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on Transition Economics |
| By: | Jaan Masso; Jaanika Meriküll; Priit Vahter |
| Abstract: | Recent research suggests that firm-level factors play a significant role in the gender wage gap. This paper adds to this literature by analysing the role of sorting between firms and bargaining within firms using the methodology of Card et al. (2016). We employ linked employer-employee data for the whole population of firms and employees from Estonia for 2006–2017. Estonia is a country with the highest gender wage gap in the EU with about two-thirds of that unexplained by conventional factors. The results show that firm-level factors are important determinants of the gender wage gap, explaining as much as 35% of the gap. We find that within-firm bargaining plays a larger role in the gender wage gap than similar prior papers. This could be related to lenient labour market institutions, as reflected in low minimum wages and union power, and to lower bargaining skills of women. Further, the role of firm-level factors in the gender wage gap have increased over time, and these are especially important at the top of the wage distribution and among workers that are more skilled. There is a heavy penalty for motherhood in wages, 4–9 log points, but this is not related to firm-specific time-invariant productivity premiums. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap, firm-level productivity premiums, sorting and bargaining, distribution of wages, skills, motherhood penalty |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:120&r=all |
| By: | Shenzhe Jiang (Peking University); Jianjun Miao (Boston University); Yuzhe Zhang (Texas A&M University) |
| Abstract: | China’s housing prices have been growing rapidly over the past few decades, despite low growth in rents. We study the impact of housing bubbles on China’s economy, based on the understanding that local governments use land-sale revenue to fuel infrastructure investment. We calibrate our model to the Chinese data over the period 2003-2013 and find that our calibrated model can match the declining capital return and GDP growth, the average housing price growth, and the rising infrastructure to GDP ratio in the data. We conduct two counterfactual experiments to estimate the impact of a bubble collapse and a property tax. |
| Keywords: | Housing Bubble, Infrastructure, Economic Growth, Chinese Economy, Property Tax |
| JEL: | O11 O16 O18 P24 R21 R31 |
| Date: | 2019–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-332&r=all |
| By: | Brownbridge,Martin; Canagarajah,Sudharshan |
| Abstract: | Armenia, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan have all experienced substantial out-migration of workers and an associated inflow of workers'remittances over the past two decades. These four countries have much higher human capital, as measured by the Human Capital Index, than is typical for countries with similar levels of per capita income, and this may enable migrant workers to exploit opportunities to work in economies where labor productivity is higher. The inflow of workers'remittances has had effects analogous to those of Dutch disease in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan, which have experienced a large rise in expenditure to output and the share of services in gross domestic product, appreciation of the Balassa-Samuelson adjusted real exchange rates, and poor trade performance. In Armenia and Georgia, where remittances are a smaller share of gross domestic product, the effects were much more muted and their trade performance was much better. |
| Date: | 2020–01–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9111&r=all |
| By: | Huang, Bin (Nanjing University of Finance and Economics); He, Xiaoyan (Nanjing University of Finance and Economics); Xu, Lei (National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)); Zhu, Yu (University of Dundee) |
| Abstract: | We explore recent policy changes which aim to equalize access to elite elementary schools in Beijing, to identify the effect of access to quality education on house prices based on a unique dataset. Using property transaction records from Beijing over the period 2013-2016, we construct a balanced 4-wave panel of residential complexes, each of which linked to its designated primary schools. Whereas the multi-school dicing policy involves randomly assigning previously ineligible pupils to key elementary schools through lotteries, the policy of school federation led by elite schools consolidates ordinary primary schools through alliance with elite schools. Moreover, the designated primary school for a residential complex can change from an ordinary primary school to a key elementary school without involving neighbouring schools in surrounding residential complexes through a "pure" re-designation effect. We allow for systemic differences between the treated and non-treated residential complexes using the Matching Difference-in-Differences (MDID) approach. Our estimates indicate that the effect on house prices of being eligible to enrol in a municipal-level key primary school is about 4-6%, while the premium for being eligible for a less prestigious district-level key primary school is only about 2-3%. Our findings are robust to an alternative measure of primary school prestige based on an unofficial ranking from a popular parenting support website, which is shown to be closely related to the number of awards in academic tournaments. |
| Keywords: | quality school designation, house price premium, Matching DID, China |
| JEL: | R21 I28 H44 |
| Date: | 2020–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12897&r=all |
| By: | Lu,Bei; Piggott,John; Zheng,Bingwen |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses the potential expansion of the role of the notional defined contribution (NDC) paradigm in the ongoing reforms of retirement provision in China. It finds that mature age life expectancy is remarkably uniform among formal sector workers at the time of retirement, although greater heterogeneity does exist for Rural and Urban Residents Pension Scheme members. The implications of a stylized NDC structure are examined covering China?s major pension systems, calibrated to be actuarially neutral. Each system has a different contribution rate and retirement age, consistent with different life expectancies. A complementary social pension is also proposed. The paper concludes that an increased presence of the NDC paradigm has the potential to raise aggregate welfare. |
| Keywords: | Population&Development,Pensions&Retirement Systems,Social Protections&Assistance,Adolescent Health,Law and Justice Institutions |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:136542&r=all |
| By: | Chen, Simiao; Jin, Zhangfeng; Prettner, Klaus |
