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on Demographic Economics |
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Issue of 2013‒06‒24
53 papers chosen by Clarence Nkengne Tsimpo University of Montreal and World Bank Group |
| By: | Enriqueta Camps |
| Abstract: | In this paper we attempt to describe the general reasons behind the world population explosion in the 20th century. The size of the population at the end of the century in question, deemed excessive by some, was a consequence of a dramatic improvement in life expectancies, attributable, in turn, to scientific innovation, the circulation of information and economic growth. Nevertheless, fertility is a variable that plays a crucial role in differences in demographic growth. We identify infant mortality, female education levels and racial identity as important exogenous variables affecting fertility. It is estimated that in poor countries one additional year’ of primary schooling for women leads to 0.614 child less per couple on average (worldwide). While it may be possible to identify a global tendency towards convergence in demographic trends, particular attention should be paid to the case of Africa, not only due to its different demographic patterns, but also because much of the continent’s population has yet to experience improvement in quality of life generally enjoyed across the rest of the planet. |
| Keywords: | demographic transition, female education, infant mortality, race, convergence |
| JEL: | J1 J13 J15 J16 N3 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:695&r=dem |
| By: | KUEPIE Mathias; DZOSSA Anaclet Désiré; KELODJOUE Samuel |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this study is to measure the impact of human capital and the fertility burden on labor market inequalities between men and women, in particular as regards access to the most highly paid jobs. The study covers Cameroon, Mali and Senegal, three countries in sub-Saharan Africa with similar socioeconomic characteristics. The findings show that, even with the same level of education as men, women still stand less of a chance of getting into the top job segment, because education is less efficient for them. This result provides evidence of gender discrimination in all three countries. A fertility burden in terms of a large family is another obstacle to female access to high quality jobs. It has a direct negative impact in the two Sahelian countries (Mali and Senegal) and an indirect negative impact via its interaction with education in Cameroon and Senegal. In these two countries, the more children a woman has, the lower her marginal return to education. These findings combine to show that a woman?s labor market situation improves in all three countries when fertility declines, either directly through greater access to top jobs or indirectly via better human capital efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Female labor; Gender inequality; Labor market; Education return; Fertility |
| JEL: | J13 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2013-08&r=dem |
| By: | Itismita Mohanty (NATSEM, University of Canberra); Anu Rammohan (Economics, The University of Western Australia) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to analyse factors that influence schooling outcomes among children in India, specifically focusing on the role of gender. Using the nationally representative Indian National Family Health Survey 2005-06,our analysis finds statistically significant evidence of male advantage both in schooling attendance as well as years of schooling. However, using a cluster fixed-effects model, our analysis finds that within a cluster, contingent on being enrolled, girls spend more years in school relative to boys. Other results show that parental schooling has a positive and statistically significant impact on child schooling. There is also statistically significant wealth effect, community effect and regional disparities between states in India. |
| Keywords: | child schooling; cluster fixed effects; household fixed effects; gender bias |
| JEL: | J16 J24 O15 I20 D13 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cba:wpaper:wp1121&r=dem |
| By: | Compton, Janice (University of Manitoba); Pollak, Robert (Washington University, St. Louis) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we provide an overview of the patterns of intergenerational proximity and coresidence of adult children and their mothers in the U.S., using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the U.S. Census. We highlight the importance of three specification and sample choices in the analysis. First, most previous studies consider coresidence to be the limiting case of proximity, using Tobit, ordered logit, or ordered probit specifications. We argue that proximity and coresidence are qualitatively different, and show that the multinomial logit provides a better representation of the patterns in the data. Second, we argue that substantial differences in the correlates of proximity by gender and marital status indicate the importance of modeling these categories separately. Third, the NSFH allows us to consider the proximity of couples to both his mother and her mother. This information is rarely available in survey data but is important for complete analyses. Our results show that education and age are the most robust predictors of proximity: college graduates are less likely to live near their mothers and older children live further from their mothers. Other demographic variables such as race, ethnicity and only child status also affect the probability of close proximity and coresidence. However, characteristics indicating adult children's current need for transfers (e.g. grandchildren) are not correlated with either close proximity or coresidence, while characteristics indicating mothers' current needs for transfers (e.g., disability) are correlated with coresidence but not close proximity. |
