longer job tenure and the flexible job schedules within the year, are also explored. Even after accounting for the possible compensating differentials of these two amenities, teachers' underpayment vis-à-vis that of other professional and technicians prevail. |
| Keywords: | wage differentials, professional labor markets, Latin America |
| JEL: | J31 J44 J8 O54 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5947&r=lab |
| By: | Gerard Thomas Horvath |
| Abstract: | Using detailed micro data on earnings and employment, I analyze the effects of immigration on the wage distribution of native male workers in Austria. I find that immigration has heterogeneous effects on wages, differing by type of work as well as the wage level. While there are small , but insignificant, negative effects for blue collar workers at the lower end of the wage distribution there are positive effects on wages at higher percentiles. For white collar workers positive effects occur at most percentiles. The estimated effects of immigration are relatively small in size and not significant for most workers. Overall it seems that most of potentially adverse effects of immigration on natives' wages are offset by complementarities stemming from immigration of workers with different skill levels. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Labor market, Wage distribution |
| JEL: | J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2011_11&r=lab |
| By: | Cockx, B.; Picchio, M. (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether and to what extent further unemployment experience for youths who are already long-term unemployed imposes a penalty on subsequent labor market outcomes. We propose a flexible method for analyzing the effect on wages aside of transitions from unemployment and employment within a multivariate duration model that controls for selection on observables and unobservables. We find that prolonging unemployment drastically decreases the chances of finding employment, but hardly affects the quality of subsequent employment. The analysis suggests that negative duration dependence in the job finding rate is induced by negative signaling and not by human capital depreciation. |
| Keywords: | scarring effect of unemployment duration;employment quality;wage in multivariate duration model;selectivity. |
| JEL: | C33 C41 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2011094&r=lab |
| By: | David de la Croix; Olivier Pierrard; Henri R. Sneessens |
| Abstract: | This paper re-examines the effects of population aging and pension reforms in an OLG model with labor market frictions. The most important feature brought about by labor market frictions is the connection between the interest rate and the unemployment rate. Exogenous shocks (such as aging) leading to lower interest rates also imply lower equilibrium unemployment rates, because lower capital costs stimulate labor demand and induce firms to advertize more vacancies. These effects may be reinforced by increases in the participation rate of older workers, induced by the higher wage rates and the larger probability of finding a job. These results imply that neglecting labor market frictions and employment rate changes may seriously bias the evaluation of pension reforms when they have an impact on the equilibrium interest rate. |
| Keywords: | Overlapping Generations, Search Unemployment, Labor Force Participation, Aging, Pensions, Labor Market |
| JEL: | E24 H55 J26 J64 |
| Date: | 2011–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp062&r=lab |
| By: | Mike Brewer; Claire Crawford |
| Abstract: | Childcare costs are often viewed as one of the biggest barriers to work, particularly among lone parents on low incomes. Children in England are eligible to attend free part-time nursery classes (equivalent to pre-kindergarten) from the academic term after they turn 3, and are typically eligible to start free full-time public education on 1 September after they turn four. These rules mean that children born one day apart may start nursery classes up to four months apart, and may start school up to one year apart. We exploit these discontinuities to investigate the impact of a youngest child being eligible for part-time nursery education and full-time primary education on welfare receipt and employment patterns amongst lone parents receiving welfare. In contrast to previous studies, we are able to estimate the precise timing (relative to the date on which part-time or full-time education begins) of any impact on labour supply, by using rich administrative data. Amongst those receiving welfare when their youngest child is aged approximately three and a half, we find a small but significant effect of free full-time public education on both employment and welfare receipt (of around 2 percentage points, or 10-15 per cent), which peaks eight to nine months after the child becomes eligible (aged approximately 4 years and 9 months). We find weaker evidence of an even smaller effect of eligibility for part-time nursery education. This suggests that the expansion of public education programmes to younger disadvantaged children may only encourage a small number of low income lone parents to return to work (although, of course, this is not the primary aim of such programmes). |
| Keywords: | labour supply, school entry, regression discontinuity, lone parents, welfare receipt |
| JEL: | I21 J22 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0121&r=lab |
| By: | Anton A. Cheremukhin |
| Abstract: | The original Mortensen-Pissarides model possesses two elements that are absent from the commonly used simplified version: the job destruction margin and training costs. I find that these two elements enable a model driven by a single aggregate shock to simultaneously explain most movements involving unemployment, vacancies, job destruction, job creation, the job finding rate and wages. The job destruction margin's role in propagating aggregate shocks is to create an additional pool of unemployed at the onset of a recession. The role of training costs is to explain the simultaneous decline in vacancies and slow response of job creation. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment ; Job creation ; Employment ; Business cycles |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:1102&r=lab |
| By: | Biddle, Jeff E. (Michigan State University); Hamermesh, Daniel S. (University of Texas at Austin) |
| Abstract: | Using CPS data from 1979-2009 we examine how cyclical downturns and industry-specific demand shocks affect wage differentials between white non-Hispanic males and women, Hispanics and African-Americans. Women's and Hispanics' relative earnings are harmed by negative shocks, while the earnings disadvantage of African-Americans may drop with negative shocks. Negative shocks also appear to increase the earnings disadvantage of bad-looking workers. A theory of job search suggests two opposite-signed mechanisms that affect these wage differentials. It suggests greater absolute effects among job-movers, which is verified using the longitudinal component of the CPS. |
| Keywords: | women, minorities, beauty, search models |
| JEL: | E29 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5945&r=lab |
| By: | Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Rijkers, Bob; Waxman, Andrew |
| Abstract: | In a crisis, do employers place the burden of adjustment disproportionately on female employees? Relying on household and labor force data, existing studies of the distributional impact of crises have not been able to address this question. This paper uses Indonesia's census of manufacturing firms to analyze employer responses and to identify mechanisms by which gender differences in impact may arise, notably differential treatment of men and women within firms as well as gender sorting across firms that varied in their exposure to the crisis. On average, women experienced higher job losses than their male colleagues within the same firm. However, the aggregate adverse effect of such differential treatment was more than offset by women being disproportionately employed in firms hit relatively less hard by the crisis. The null hypothesis that there were no gender differences in wage adjustment is not rejected. Analyzing how employer characteristics impact labor market adjustment patterns contributes to the understanding of who is vulnerable in volatile times. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Gender and Development,Labor Policies,Population Policies,Gender and Law |
| Date: | 2011–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5789&r=lab |
| By: | Aterido, Reyes; Hallward-Driemeier, Mary; Pages, Carmen |