| Abstract: | We examine whether and how retirement affects migration decisions in China. Using a regression discontinuity (RD) design approach combined with a nationally representative sample of 228,855 adults aged between 40 and 75, we find that retirement increases the probability of migration by 12.9 percentage points. Approximately 38% of the total migration effects can be attributed to inter-temporal substitution (delayed migration). Retirement-induced migrants are lower-educated and have restricted access to social security. Household-level migration decisions can reconcile different migration responses across gender. Retirees migrate for risk sharing and family protection mechnisms, reducing market production of their families in the receiving households. |
| Keywords: | Retirement,Migration decision,Regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | J14 J26 J61 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:463&r=all |
| By: | Jing Guana; J.D. Tena |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the causal impact of acquiring social medical Insurance on hospital utilization and health status for children under 16 years old in China from 2010 to 2016. We consider the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), a longitudinal database which allows us to control for the effect of unobserved individual heterogeneity by means of difference-in-difference regressions combined with matching regression techniques. Our findings suggest that participating in social medical insurance schemes significantly increases children’s yearly hospital use, especially for low income and rural children. Moreover, this increase is not significantly different for people who were not previously sick. It is also found that social medical insurance schemes have no effect or even a marginally negative effect on children’s health status in some cases. We discuss some potential explanations for this result. |
| Keywords: | China; Social Medical Insurance; Health Outcomes; Difference-in-difference; Propensity Score Matching |
| JEL: | I13 |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:liv:livedp:20188&r=all |
| By: | Gal,Robert I.; Radó,Márta |
| Abstract: | This paper shows that as the educational composition in the fifty-five to sixty-four year-old age bracket improved between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s, the effective retirement age rose rapidly in the Central and Eastern European region. This increase was fast enough to keep life expectancies at the effective retirement age practically unchanged. In effect, the labor market absorbed all improvements in life expectancies in older working ages. The paper also shows that maintaining the current life expectancies at retirement over the next thirty years requires less effort in terms of further raising the effective retirement age than what the region achieved in this respect in the last fifteen years. |
| Keywords: | Pensions&Retirement Systems,Educational Sciences,Rural Labor Markets,Labor Markets,Law and Justice Institutions,Population&Development |
| Date: | 2019–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:hdnspu:136567&r=all |
| By: | Jason Taylor (Department of Economics, Central Michigan University); Wenjun Xue (Department of Economics and Finance, Shanghai University); Hakan Yilmazkuday (Department of Economics, Florida International University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of Chinese financial and fiscal policies designed to counter the worldwide Great Recession of 2008. We examine how policies designed to increase bank credit and health (i.e., asset liquidity, capital adequacy ratio, profitability, and bad loan ratio) influenced firm-level output, employment and investment. We also explore the impact of China’s expansionary fiscal policy with regard to these firm-level variables. We find that the policy effects varied based on firm-level characteristics such as size, liability ratio, profitability, ownership and the industry in which the firm operates. With respect to the dynamic effects, our results suggest that Chinese financial and fiscal policies were generally effective in the short run, but their positive impacts ceased within two years. |
| Keywords: | Banking System, 2008 Economic Stimulus Plan, The Great Recession, Chinese Recovery, Panel VAR Model, Firm-Level Investigation |
| JEL: | E32 E62 G21 |
| Date: | 2020–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fiu:wpaper:2002&r=all |
| By: | Oxana Sinyavskaya (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Anna Cherviakova (National Research University Higher School of Economics); Elizaveta Gorvat (National Research University Higher School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This research explores the relation between labor mobility in pre-retirement and retirement ages and further employment in old age in Russia. Older workers often face the challenge of keeping their job due to impaired health, age discrimination, and other factors. Job change can be a potential strategy to maintain employment in old age. Our study uses panel data of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of Higher School of Economics (RLMS-HSE) for 2010–2017. Logistic regression models show that labor mobility can be an effective strategy to maintain employment in old age but only for men. Older workers are more likely to change their job if they do not have stable employment relationships and are not satisfied with their current job. |
| Keywords: | older people, pensioners, employment in old age, labor mobility |
| JEL: | Z |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hig:wpaper:25/psp/2020&r=all |
| By: | Monika Banaszewska (Poznan University of Economics and Business); Ivo Bischoff (University of Kassel); Aneta Kaczynska (Poznan University of Economics and Business); Eva Wolfschuetz (University of Kassel) |
| Abstract: | This paper aims at testing whether inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in policies to promote local business development has a positive impact on local economic performance. We apply two-way fixed effects as well as marginal structural models to a panel data set covering 1,849 Polish municipalities between 2007 and 2014. We use the unemployment rate and the rate of population growth as a proxy for local economic performance. Our results show a systematic effect of IMC on local economic performance. However, the results are contradictory. While IMC causes higher rates of population growth, they also cause higher rates of unemployment. |
| Keywords: | Inter-municipal cooperation, local business development, population decline, marginal structural models, Poland |
| JEL: | D72 H77 H80 O10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mar:magkse:202005&r=all |