| Keywords: | family proximity, intergenerational transfers |
| JEL: | J10 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7431&r=dem |
| By: | Eleonora Matteazzi (University of Verona); Ariane Pailhé (INED); Anne Solaz (INED) |
| Abstract: | One of five workers work part-time in Europe, mainly women. This article examines the extent to which the overrepresentation of women in part-time employment explains the gender hourly earnings gap in twelve European countries. Using the EU-SILC 2009 data, a double decomposition of the gender wage gap is implemented: between men and women employed full-time and between full-time and part-time working women. The high prevalence of part-time employment plays only a minor role. The nature of part-time employment and labor market segregation are much more important factors. A large share of the gender wage gap still remains unexplained, however. |
| Keywords: | labor force participation, working hours, wage gap, decomposition, segregation, part-time |
| JEL: | C31 C49 J21 J22 J24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2013–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2013-293&r=dem |
| By: | Han, Peter; Foltz, Jeremy |
| Abstract: | The global child mortality rate has dropped significantly in the last two decades with Sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the fastest decline. However, Mali seems to be an exception, with a barely noticeable annual reduction rate of 1.8% between 1990 and 2011. We hypothesize that an increase in the number of climate shocks are partially responsible for the slow decline of child mortality in Mali. Using unique household survey panel data between 1994 and 2010 and daily climate measures from National Climate Data Center, we analyze the impact of climate shocks on child mortality in Sikasso, Mali. Applying survival analysis, we find significant effects of rain shocks on child mortality. Furthermore, higher numbers of women in the household and proximity to health facilities have a positive effect on child survival. When faced with an increased number of climate shocks, better infrastructure and healthcare facilities in the most affected regions may be able to mitigate the risk of child death in the future. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics and Policy, Health Economics and Policy, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150395&r=dem |
| By: | Böckerman, Petri (Labour Institute for Economic Research); Vainiomäki, Jari (University of Tampere) |
| Abstract: | We use twin data matched to register-based individual information on earnings and employment to examine the effect of height on life-time labor market outcomes. The use of twin data allows us to remove otherwise unobserved ability and other differences. The twin pair difference estimates from instrumental variables estimation for genetically identical twins reveal a significant height-wage premium for women but not for men. This result implies that cognitive ability explains the effect of height on life-time earnings for men. Additional findings using capital income as the outcome variable suggest that discrimination against short persons may play a role for women. |
| Keywords: | height, weight, BMI, height premium, earnings, employment |
| JEL: | I10 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7424&r=dem |
| By: | Chunzhou Mu (School of Economics, the University of New South Wales and Centre for Health Economics Research and Evaluation, University of Technology Sydney); Shiko Maruyama (ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, the University of New South Wales) |
| Abstract: | Recent years have witnessed a growing proportion of female general practitioners (GPs) worldwide. Because female GPs tend to work fewer hours than male GPs, this continuing trend may accelerate the shortage of GPs. This paper investigates the gender difference in the wage elasticity of Australian GPs by maximum likelihood estimation of labour supply and wage equations. Quantitative information regarding the labour supply responses of GPs is vital in designing eective policies. The results show salient gender difference. An increase in hourly wage increases the labour supply of male GPs and reduces the labour supply of female GPs, resulting in an enlarged gender dierence in labour supply. The results also suggest that family factors still remain a key driving force of the reduced labour supply of Australian female GPs. |
| Keywords: | General Practitioners; female labour supply; gender gap; wage elasticity; income effect |
| JEL: | I11 J31 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:swe:wpaper:2013-16&r=dem |
| By: | Enriqueta Camps |
| Abstract: | In this paper we present: 1. The available data on comparative gender inequality at the macroeconomic level and 2. Gender inequality measures at the microeconomic and case study level. We see that market openness has a significant effect on the narrowing of the human capital gender gap. Globalization and market openness stand as factors that improve both the human capital endowments of women and their economic position. But we also see that the effects of culture and religious beliefs are very different. While Catholicism has a statistically significant influence on the improvement of the human capital gender gap, Muslim and Buddhist religious beliefs have the opposite effect and increase human capital gender differences. In the second global era, some Catholic Latin American countries benefited from market openness in terms of the human capital and income gender gap, whereas we find the opposite impact in Buddhist and Muslim countries like China and South Korea where women’s economic position has worsened both in terms of human capital and wage inequality. |
| Keywords: | wage inequality, gender gap, market openness, human capital, religion, culture |