| Abstract: | Seguro Popular was introduced in 2002 to provide health insurance to the 50 million Mexicans without Social Security. This paper tests whether the program has had unintended consequences, distorting workers'incentives to operate in the informal sector. The analysis examines the impact of Seguro Popular on disaggregated labor market decisions, taking into account that program coverage depends not only on the individual's employment status, but also that of other household members. The identification strategy relies on the variation in Seguro Popular's rollout across municipalities and time, with the difference-in-difference estimation controlling for household fixed effects. The paper finds that Seguro Popular lowers formality by 0.4-0.7 percentage points, with adjustments largely occurring within a few years of the program's introduction. Rather than encouraging exit from the formal sector, Seguro Popular is associated with a 3.1 percentage point reduction (a 20 percent decline) in the inflow of workers into formality. Income effects are also apparent, with significantly decreased flows out of unemployment and lower labor force participation. The impact is larger for those with less education, in larger households, and with someone else in the household guaranteeing Social Security coverage. However, workers pay for part of these benefits with lower wages in the informal sector. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Housing&Human Habitats,Population Policies |
| Date: | 2011–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5785&r=lab |
| By: | Marcel Fafchamps; Forhad Shilpi |
| Abstract: | Using census date from Nepal, we examine how the marginal effects of male and female education on various household welfar indicators vary with education levels. Parental education is associated with better household outcomes, but marginal effects vary with education level. Higher child survival, for instance, is associated higher primary education for mothers and higher secondary education for fathers. We calculate conditional makrginal effects that correct for assortative matching of spouses and compare them to unconditional estimates. The two differ because mother and father education are partial sustitues. We also show that the marginal effects of education have fallen over time while education levels were rising. Using the relative scarcity of women in the marriage market as proxy for the wight of female preferences in household choices, we find thta educated mothers prefer better educated children, but also prefer their children to work, possibly becuase the yare more likely to work themselves. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2011-12&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen Gibbons; Olmo Silva; Felix Weinhardt |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we use census data on several cohorts of secondary school students in England matched to detailed information on place of residence to investigate the effect of neighbours' background characteristics and prior achievements on teenagers' educational and behavioural outcomes. Our analysis focuses on the age-11 to age-16 time-lapse, and uses variation in neighbourhood composition over this period that is driven by residential mobility. Exploiting the longitudinal nature and detail of our data, we are able to control for pupil unobserved characteristics, neighbourhood fixed-effects and time-trends, school-by-cohort unobservables, as well as students' observable attributes and prior attainments. Our results provide little evidence that neighbours' characteristics significantly affect pupil test score progression during secondary education. Similarly, we find that neighbourhood composition only exerts a small effect on pupil behavioural outcomes, such as general attitudes towards schooling, substance use and anti-social behaviour. |
| Keywords: | Neighbourhood effects, cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes, secondary schools |
| JEL: | C21 I20 H75 R23 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0122&r=lab |
| By: | Armand A Sim; Daniel Suryadarma; Asep Suryahadi |
| Abstract: | Child labor is a phenomenon that has attracted a great amount of attention and research. Theoretical propositions suggest that child labor is inefficient if it adversely affects future earning ability. This paper contributes to the literature on the effects of child market work on human capital by focusing on the long-term growth in human capital, which is widely known to significantly affect earning ability. The paper also uses better measures of human capital by focusing on the output of the human capital production function: numeracy skills, cognitive skills, and pulmonary function. Using a rich longitudinal dataset on Indonesia, we find strong negative effects of child labor on the growth of both numeracy and cognitive skills in the next seven years. In addition, we find a strong and negative effect on pulmonary function as measured through lung capacity. Comparing the effects by gender and type of work, we find that female child workers suffer more adverse effects on mathematical skills growth, while male child workers experience much smaller growth in pulmonary function. We also find that child workers who work for pay outside the family bore worse effects compared to child workers who work in the family business. |
| Keywords: | child labor, human capital, skills, health, Indonesia |
| JEL: | I12 I21 J13 J22 O15 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pas:papers:2011-10&r=lab |
| By: | François Rycx; Stephan K. S. Kampelmann |
| Abstract: | Labour economists typically assume that pay differences between occupations can be explained with variations in productivity. The empirical evidence on the validity of this assumption is surprisingly thin and subject to various potential biases. The authors use matched employer-employee panel data from Belgium for the years 1999-2006 to examine occupational productivity-wage gaps. They find that occupations play distinct roles for remuneration and productivity: while the estimations indicate a significant upward-sloping occupational wage-profile, the hypothesis of a flat productivity-profile cannot be rejected. The corresponding pattern of over- and underpayment stands up to a series of robustness tests. |
| Keywords: | Labour productivity; wages; occupations; production function; matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | J24 J31 J44 |
| Date: | 2011–08–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dul:wpaper:2013/96684&r=lab |
| By: | Victor Lavy |
| Abstract: | There are large differences across countries in instructional time in schooling institutions. Can these differences explain some of the differences across countries in pupils' achievements in different subjects? What is the likely impact of changes in instructional time? While research in recent years provides convincing evidence about the effect of several inputs in the education production function, there is limited evidence on the effect of classroom instructional time. Such evidence is of policy relevance in many countries, and it became very concrete recently as President Barrack Obama announced the goal of extending the school week and year as a central objective in his proposed education reform for the US. In this paper, I estimate the effects of instructional time on students' academic achievement in math, science and language. I estimate linear and non-linear instructional time effects controlling for unobserved heterogeneity of both pupils and schools. The evidence from a sample of 15 year olds from over fifty countries that participated in PISA 2006 consistently shows that instructional time has a positive and significant effect on test scores. The effect is large relative to the standard deviation of the within pupil test score distribution. The OLS results are highly biased upward but the within student estimates are very similar across groups of developed and middle-income countries. However, the estimated effect of instructional time in the sample of developing countries is much lower than the effect size in the developed countries. Several checks for threats of identification support the causal interpretation of this evidence. I obtain very similar results when I use as an alternative data from primary and middle schools in Israel and a somewhat different identification strategy. Finally, I also explore some correlations that suggest that suggest that the productivity of instructional time is higher in countries that implemented s |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0118&r=lab |
| By: | Jósef Sigurdsson; Rannveig Sigurdardottir |
| Abstract: | This paper presents new evidence about wage stickiness and the nature of wage setting. We use a unique micro dataset on monthly frequency, covering wages in the Icelandic private sector for the period from 1998-2010, and draw the following conclusions. First, the mean frequency of wage change is 10.8% per month. When weighted for heterogeneity across industries and occupations the result is almost identical; the frequency of change is 10.5% per month. Second, only 0.5% of monthly wage changes are decreases. Third, the mean duration of wage spells is 8.9 months. Onefifth of wage spells last longer than a year while other spells last for one year or shorter. Fourth, wage setting displays strong features of time-dependence: half of all wage changes are synchronised in January, but other adjustments are staggered through the year. Fifth, there is limited evidence of state-dependence: frequency of wage increases, size of increases, frequency of wage decreases and size of decreases do not correlate with inflation. However, both frequency and size of wage decreases have significant correlation with unemployment. Sixth, the hazard function for wages is mostly flat during the first months but has a large twelve-month spike. These facts align with a model of time-dependent wage contracts of fixed duration. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ice:wpaper:wp55&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen Gibbons; Sandra McNally; Martina Viarengo |