| JEL: | J22 J13 J16 N3 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:694&r=dem |
| By: | Bauchmüller, Robert (UNU-MERIT / MGSoG, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | Centre-based childcare is seen as a public investment to facilitate maternal employment. Recent theoretical research proposes that such investments potentially lead to substantial gains in child development and thus to high returns for society as a whole. However, the empirical evidence is still scarce and often contradictory. This study is based on rich survey data of a large-scale cohort study of children living in the Netherlands at the beginning of the new millennium. The Netherlands has made substantial investments in the last two decades to make the market of centre-based provisions more professional and far-reaching and to improve children's school readiness. I study the impact of experiencing centre- rather than home-based childcare on language, cognitive and non-cognitive development, assessed at the age of 6. To assess whether very long or intensive childcare spells can be harmful, I account for possible non-linearity in the correlation between the centre-based childcare experience and the child outcomes. As sensitivity analyses, I also apply instrumental variable and structural equation modelling approaches to try to correct for potential biases in my estimates that would result, for example, from unobserved heterogeneity of parents and children. For both ordinary least square estimates as well as the sensitivity analyses the results do not support the significant short-term effects of centre-based childcare stated in the literature. |
| Keywords: | centre-based childcare, non/cognitive and language development, school readiness, non-linear effects, parental choice |
| JEL: | I21 J13 J24 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2013026&r=dem |
| By: | Silvia A. M. Camussi (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This article offers a descriptive analysis of the relationship between cultural factors and female participation in the labour market. Using attitudinal variables from the World Value Survey, the correlation between female labour market participation and two aspects of culture (religion and attitudes towards working women) is analysed. The results indicate that where attitudes towards working women are less favourable, women engage less in paid working activities; when the frequency of attendance of religious services is higher there is less participation by women in the labour market. |
| Keywords: | female laboure force participation, culture |
| JEL: | J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_178_13&r=dem |
| By: | Deniz Gevrek (Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, 6300 Ocean Drive, Corpus Christi, TX 78412 and IZA, Bonn, Germany); Z. Eylem Gevrek (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany); Cahit Guven (Deakin University, Victoria 125, Australia) |
| Abstract: | Using the Children of the Immigrants Longitudinal Study from the United States, this paper examines the association between schooling at the intensive margin and adult outcomes among first- and second-generation American immigrants. Schooling at the intensive margin is measured by reading and math scores in middle school and by GPA scores in both middle and high school. We find that measures of academic performance predict pecuniary and nonpecuniary adult outcomes. We also find that academic performance in high school relative to middle school is important in explaining adult socioeconomic outcomes. Immigrants with higher GPAs in high school compared to middle school have more schooling, are in better health, are less likely to commit crime, and have higher expectations regarding future job prestige and schooling. On the other hand, a decline in GPAs is associated with lower satisfaction with income and occupation. Moreover, our results indicate that infant mortality rate, which is used as a proxy for unfavorable health conditions in the country of birth, has a negative impact on academic performance during childhood and on personal earnings and income satisfaction during adulthood. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Education, Human Capital, School Performance, Immigrants |
| JEL: | I21 I25 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–06–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1311&r=dem |
| By: | Notten, Geranda (Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, and UNU-MERIT / MGSoG) |
| Abstract: | This study assesses how child deprivation in Ontario compares to that of Ontario's population in general and that of children in eight European high-income countries (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden). This research has been motivated by the publication of UNICEF's 10th Child Report Card. Due to lacking data the report card only compares child deprivation for Europe. For Ontario, however, deprivation information is available in the 2009 Ontario Material Deprivation Survey. Being a province that is close to Canada's average socio-economic performance, replicating the report card methodology allows exploring how child deprivation in Ontario, and possibly Canada, compares to Europe. This study finds that Children in Ontario have somewhat higher deprivation levels (11.7%) than the Ontario population as a whole (9.9%). In comparison to the eight European countries, Ontario also has higher child deprivation levels, ranking right after France which has the highest deprivation rates and 19th out of 30 countries. Just like their European peers, deprivation of Ontario children is associated with families consisting of lone parents and fewer employed household members as well as caretakers having low education and / or low income. Nevertheless, the relative disadvantage that such children in Ontario face seems smaller than in the European countries. As in Europe, there is considerable lack of overlap between income poor and materially deprived households: this study finds that about 6% of the children are both income poor and deprived; 6% are deprived only and 10% are income poor only (78% are neither income poor or deprived). In sum, rather than resembling the Nordic countries, child deprivation in Ontario resembles more to that in Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom and especially France. As Canada's current focus on 'low income' measures excludes half of the materially deprived households, these findings suggest that using material deprivation measures would also contribute to a better and more nuanced understanding of poverty in Canada. |
| Keywords: | material deprivation, income poverty, child poverty, Ontario, Europe |
| JEL: | I32 I38 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:unumer:2013030&r=dem |
| By: | Douglas Almond; Hongbin Li; Shuang Zhang |
| Abstract: | Following the death of Mao in 1976, abandonment of collective farming lifted millions from poverty and heralded sweeping pro-market policies. How did China’s excess in male births respond to rural land reform? In newly-available data from over 1,000 counties, a second child following a daughter was 5.5 percent more likely to be a boy after land reform, doubling the prevailing rate of sex selection. Mothers with higher levels of education were substantially more likely to select sons than were less educated mothers. The One Child Policy was implemented over the same time period and is frequently blamed for increased sex ratios during the early 1980s. Our results point to China’s watershed economic liberalization as a more likely culprit. |
| JEL: | I15 I25 I32 J13 K11 N35 P26 Q18 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19153&r=dem |
| By: | Zhang, Jun; Yen, Steven T. |
| Abstract: | Depression is a serious mental disorder which affects more than 350 million people of all ages worldwide in the 2012 and physical activity is generally believed to be effective in combating depressive symptoms. This study investigates the effects of regular physical activity and sociodemographic factors on depressive symptoms for both men and women. Data for this study come from the 2011 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and an ordered probability model with binary endogenous physical activity is developed to accommodate the ordinal nature of depression outcomes. Results suggest that physical activity is most beneficial for mild and moderate depressed individuals and the effect of regular physical activity is most notable on mild depressed females. In addition, socio-demographic factors are found to vary significantly between gender, and factors of age, income, race, education, employment status and recent mental health condition play important roles in affecting depressive symptoms. |
| Keywords: | Depressive symptoms, physical activity, switching probability model, treatment effect, Consumer/Household Economics, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital, Risk and Uncertainty, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150133&r=dem |
| By: | Giacomo De Giorgi (Stanford University, BREAD, CEPR and NBER); Marco Paccagnella (Bank of Italy and fRDB); Michele Pellizzari (OECD, University of Geneva and IZA) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we estimate the short-run elasticity of substitution between male and female workers, using data on employment and wages from Italian provinces from 1993-2006. We adopt a production function approach similar to that of Card and Lemieux (2001a) and Acemoglu, Autor and Lyle (2004). Our identification strategy relies on a natural experiment. In 2000 the Italian parliament passed a law to abolish compulsory military service; the reform was implemented through a gradual reduction in the number of draftees, and compulsory drafting was definitively terminated in 2004. We use data on the (planned) maximum number of draftees at the national level (as stated in the annual budgetary law), interacted with sex-ratios at birth at the provincial level, as instruments for (relative) female labor supply. Our results suggest that young males and females are imperfect substitutes, with an elasticity of substitution ranging between 1.1 and 1.6. Our results have implications for the evaluation of policies aimed at increasing female labor market participation, suggesting that they do not necessarily displace male employment. |
| Keywords: | gender complementarities, elasticity of substitution, employment, wages |
| JEL: | J21 J31 J16 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_183_13&r=dem |
| By: | Dang, Hai-Anh; Rogers, Halsey |
| Abstract: | During Vietnam's two decades of rapid economic growth, its fertility rate has fallen sharply at the same time that its educational attainment has risen rapidly -- macro trends that are consistent with the hypothesis of a quantity-quality tradeoff in child-rearing. This paper investigates whether the micro-level evidence supports the hypothesis that Vietnamese parents are in fact making a tradeoff between quantity and quality of children. The paper presents new measures of household investment in private tutoring, together with traditional measures of household investments in education. It analyzes data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys and instruments for family size using the distance to the nearest family planning center. The estimation results show that families do indeed invest less in the education of school-age children who have larger numbers of siblings. This effect holds for several indicators of educational investment -- including general education expenditure and various measures of private tutoring investment -- and is robust to various definitions of family size and model specifications that control for community characteristics as well as the distance to the city center. Finally, the results suggest that tutoring may be a better measure of quality-oriented household investments in education than traditional measures like enrollment, which are arguably less nuanced and household-driven. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Teaching and Learning,Primary Education,Population&Development,Education For All |