| Abstract: | Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy - particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribution and where there is much concern about low social mobility. An anomaly in the spatial dimension of school funding policy in England allows us to examine the effect of increasing school expenditure for schools in urban areas. This anomaly arises because an 'area cost adjustment' is made in how central government allocates funds to Local Authorities (school districts) whereas, in reality, teachers are drawn from the same labour market and are paid according to national pay scales. This is one of the features that give rise to neighbouring schools on either side of a Local Authority boundary being allocated very different resources, even if they have very similar characteristics. We find that these funding disparities give rise to sizeable differences in pupil attainment in national tests at the end of primary school. This finding lends adds to the evidence that school resources have an important role to play in improving educational attainment and has direct policy implications for the current 'pupil premium' policy in England. |
| Keywords: | Urban schools, education, resources, |
| JEL: | R0 I21 H52 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0128&r=lab |
| By: | Stephen Gibbons; Sandra McNally; Martina Viarengo |
| Abstract: | Improvement of educational attainment in schools in urban, disadvantaged areas is an important priority for policy - particularly in countries like England which have a long tail at the bottom of the educational distribution and where there is much concern about low social mobility. An anomaly in the spatial dimension of school funding policy in England allows us to examine the effect of increasing school expenditure for schools in urban areas. This anomaly arises because an 'area cost adjustment' is made in how central government allocates funds to Local Authorities (school districts) whereas, in reality, teachers are drawn from the same labour market and are paid according to national pay scales. This is one of the features that give rise to neighbouring schools on either side of a Local Authority boundary being allocated very different resources, even if they have very similar characteristics. We find that these funding disparities give rise to sizeable differences in pupil attainment in national tests at the end of primary school. This finding lends adds to the evidence that school resources have an important role to play in improving educational attainment and has direct policy implications for the current 'pupil premium' policy in England. |
| Keywords: | Urban schools, education, resources |
| JEL: | R0 I21 H52 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:sercdp:0090&r=lab |
| By: | Gregory J. Colman; Dhaval M. Dave |
| Abstract: | As economic recessions reduce employment and wages, associated shifts in time and income constraints would be expected to also impact individuals’ health behaviors. Prior work has focused exclusively on recreational exercise, which typically represents only about 4% of total daily physical exertion. The general presumption in these studies is that, because exercise improves health, if unemployment increases exercise it must also improve health. Yet a person may be laid off from a physically demanding job, exercise more, and still be less physically active than when employed. Thus the relevant question is whether unemployment leads persons to become more physically active. We study this question with the American Time Use Survey (2003-2010), exploring the impact of the business cycle (and specifically the Great Recession) on individuals’ exercise, other uses of time, and physical activity during the day. We also utilize more precise measures of exercise (and all other physical activities), which reflect information on the duration as well as intensity of each component activity, than has been employed in past studies. Using within-state variation in employment and unemployment, we find that recreational exercise tends to increase as employment decreases. In addition, we also find that individuals substitute into television watching, sleeping, childcare, and housework. However, this increase in exercise as well as other activities does not compensate for the decrease in work-related exertion due to job-loss. Thus total physical exertion, which prior studies have not analyzed, declines. These behavioral effects are strongest among low-educated males, which is validating given that the Great Recession led to some of the largest layoffs within the manufacturing, mining, and construction sectors. Due to the concentration of low-educated workers in boom-and-bust industries, the drop in total physical activity during recessions is especially problematic for vulnerable populations and may play a role in exacerbating the SES-health gradient during recessions. We also find some evidence of intra-household spillover effects, wherein individuals respond to shifts in spousal employment conditional on their own labor supply. |
| JEL: | D01 D1 I1 J1 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17406&r=lab |
| By: | Jocelyn Donze and Trude Gunnes (Statistics Norway) |
| Abstract: | This paper sheds light on the role of student motivation in the success of schooling. We develop a model in which a teacher engages in the management of student motivation through the choice of the classroom environment. We show that the teacher is able to motivate high-ability students, at least in the short run, by designing a competitive environment. For students with low ability, risk aversion, or when engaged in a long term relationship, the teacher designs a classroom environment that is more focused on mastery and self-referenced standards. In doing so, the teacher helps to develop the intrinsic motivation of students and their capacity to overcome failures. |
| Keywords: | Education; Student Achievement; Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation; Effort; Goal Theory. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:662&r=lab |
| By: | Alexander Murray; Andrew Sharpe |
| Abstract: | This report provides an assessment of human capital development in British Columbia. The province's performance is above average according to the majority of the indicators we analyze, relative to both the rest of Canada and other OECD countries. However, this does not mean that there is no room for improvement. We identify four areas in which improvements would be likely to contribute to productivity growth in British Columbia: the underutilization of the skills of recent immigrants; the poor educational outcomes of Aboriginal people; the below-average production of advanced human capital through graduate training; and the problem of high school non-completion. We provide policy recommendations pertaining to each of these four challenges. |
| Keywords: | productivity, human capital, immigration, education, aboriginal education gap |
| JEL: | D24 J24 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sls:resrep:1110&r=lab |
| By: | Mehtabul Azam; Geeta Kingdon |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the issue of the intra-household allocation of education expenditure with the recently available India Human Development Survey which refers to 2005 and covers both urban and rural areas. In addition to the traditional Engel method, the paper utilizes a Hurdle model to disentangle the decision to enroll (incur any educational expenditure) and the decision of how much to spend on education, conditional on enrolling. Finally the paper also uses household fixed effects to examine whether any gender bias is a within-household phenomenon. The paper finds that the traditional Engel method often fails to pick up gender bias where it exists not only because of the aggregation of data at the household-level but also because of aggregation of the two decisions in which gender can have opposite signs. It is found that pro-male gender bias exists in the primary school age group for several states but that the incidence of gender bias increases with age – it is greater in the middle school age group (10-14 years) and greater still in the secondary school age group (15-19 years). However, gender discrimination in the secondary school age group 15-19 takes place mainly through the decision to enroll boys and not girls, and not through differential expenditure on girls and boys. The results also suggest that the extent of pro-male gender bias in educational expenditure is substantially greater in rural than in urban areas. Finally, our results suggest that an important mechanism through which households spend less on girls than boys is by sending sons to fee-charging private schools and daughters to the fee-free government-funded schools. |
| Keywords: | Gender bias, educational expenditure, Engel curve, Hurdle model, India. |
| JEL: | I21 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2011-10&r=lab |
| By: | Doko Tchatoka; Urbain Thierry Yogo (School of Economics and Finance, University of Tasmania) |