| Date: | 2013–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6487&r=dem |
| By: | Alan Auerbach; Lorenz Kueng; Ronald Lee |
| Abstract: | Even with well-developed capital markets, there is no private market mechanism for trading between current and future generations, so a potential role for public old-age pension systems is to spread economic and demographic shocks among different generations. This paper evaluates the smoothing and propagation of shocks of three pay-as-you-go public pension schemes, based on the actual U.S. and German systems, which vary in the extent to which they rely on tax adjustments versus benefit adjustments to provide annual cash-flow budget balance. Modifying the Auerbach-Kotlikoff (1987) dynamic general-equilibrium overlapping generations model to incorporate realistic patterns of fertility and mortality and shocks to productivity, fertility and mortality, we evaluate the effectiveness of the three public pension systems at spreading the effects of such shocks. We find that the systems, particularly those that rely to some extent on tax adjustments, are effective at spreading fertility and mortality shocks, but that this is not the case for productivity shocks, for which the pension systems actually tend to concentrate the economic impact. These results suggest that both system design and the source of shocks are important factors in determining the potential of public pension arrangements to spread the burden of shocks. |
| JEL: | H22 H53 J11 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19137&r=dem |
| By: | Valkonen, Tarmo; Lassila, Jukka |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the adjustment of the Finnish earnings-related pension system to very low economic growth. The results show that a permanently lower growth rate of the wage bill would raise only moderately the pension contribution rates in the long term. This is because also the benefits are partially linked to wages. But if the rate of return on the pension fund investments would also go down, the contribution rates would increase significantly. External competitiveness and employment would weaken as well as the position of future generations. The study presents a pension reform that stabilizes the contribution rate by raising the retirement age and cutting pensions. These kind of specific reforms are not, however, optimal due to demographic and economic uncertainty. A better solution would be automatic adjustment rules that are designed to provide accepted redistribution of income between various generations. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth, earnings-related pension system, intergenerational redistribution |
| JEL: | H55 D58 |
| Date: | 2013–06–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:report:13&r=dem |
| By: | Flávio Cunha; Irma Elo; Jennifer Culhane |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we formulate a model of early childhood development in which mothers have subjective expectations about the technology of skill formation. The model is useful for understanding how maternal knowledge about child development affects the maternal choices of investments in the human capital of children. Unfortunately, the model is not identified from data that are usually available to econometricians. To solve this problem, we conduct a study where mothers were interviewed to elicit maternal expectations about the technology of skill formation. We interviewed a sample of socioeconomically disadvantaged African‐American women. We find that the median subjective expectation about the elasticity of child development with respect to investments is between 4% and 19%. In comparison, when we estimate the technology of skill formation from the CNLSY/79 data, we find that the elasticity is between 18% and 26%. We use the model and our unique data to answer a simple but important question: What would happen to investments and child development if we implemented a policy that moved expectations from the median to the objective estimates that we obtain from the CNLSY/79 data? According to our estimates, maternal investments would go up by between 4% and 24% and the stocks of cognitive skills at age 24 months would subsequently increase between 1% and 5%. Needless to say, the impacts of such a policy would be even higher for mothers whose expectations were below the median. |
| JEL: | I10 I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19144&r=dem |
| By: | Alan Fernihough (Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin); Mark E. McGovern (Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies) |
| Abstract: | Height is widely used as an objective measure of health status. It is commonly used in the large body of research evaluating welfare trends in historic populations and the long-run impacts of childhood environment. However, few research papers have examined the extent, causes or consequences of stature loss in aging populations. This is surprising, as many studies rely on the assumption that height is fixed in late adolescence. Using repeated observations on objectively measured data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), we document that stature loss is an important phenomenon among older individuals, and demonstrate how the use of unadjusted height will dramatically overstate health improvements for younger birth cohorts in cross sectional data. We show that there is an absence of consistent predictors of stature loss at the individual level. However, we exploit the panel element of the ELSA survey to show how deteriorating health and stature loss occur in tandem. While our analysis details the inherent bias of height measurements in older populations, we do not find that significant differences arise from the use of unadjusted height as an input in typical empirical health production function models. |