| Abstract: | We question whether the use of social networks to exit unemployment matters in Cameroon. We develop a Weibull-type duration model which allows us to address this issue in a convenient way. Our investigations indicate that there is a strong evidence of endogeneity and sample selection biases. We then propose a three-step procedure to deal with both problems. Our results show that the use of social networks to exit unemployment is effective. Furthermore, we find that the hazard monotonically increases with time. Hence, unemployment exhibits a positive duration dependence. Moreover, we provide an analysis of factors that determine labor market participation and the use of social networks. We find that the density of the west native population in the center of Cameroon and religion are the only factors that determine the use of social networks. In contrast, characteristics such as age, sex, education, association’s membership, determine labor market participation. |
| Keywords: | RePEc |
| Date: | 2011–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tas:wpaper:10652&r=lab |
| By: | Christian Dustmann (University College London and CReAM); Tommaso Frattini (University of Milan, CReAM, IZA and Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano); Gianadrea Lanzara (University College London and CReAM) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the educational achievements of second generation immigrants in several OECD countries in a comparative perspective. We first show that the educational achievement (measured as test scores in PISA achievement tests) of children of immigrants is quite heterogeneous across countries, and strongly related to achievements of the parent generation. The disadvantage considerably reduces, and even disappears for some countries, once we condition on parental background characteristics. Second, we provide novel analysis of cross-country comparisons of test scores of children from the same country of origin, and compare (conditional) achievement scores in home and host countries. The focus is on Turkish immigrants, whom we observe in several destination countries. We investigate both mathematics and reading test scores, and show that the results vary according to the type of skills tested. For mathematics, in most countries and even if the test scores achievement of the children of Turkish immigrants is lower than that of their native peers, it is still higher than that of children of their cohort in the home country - conditional and unconditional on parental background characteristics. The analysis suggests that higher school quality relative to that in the home country is important to explain immigrant children’s educational advantage |
| Keywords: | Education, Second-Generation Immigrants |
| JEL: | J61 J62 I2 |
| Date: | 2011–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:314&r=lab |
| By: | Steven J. Davis; John C. Haltiwanger; Ron S. Jarmin; Josh Lerner; Javier Miranda |
| Abstract: | Private equity critics claim that leveraged buyouts bring huge job losses. To investigate this claim, we construct and analyze a new dataset that covers U.S. private equity transactions from 1980 to 2005. We track 3,200 target firms and their 150,000 establishments before and after acquisition, comparing outcomes to controls similar in terms of industry, size, age, and prior growth. Relative to controls, employment at target establishments declines 3 percent over two years post buyout and 6 percent over five years. The job losses are concentrated among public-to-private buyouts, and transactions involving firms in the service and retail sectors. But target firms also create more new jobs at new establishments, and they acquire and divest establishments more rapidly. When we consider these additional adjustment margins, net relative job losses at target firms are less than 1 percent of initial employment. In contrast, the sum of gross job creation and destruction at target firms exceeds that of controls by 13 percent of employment over two years. In short, private equity buyouts catalyze the creative destruction process in the labor market, with only a modest net impact on employment. The creative destruction response mainly involves a more rapid reallocation of jobs across establishments within target firms. |
| JEL: | G24 G34 J23 L25 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17399&r=lab |
| By: | Bargain, O.; Herwig Immervoll (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)); Andreas Peichl (Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)); Siegloch, S. |
| Abstract: | Macro-level changes can have substantial effects on the distribution of resources at the household level. While it is possible to speculate about which groups are likely to be hardest-hit, detailed distributional studies are still largely backward-looking. This paper suggests a straightforward approach to gauge the distributional and fiscal implications of large output changes at an early stage. We illustrate the method with an evaluation of the impact of the 2008-2009 crisis in Germany. We take as a starting point a very detailed administrative matched employeremployee dataset to estimate labor demand and predict the effects of output shocks at a disaggregated level. The predicted employment effects are then transposed to household-level microdata, in order to analyze the incidence of rising unemployment and reduced working hours on poverty and inequality. We focus on two alternative scenarios of the labor demand adjustment process, one based on reductions in hours (intensive margin) and close to the German experience, and the other assuming extensive margin adjustments that take place through layoffs (close to the US situation). Our results suggest that the distributional and fiscal consequences are less severe when labor demand reacts along the intensive margin. JEL Classifcation : D58, J23, H24, H60. |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aia:ginidp:dp1&r=lab |
| By: | Davidson, Carl (Michigan State University); Heyman, Fredrik (The Research Institute of Industrial Economics); Matusz, Steven (Michigan State University); Sjöholm, Fredrik (Department of Economics, Lund University); Zhu, Susan Chun (Michigan State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on the ability of the labor market to correctly match heterogeneous workers to jobs within a given industry and the role that globalization plays in that process. Using matched worker-firm data from Sweden, we find strong evidence that openness improves the matching between workers and firms in industries with greater comparative advantage. This suggests that there may be significant gains from globalization that have not been identified in the past – globalization may improve the efficiency of the matching process in the labor market. These results remain unchanged after adding controls for technical change at the industry level or measures of domestic anti-competitive regulations and product market competition. Our results are also robust to alternative measures of the degree of matching, openness, or the trade status of an industry |
| Keywords: | Matching; Globalization; Firms; Workers; Multinational Enterprises; International Trade |
| JEL: | F14 F16 J20 |
| Date: | 2011–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2011_025&r=lab |
| By: | Galina Hale; Tali Regev |
| Abstract: | Analyzing university faculty and graduate student data for the top-ten U.S. economics departments between 1987 and 2007, we find that there are persistent differences in gender composition for both faculty and graduate students across institutions and that the share of female faculty and the share of women in the entering PhD class are positively correlated. We find, using instrumental variables analysis, robust evidence that this correlation is driven by the causal effect of the female faculty share on the gender composition of the entering PhD class. This result provides an explanation for persistent underrepresentation of women in economics, as well as for persistent segregation of women across academic fields. |
| Keywords: | Economics - Study and teaching ; Universities and colleges ; Economists |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2011-19&r=lab |
| By: | Gabrielle Fack; Julien Grenet |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate how housing prices react to the quality of education offered by neighbouring public and private schools. The organization of secondary schooling in the city of Paris, which combines residence-based-assignment to public schools with a well-developed and almost entirely publicly funded private school system, offers a valuable empirical context for analyzing how private schools affect the capitalization of public school performance in housing prices. Using comprehensive data on both schools and real estate transact ions over the period 1997-2004, we develop a matching framework to carefully compare sales across school attendance boundaries. We find that a standard deviation increase in public school performance raises housing prices by 1.4 to 2.4%. Moreover, we show that the capitalization of public school performance in the price of real estate shrinks as the availability of private schools increases in the neighbourhood. Our results confirm the predictions of general equilibrium models of school choice that private schools, by providing an advantageous outside option to parents, tend to mitigate the impact of public school performance on housing prices. |
| Keywords: | School attendance zones, private schools, housing markets,residential segregation |
| JEL: | H41 I21 I28 R21 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0119&r=lab |
| By: | Khanna, Gaurav; Newhouse, David; Paci, Pierella |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews evidence from 44 middle-income countries on how the recent financial crisis affected jobs and workers'incomes. In addition to providing a rare assessment of the magnitude of the impact across several middle-income countries, the paper describes how labor markets adjusted and how the adjustments varied for different types of countries. The main finding is that the crisis affected the quality of employment more than the number of jobs. Overall, the slow-down in earning growth was considerably higher than that in employment, and the decline in gross domestic product was associated with a sharp decline in output per worker, particularly in the industrial sector. In several counties, hours per worker declined and hourly wages changed little. But both the magnitude and nature of the adjustments varied considerably across countries. For a given drop in gross domestic product, earnings declined more in countries with larger manufacturing sectors, smaller export sectors, and more stringent labor market regulations. In addition, overall employment became more sensitive to growth in gross domestic product. These findings have implications that go beyond the recent financial crisis as they highlight (i) the limitations of focusing policy responses on maintaining jobs and providing alterative employment or replacement income for the unemployed, and (ii) the critical role of fast-track data systems that are capable of monitoring ongoing labor market adjustment during economic downturns, in supporting the design of effective policy responses. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Labor Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Markets and Market Access,Labor Management and Relations |
| Date: | 2011–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5791&r=lab |
| By: | Emin Dinlersoz; Henry Hyatt; Sang Nguyen |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the evolution of wages along the life-cycle of U.S. manufacturing plants. Real wages start out low for new plants, and increase along with productivity as plants survive and age. As plants experience productivity decline and approach exit, real wages fall. However, for failing plants real wages do not fall as quickly as they rise in the case of new entrants. These empirical regularities are captured in a dynamic model of labor quality and quantity choice by plants subject to adjustment costs in wages and employment. The model’s parameters are estimated to assess the magnitude of adjustment costs and the degree of asymmetry in the cost of upward versus downward adjustments. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:11-24&r=lab |
| By: | Amin, Vikesh (Binghamton University, New York); Lundborg, Petter (Lund University); Rooth, Dan-Olof (Linneaus University) |
| Abstract: | Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) used data on a small sample of MZ (monozygotic, identical) twin parents and their children to show that father's schooling is more important than mother's schooling for children's schooling in the U.S. Recent studies based on much larger samples of twins from registry data in Scandinavian countries reach similar conclusions. Most of these studies, however, are unable to distinguish between MZ and DZ (dizygotic, fraternal) twins. Using data from the Swedish Twin Registry, we replicate the finding that father's schooling matters more than mother's schooling in a combined sample of MZ and DZ twin parents. In contrast, results based on MZ twin parents show that mother's schooling matters at least as much as father's schooling for children's schooling. We also estimate the effect of parents' schooling separately by child gender and find this effect to be entirely driven by the impact of mother's schooling on daughter's schooling. Our results show that (1) it is vital to have zygosity information to estimate causal intergenerational effects and (2) the conclusions reached by Behrman and Rosenzweig (2002) for the U.S. do not apply in Sweden. |
| Keywords: | twins, twin-fixed effects, schooling, intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | J0 I0 J1 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5946&r=lab |
| By: | Tommaso Monacelli; Vincenzo Quadrini; Antonella Trigari |
| Abstract: | We study the importance of financial markets for (un)employment fluctuations in a model with searching and matching frictions where firms issue debt under limited enforcement. Higher debt allows employers to bargain lower wages which in turn increases the incentive to create jobs. The transmission mechanism of 'credit shocks' is fundamentally different from the typical credit channel and the model can explain why firms cut hiring after a credit contraction even if they have not shortage of funds for hiring workers. The theoretical predictions are consistent with the estimation of a structural VAR whose identifying restrictions are derived from the theoretical model. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 E44 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17389&r=lab |
| By: | Supriya Garikipati |
| Abstract: | This study examines the impact of microcredit on male and female time use and draws on this analysis to explore the linkages between credit and women’s empowerment. A study of time use can help understand these linkages because credit targeted at women with the intent of influencing their livelihoods must also influence the way they allocate their work time. Its other advantages are that it does not suffer from much time lag and can be objectively measured. We use survey data from rural India. Our findings show that while microcredit has little impact on women’s time use, it helps their husbands shift away from wage-work, which is associated with bad pay and low status, to self-employment. We find that this is because women’s loans are typically used to enhance male ownership of household’s productive assets. Further, we find that only women who use loans in self-managed enterprises are able to allocate more time to self-employment. We conclude that if credit is to increase the value of women’s work time then it is not access to loan but use of loan that matters. Specifically, women’s control over loan created assets is critical. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/96915&r=lab |
| By: | Elena Arias Ortis; Catherine Dehon |
| Abstract: | In this paper we study the factors that influence both dropout and degree completion (4 or 5 years to earn a degree) at university using survival analysis. In particular, we apply the set of discrete-time methods for competing risks event history analysis described in Scott and Kennedy (2005). Using the competing risks model, we show that foreign students are more likely to experience consecutive enrollments without actually getting a degree. Also, having a mother with a higher education degree reduces significantly the risk of dropping out and at the same time increases the chance of graduation. Finally, the impact of a variable can evolve throughout the academic path. For example, “having chosen a strong mathematical profile during high school ” reduces significantly the risk of dropping out only in the early years of study. |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/96837&r=lab |
| By: | Gopalakrishnan, Ambili |
| Abstract: | Young people account for one fifth of the world’s population and according to the population projections of Planning Commission of India, they contribute to 22.8% of the Indian population. Majority of these young people constitute student population acquiring higher education who may contribute to future workforce of the country. These young people, across the globe, especially in developing countries where the population density and growth is also highest, face unprecedented challenges in their capacity to access public resources and family resources, stemmed from waves of cultural and economic globalisation. Educational qualification levels of the people in the age group 15 to 29 are also expected to improve significantly in the next decade. Growing enrolments in higher education and rising rates of return on it, in not only advanced countries but also many developing countries tend to make a case for expanding higher education to reach larger number of people across the world and India is not an exception. Hence the paper seeks to study the higher education development in India and analyses employability of higher education sector in India and its transition to labour market. The study shows that India with enormous population of 1.21 billion people and an expanding economy, is in urgent demand for qualified work force. Finding reliable solutions for developing the higher education system to facilitate sustainable economic growth is the call, which will require persistent policy, polity and political motivation in the right direction from the stakeholders which lacks at the moment in the country. |
| Keywords: | Employability; transition; labour market; higher education; India |
| JEL: | E66 E24 J21 E65 I21 I28 H52 |
| Date: | 2011–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33139&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Dolton; Li Lin |