| Keywords: | Height, Stature Loss, Early Life Conditions, Health, Aging |
| JEL: | I10 I12 J11 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iis:dispap:iiisdp429&r=dem |
| By: | Pietro F. Peretto; Simone Valente |
| Abstract: | We study the interactions between technological change, resource scarcity and population dynamics in a Schumpeterian model with endogenous fertility. We find a pseudo-Malthusian equilibrium in which population is constant and determined by resource scarcity while income grows exponentially. If labor and resources are substitutes in production, income and fertility dynamics are self-balancing and the pseudo-Malthusian equilibrium is the global attractor of the system. If labor and resources are complements, income and fertility dynamics are self-reinforcing and drive the economy towards either demographic explosion or collapse. Introducing a minimum resource requirement per capita, we obtain constant population even under complementarity. |
| Keywords: | Endogenous Innovation, Resource Scarcity, Population Growth, Fertility Choices |
| JEL: | E10 L16 O31 O40 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:duk:dukeec:13-9&r=dem |
| By: | Collins, Julia C.; Foltz, Jeremy D. |
| Abstract: | In many West African countries, large rural multigenerational households farm common household plots as well as allocate individual plots to different family members. Multiple studies have found that women plot managers achieve lower yields than men. This work uses a unique 17-year panel dataset from southern Mali to investigate this gender production differential. The long-span and specificity of the data allow us to simultaneously test many of the reasons put forth in the literature for gender production differentials: input & labor use, land tenure, polygamy, and social status. We find that female plot managers in this dataset do achieve significantly lower yields than men and that the effect is mostly explained by labor allocation and social status within the Malian household. |
| Keywords: | Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, International Development, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150130&r=dem |
| By: | Sule Alan (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Cambridge); Nazli Baydar; Teodora Boneva; Thomas Crossley (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Essex); Seda Ertac |
| Abstract: | We study the transmission of risk attititudes in a unique survey of mothers and children in which both participated in an incentivised risk preference elicitation task. We document that risk preferences are correlated between mothers and children when the children are just 7 to 8 years old. This correlation is only present for daughters. We show that a measure of parental involvement is a strong moderator of the association between mothers' and daughers' risk tolerance. These findings support a role for socialisation in the intergenerational transmission of preferences that predict economic behaviour. |
| Keywords: | risk preferences, intergenerational transmission, children's economic decisions, field experiements |
| JEL: | C93 J16 D03 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:13/12&r=dem |
| By: | Magnan, Nicholas; Spielman, David J.; Gulati, Kajal |
| Abstract: | Despite evidence of the importance of differences in the source and type of information that women and men acquire, there is a persistent assumption that these gender dimensions of information acquisition are irrelevant to decision-making in cereal systems in South Asia. Yet women do play a fundamental role in many agricultural decisions and thus have a stake in the choice of technologies selected by the household. The paper attempts to understand women’s involvement in agricultural female networks and if they learn about a new agricultural technology, laser land leveling, through their social networks. Further, the study analyzes whether these female network effects have any influence on household demand for the new technology. Data for this study was collected as part of a research project on laser land leveling in 24 villages drawn randomly from three districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, India. A binding experimental auction was conducted to elicit demand for a new technology, laser land leveling (LLL), with a randomly selected group of farmers, of which 80 percent were male household heads. The study finds evidence that factors that shape farmers’ wives networks are very different from those that shape links between their husbands. Overall, women who are poorer and less educated tend to have more agricultural information contacts than wealthier and more educated women. We find that if a wife has an adopting wife in her network, her husband bid Rs. 81 more in the auction than if she did not. While we cannot say that the network effect through the wives is stronger, we can say there is evidence that there are separate and significant male and female network effects. |
| Keywords: | Institutional and Behavioral Economics, International Development, International Relations/Trade, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150688&r=dem |
| By: | Gilligan, Daniel O.; Roy, Shalini |