| Abstract: | The UK has progressively moved from a Higher Education (HE) system which is funded at the tax payers' expense to one which is funded by individual participants (and their parents) by scrapping student grants, introducing student loans and charging tuition fees. The purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of these changes on the demand for HE using time-series data for England and Wales over the period 1955 to 2008. We use a Seemingly Unrelated Regressions model of three indicators of demand for post-compulsory education allowing for structural breaks. Tests show that most of the breaks occurred in line with several important policy changes. We find that less generous student financial support arrangements have had a significant negative impact on university enrolment. We simulate the impact of raising tuition fees to £9,000 pa and find that this will reduce demand for HE from boys by 7.51 percentage points and from girls by 4.92 percentage points. |
| Keywords: | post compulsory education, student finance, structural change |
| JEL: | J08 I22 I28 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0127&r=lab |
| By: | McGee, Andrew (Simon Fraser University); McGee, Peter (National University of Singapore) |
| Abstract: | We test the hypothesis that locus of control – one's perception of control over events in life – influences search by affecting beliefs about the efficacy of search effort in a laboratory experiment. We find that reservation offers and effort are increasing in the belief that one's efforts influence outcomes when subjects exert effort without knowing how effort influences the generation of offers but are unrelated to locus of control beliefs when subjects are informed about the relationship between effort and offers. These effects cannot be explained by locus of control's correlation with unmeasured human capital, personality traits, and the costs of search – alternative explanations for the relationships between locus of control and search behavior that cannot be ruled out using survey data – as the search task does not vary across treatments, which leads us to conclude that locus of control influences search through beliefs about the efficacy of search effort. Our findings provide evidence that locus of control measures can be used to identify job seekers at risk of becoming "discouraged" and abandoning search. |
| Keywords: | locus of control, reservation wages, labor market search, experiment |
| JEL: | J64 D83 C91 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5948&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Nurnberg; Morton Schapiro; David Zimmerman |
| Abstract: | In this paper we utilize data on the head-to-head loss rate for students accepted at Williams College, but who opt to enroll elsewhere. For example, we employ data that measure the fraction of students admitted to Williams and to Amherst (or Harvard or Yale, etc.) but who opt to attend Amherst (or Harvard or Yale, etc.) instead of Williams. We then model this head-to-head loss rate using data from a variety of sources. A better understanding of the head-to-head loss rate can assist an institution in the competition for high quality students. Importantly, it can also shed light on the degree to which some part of the loss rate might be due to “intangible” differences between the schools being compared. These intangibles (positive or negative) might grant a school greater success (or failure) in the market for students than an objective accounting of its characteristics might suggest. Such an advantage (or disadvantage) is closely aligned with the business concept of “goodwill.” We present preliminary evidence on how a quantitative measure of educational goodwill can be computed. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17412&r=lab |
| By: | Jesús Cañas; Roberto Coronado; Robert W. Gilmer; Eduardo Saucedo |
| Abstract: | For decades, the maquiladora industry has been a major economic engine along the U.S.–Mexico border. Since the 1970s, researchers have analyzed how the maquiladora industry affects cities along both sides of the border. Gordon Hanson (2001) produced the first comprehensive study on the impact of the maquiladoras on U.S. border cities, considering the impact of these in-bond plants on both employment and wages. His estimates became useful rules of thumb for the entire U.S.–Mexico border. These estimates have become dated, as Hanson's study covered the period from 1975 to 1997. The purpose of this paper is to update Hanson's results using data from 1990 to 2006 and to extend the estimates to specific border cities. For the border region as a whole, we find that the impact of a 10 percent increase in maquiladora production leads to a 0.5 to 0.9 percent change in employment. However, we also find that the border average is quite misleading, with large differences among individual border cities. Cities along the Texas–Mexico border benefit the most from growing maquiladora production. We also estimate the cross-border maquiladora impacts before and after 2001 when border security begins to rise, the maquiladora industry entered a severe recession and extensive restructuring and global low-wage competition intensified as China joined the World Trade Organization. Empirical results indicate that U.S. border cities are less responsive to growth in maquiladora production from 2001 to 2006 than in the earlier period; however, when looking into specific sectors we find that U.S. border city employment in service sectors are far more responsive post-2001. |
| Keywords: | International trade ; Labor market ; Economic development - Latin America |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:1107&r=lab |
| By: | Mercan, Murat A. |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to the literature in three ways. Our first contribution is calculating the marriage premium for Turkey. Our results suggest that married men earn 27 percent more than single men and married women earn 4 percent less than single women. Our second contribution is calculating the marriage premium for Turkey’s regions. For men, the wage difference is the smallest, 0.43, in Istanbul. The difference is highest in Akdeniz region. For women, the wage difference is smallest, -0.04, in Ege and the highest, 0.62, in Dogu Anadolu. Finally, we estimated the relationship between age and the marriage premium. We found that for men, at younger ages the difference is high. For women, in most of ages single women earn more than married women. |
| Keywords: | marriage; earnings; marriage premium |
| JEL: | J12 |
| Date: | 2011–09–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:33263&r=lab |
| By: | Robert Fairlie; Florian Hoffmann; Philip Oreopoulos |
| Abstract: | This paper uses detailed administrative data from one of the largest community colleges in the United States to quantify the extent to which academic performance depends on students being of similar race or ethnicity to their instructors. To address the concern of endogenous sorting, we use both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on those with limited course enrolment options. We also compare sensitivity in the results from using within versus across section instructor type variation. Given the computational complexity of the 2-way fixed effects model with a large set of fixed effects we rely on numerical algorithms that exploit the particular structure of the model’s normal equations. We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout and pass rates between white and minority students falls by roughly half when taught by a minority instructor. In models that allow for a full set of ethnic and racial interactions between students and instructors, we find African-American students perform particularly better when taught by African-American instructors. |
| JEL: | I20 I23 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17381&r=lab |
| By: | Ericson, Peter (Sim Solution); Flood, Lennart (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents estimates of individuals’ responses in hourly wages to changes in marginal tax rates. Estimates based on register panel data of Swedish households covering the period 1992 to 2007 produce significant but relatively small net-of-tax rate elasticities. The results vary with family type, with the largest elasticities obtained for single males and the smallest for married/cohabitant females. Despite these seemingly small elasticities, evaluation of the effects of a reduced state tax using a microsimulation model shows that the effort effect matters. The largest effect is due to changes in number of working hours yet including the effort effect results in an almost self-financed reform. As a reference to the earlier literature we also estimate taxable income elasticities. As expected, these are larger than for the hourly wage rates. However, both specifications produce significantly and positive income effects.<p> |
| Keywords: | income taxation; hourly wage rates; work effort; micro simulation |
| JEL: | D31 H24 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2011–08–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0514&r=lab |
| By: | Henry Saffer; Dhaval M. Dave; Michael Grossman |
| Abstract: | This study examines racial, ethnic and gender differentials in physical activity. Individuals engage in physical activity during leisure-time and also during in many other activities such as walking to work, home maintenance, shopping and child care. Physical activity also occurs on the job is this is referred to as work physical activity. Prior studies have shown that non-work physical activity has a positive impact on health while work physical activity has a negative impact on health. Many prior studies have relied primarily on leisure-time physical activity, which typically constitutes only about 10% of non-work physical activity and does not capture specific information on the intensity or duration of the activity. This study addresses these limitations by constructing measures of physical activity from the American Time Use Surveys, which are all-inclusive and capture the duration of each activity combined with its intensity based on the Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET). Non-work physical activity tends to be significantly lower for Blacks, Hispanics, other racial groups than for Whites and lower for males than for females. These adjusted differentials are consistent with racial, ethnic and gender differentials in health. About 25-46% of the differentials in non-work physical activity can be attributed to differences in education, socio-economic status, proxies for time constraints, and locational attributes. |
| JEL: | I12 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17413&r=lab |
| By: | Brunello, Giorgio (University of Padova); Fort, Margherita (University of Bologna); Schneeweis, Nicole (University of Linz); Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate the contribution of health related behaviors to the education gradient, using an empirical approach that addresses the endogeneity of both education and behaviors in the health production function. We apply this approach to a multi-country data set, which includes 12 European countries and has information on education, health and health behaviors for a sample of individuals aged 50+. Focusing on self reported poor health as our health outcome, we find that education has a protective role both for males and females. When evaluated at the sample mean of the dependent variable, one additional year of education reduces self-reported poor health by 7.1% for females and by 3.1% for males. Health behaviors – measured by smoking, drinking, exercising and the body mass index – contribute to explaining the gradient. We find that the effects of education on smoking, drinking, exercising and eating a proper diet account for at most 23% to 45% of the entire effect of education on health, depending on gender. |
| Keywords: | health, education, health behaviors, Europe |
| JEL: | J1 I12 I21 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5944&r=lab |
| By: | Abigail Barr; Andrew Zeitlin |
| Abstract: | Using a specially designed lab-type experiment conducted in the field, we compare the willingness of head teachers, centrally appointed public servants, and community representatives to hold Ugandan primary school teachers to account. We find no difference in the willingness of centrally appointed public servants and community representatives. However, head teachers are significantly less willing to punish teachers whose performance falls 20 to 40 percent below a generally accepted benchmark. In addition, head teachers are twice as likely to punish teachers who “over-perform”, a behaviour akin to punishing rate-busters. |
| Keywords: | Public service, Education, Experiments, Africa, Accountability, Methodology. |
| JEL: | C91 I29 O12 O17 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csa:wpaper:2011-13&r=lab |
| By: | Raymundo M. Campos Vázquez (El Colegio de México); Andrés Hincapie (Yale University); Rubén I. Rojas Valdés (Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | We study family income inequality in Mexico from 1988 to 2010. Female labor supply increased during this period, especially for married women. The share of wives’ income among married couples grew from 13 percent in 1988 to 23 percent in 2010. However, the correlation of husbands’ and wives’ earnings has been fairly stable with a value close to 0.28, one of the highest correlations recorded across countries. We follow Cancian and Reed’s (1999) methodology in order to analyze whether wives’ income equalizes total family income distribution. We investigate several counterfactuals and conclude that the recent increment in female employment has contributed to a decrease in family income inequality mainly through a rise in wives’ labor supply in poor families. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, female employment, female earnings, Latin America, Mexico |
| JEL: | J12 J21 J31 O15 O54 |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2011-07&r=lab |
| By: | Tony Sheppard |
| Abstract: | The Irish Department of Education and Skills (DoE) is strongly committed to energy efficiency and to reducing CO2 by developing and implementing energy level ceilings in relation to school design that aim to remain below half of the accepted good practice in the field. This approach works within normal departmental budgetary limits to create school buildings that are breaking ground for building designers. |
| Keywords: | school design, energy efficiency, extendibility, compactness, repeatability |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaac:2011/5-en&r=lab |
| By: | Will Dobbie; Roland G. Fryer, Jr |
| Abstract: | Nearly one million American youth have participated in service programs such as Peace Corps and Teach For America. This paper provides the first causal estimate of the impact of service programs on those who serve, using data from a web-based survey of former Teach For America applicants. We estimate the effect of voluntary youth service using a sharp discontinuity in the Teach For America application process. Participating in Teach For America increases racial tolerance, makes individuals more optimistic about the life chances of poor children, and makes them more likely to work in education. We argue that these facts are broadly consistent with the “Contact Hypothesis,” which states that, under appropriate conditions, interpersonal contact can reduce prejudice. |
| JEL: | I00 J01 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17402&r=lab |
| By: | Hongqin Chang; Xiao-yuan Dong; Fiona MacPhail |
| Abstract: | Rural-urban migration has become a major feature of the Chinese economy since the mid-1990s. Due to institutional arrangements and economic and cultural factors, massive labor migration has resulted in a large left-behind population consisting of children, non-elderly married women, and the elderly. This paper examines the impacts of labor migration on time use patterns of the left-behind elderly people and children in rural China, using data derived from the China’s health and Nutrition Health Survey (CHNS) for the period between 1997 and 2006. The results show that the migration of household members increases the time spent on farm work and domestic work for the left-behind elderly, and the migration of parents increases the time spent on farm work and domestic work for the left-behind children. Importantly, migration has striking gender differentiated impacts with the increase in work time being greater for elderly women and girls than elderly men and boys. These results have important policy implications. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 O12 |
| Date: | 2010–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:win:winwop:2010-05&r=lab |
| By: | Hetschko, Clemens; Knabe, Andreas; Schöb, Ronnie |
| Abstract: | Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2009, we follow persons from their working life into their retirement years and find that, on average, employed people maintain their life satisfaction upon retirement, while long-term unemployed people report a substantial increase in their life satisfaction when they retire. These results are robust to controlling for changes in other life circumstances and suggest that retiring is associated with a switch in the relevant social norms that causes an increase in identity utility for the formerly unemployed. This is supportive of the idea that, by including identity in the utility function, results from the empirical life satisfaction literature can be reconciled with the economic theory of individual utility. -- |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction,retirement,unemployment,identity,social norm |
| JEL: | I31 J26 |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:201111&r=lab |
| By: | Knoef, M.G. (Universiteit van Tilburg) |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:tilbur:urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-4807622&r=lab |
| By: | Raymundo M. Campos Vázquez (El Colegio de México); Jaime Lara Lara (El Colegio de México) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the self-selection patterns among Mexican return migrants during the period from 1990 to 2010. Using census data, we can identify return migrants who have lived in the United States within the previous 5 years but who currently live in Mexico. To calculate the selection patterns, we non parametrically estimate the counterfactual wages that the return migrants would have experienced had they never migrated by using the wage structure of non migrants. We find evidence that the selection patterns change over time toward negative selection. For example, in 1990, the wages that the male return migrants would have experienced had they not migrated was 6 percent larger than the wages of male non migrants. However, by 2010, the difference had declined to -14 percent. The increasing negativity of the degree of selection is robust to the analysis of specific subgroups: rural and urban, men and women, and states with high migration rates and low migration rates. Moreover, the negative selection results for the period from 2000 to 2010 are robust to the use of different surveys that define a return migrant by using distinct characteristics. Additionally, we observe that the wages of return migrants are larger than those that the migrants would have obtained had they not migrated. This finding shows that migration has a positive effect on the Mexican economy. |
| Keywords: | Mexican migration, self-selection, return migration, wages |
| JEL: | F22 J61 O54 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emx:ceedoc:2011-09&r=lab |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Stefano Caiazza (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Decio Coviello (HEC Montreal and University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | We experimentally study the effect of financial education on investment attitudes in a large sample of high school students in Italy. Students in the treated classes were taught a course in finance and interviewed before and after the study, while controls were only interviewed. Our principal result is that the difference-in-difference estimates of the effect of the course are not statistically significant. However, the course in finance reduced the virtual demand for cash, and increased the level of financial literacy and the propensity to read (and the capacity to understand) economic articles in both treated and control classes compared with pre-treatment baseline levels. A breakdown of the cognitive process, which is statistically significant for the classes treated, suggests that error and ignorance reduction was sizable, and that the progress in financial literacy was stronger in subgroups which exhibited lower ex-ante knowledge levels. |
| Keywords: | financial education, financial literacy, demand for money balances, randomized experiment. |
| Date: | 2011–09–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:210&r=lab |
| By: | Michael Lytton |
| Abstract: | Many schools around the world are struggling in the face of reduced funding and fluctuating enrolments. Often, the solution to this unhappy equation is quite simply to shut down facilities. But when all the costs of closing a school are considered – financial, material and human – implementing this policy calls for caution. |
| Keywords: | school closures, utilisation rates, educational performance, operating costs, shuttering |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:eduaac:2011/8-en&r=lab |
| By: | Adolfo Albo; Juan Luis Ordaz Diaz |
| Abstract: | In this article, we calculate the number of Mexican immigrants with doctorates living in the United States. We describe some of their characteristics and point to some factors that contribute to the emigration of this group of persons. We also quantify the transfer that Mexico has made to the United States through the education costs of the Mexican migrants prior to their emigration. On average, we find that over recent years Mexico has made a transfer of resources equivalent to just over half a percentage point of GDP each year. |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbv:wpaper:1126&r=lab |
| By: | Emma Tominey |
| Abstract: | How do shocks to parental income drive adolescent human capital, including years of schooling, high school dropout, university attendance, IQ and health? A structural model decomposes household shocks into permanent and transitory components, then the effect of shocks at age 1-16 is estimated for 600,000 Norwegian children. The effect of permanent shocks declines - and of transitory shocks is small and constant across child age, suggesting parents optimise similarly to consumption. However there is a lower effect of transitory shocks for liquidity constrained parents. An interpretation is that these parents use income shocks for essential consumption rather than investment. |
| Keywords: | Income, pupil outcomes, shocks |
| JEL: | D12 J13 |
| Date: | 2010–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:ceedps:0120&r=lab |
| By: | Gicheva, Dora (University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | I examine the relationship between student debt and the timing of marriage. The life-cycle consumption smoothing model implies that student loans should have a very small effect on consumption at any given point in time and should not affect the timing of family formation. I use the Survey of Consumer Finances to show that the amount of student borrowing is negatively related to the probability of marriage, but the strength of this relationship diminishes with age. I use exogenous variations in the availability of student loans since the 1970s to address the endogeneity of student debt. I supplement my results with data from a panel survey of registrants for the Graduate Management Admission Test. Data on reported marriage expectations suggest that Master of Business Administration students who borrow for their education may not have perfect foresight. |
| Keywords: | Student Loans; Credit Constraints; Timing of Marriage |
| JEL: | D91 H52 I23 J12 |
| Date: | 2011–09–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:uncgec:2011_014&r=lab |
| By: | Monojit Chatterji; Stephen Devlin |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a summary of the purpose, practice and history of job evaluation in its primary role as a compensation system. It critically reviews the implicit assumptions made in the construction and application of the procedure with specific reference to PwC’s evaluation of the salary structure of the Welsh Assembly in 2004. |
| Keywords: | job evaluation, compensation systems |
| JEL: | J31 J33 |
| Date: | 2011–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dun:dpaper:259&r=lab |
| By: | Diego Angemi (Centro Studi Luca d\'Agliano) |
| Abstract: | This manuscript investigates the extent to which children contribute to the household’s agricultural activities. The conclusion that children play an important role in the farming activities of Ugandan agricultural households is supported by two key findings: (i) Child labour accounts for approimately 9% of the household’s annual agricultural earnings; and (ii) on the bases that most child labour is performed on the family farm and smoothly functioning labour markets are rare, land ownership increases the household’s demand for child labour in agricultural activities. |
| Keywords: | Child labour; labour market; agricultural earnings; land ownership |
| JEL: | J22 O12 |
| Date: | 2011–09–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:csl:devewp:315&r=lab |
| By: | Jeremy Barofsky (Harvard School of Public Health); Claire Chase (Harvard School of Public Health); Tobenna Anekwe; Farshad Farzadfar |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the economic consequences of a malaria eradication campaign in the southwestern Ugandan district of Kigezi. The project was a joint venture between the WHO and Uganda's Ministry of Health, designed to test for the first time the feasibility of malaria eradication in a sub-Saharan African country. During the years of 1959 and 1960, eradication efforts employing DDT spraying and mass distribution of anti-malarials were implemented, beginning in northern Kigezi. Follow-up studies reported a drop in overall parasite rates from 22.7 to 0.5% in hyperendemic areas and from 12.5 to 0% in mesoendemic areas. We use this campaign as a plausibly exogenous health shock to explore changes in human-capital formation and income. We employ a difference-in-difference methodology to show that eradication produced differential improvements in Kigezi compare to the rest of Uganda in years of schooling, literacy, and primary school completion. In addition, we find suggestive evidence that eradication increased income levels. |
| Keywords: | human capital, malaria, economic development and health |
| Date: | 2011–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gdm:wpaper:7011&r=lab |
| By: | Mocan, Naci (Louisiana State University); Altindag, Duha T. (Auburn University) |
| Abstract: | Prior to July 2009, salaries of the members of the European Parliament were paid by their home country and there were substantial salary differences between parliamentarians representing different EU countries. Starting in July 2009, the salary of each member of the Parliament is pegged to 38.5% of a European Court judge's salary, paid by the EU. This created an exogenous change in salaries, the magnitude and direction of which varied substantially between parliamentarians. Parliamentarians receive per diem compensation for each plenary session they attend, but salaries constitute unearned income as they are independent of attendance to the Parliament. Using detailed information on each parliamentarian of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2011 we show that an increase in salaries reduces attendance to plenary sessions and an increase in per diem compensation increases it. We also show that corruption in home country has a negative effect on attendance for seasoned members of the Parliament. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, corruption, EU |
| JEL: | D73 P16 J22 J45 |
| Date: | 2011–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5949&r=lab |