| Abstract: | Recent evidence shows that early childhood is a critical period for investments in human capital and that micronutrient deficiency and inadequate stimulation are major causes of impaired child development in poor countries. Transfers to households linked to preschool participation may improve cognitive and noncognitive development in early childhood, but there is limited evidence, all of it from Latin America. Using a randomized controlled trial design in Karamoja, Uganda, we examine the impacts of two transfer modalities – cash transfers or multiple-micronutrient-fortified food transfers – linked to preschool enrollment on child cognitive and noncognitive development. We find that food transfers have no significant impacts, but cash transfers cause significant increases in cognitive measures, by about 9 percentage points relative to the control group. We also explore mechanisms and find plausible evidence for cognitive impacts of cash through both a nutrition pathway (cash improves diet quality leading to reduction in anemia, implying improved cognition) and a stimulation pathway (cash increases contributions to preschool teachers leading to improved preschool capacity and higher child preschool attendance, implying higher quantity and quality of exposure to stimulation). We find that food has no significant impacts on these intermediate outcomes and consider which contextual factors may lead to its limited effects relative to cash. We also find indications that the food and cash treatments may have different distributional impacts. Results suggest that although the food treatment has no average impacts, it favors children with initially higher cognitive development, potentially causing slight increases in inequality among treated children. Meanwhile the cash treatment, which does have significant impacts on average, favors children with initially lower cognitive development, potentially reducing inequality among treated children. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, Labor and Human Capital, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:149822&r=dem |
| By: | Delaney, Jason J. (Georgia Gwinnett College); Winters, John V. (University of Cincinnati) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines parental influence on adolescent risky behavior, focusing on a unique population: children of the clergy, more commonly known as preachers' kids (PKs). We use latent variable and zero-inflated count models to analyze the effect of being a PK on both uptake and intensity of use of alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, and other drugs. We find that being a PK significantly reduces alcohol use. This effect comes exclusively from a reduction in the probability of any alcohol use and this increased abstinence among children of the clergy persists into adulthood. These results are consistent with popular conceptions that PKs either take no risks or take large risks. We find no significant effects of being a PK on cigarette uptake or intensity of use but some evidence of a negative PK effect on the uptake of marijuana and other drugs. |
| Keywords: | preacher's kid, religion, risky behavior, alcohol, tobacco, substance use |
| JEL: | I19 J13 K42 Z12 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7434&r=dem |
| By: | Dodson, Charles B. |
| Abstract: | A default model of racial discrimination is estimated for direct farm loans made by FSA in fiscal 2005. Model results indicated that when controlling for creditworthiness, Blacks who received FSA direct loans had higher default rates suggesting they were generally less creditworthy. This would not be consistent with the Becker ‘taste based’ discrimination model and provides no evidence of discrimination either by FSA or among commercial lenders. Higher default rates for other racial minorities and women provide no evidence of discrimination among other SDA groups. |
| Keywords: | Racial discrimination, FSA direct lending, taste-based discrimination, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150492&r=dem |
| By: | Matija Kovacic (University Ca’ Foscari Venice); Claudio Zoli (University of Verona) |
| Abstract: | Ethnic heterogeneity can potentially be related to the occurrence of conflicts with longlasting economic effects. Two main measures of ethnic heterogeneity are employed in the econometric literature on ethnic diversity and conflict: the Gini heterogeneity or fractionalization index and the discrete polarization index. However, still no broad consensus is reached on which distributional aspect of ethnic diversity is associated with the outbreak of conflict. In this paper we argue that the relative importance of each pattern of ethnic diversity depends on the trade-off between the groups' power and its interaction with other groups. Following the Esteban and Ray [On the measurement of polarization, Econometrica, 62(4), 1994] approach to social antagonism, we axiomatically derive a parametric class of indices of conflict potential that ombines the groups' effective power and the between-groups interaction. We use a discrete metric to define the distances between groups and we do not treat each group as a unitary actor. Moreover, we assume that the effective power of a group depends not only on its own relative size but also on the relative size of all the other groups in the population. We show that for certain parameter values the obtained indices reduce to the existing indices of ethnic diversity, while in general the derived indices combine in a non-linear way three different aspects of ethnic diversity, namely the fractionalization, the polarization and the ethnic dominance. The power component of the extreme element of the class of indices is given by the relative Penrose-Banzhaf index of voting power. The results from our empirical exercise show that the derived extreme index outperforms the existing indices of ethnic diversity in the explanation of ethnic conflict onset. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic distribution, Conflict, Polarization, Fractionalization, Power indices, Dominance. |
| JEL: | O11 Z13 O57 D63 D72 D74 |
| Date: | 2013–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2013-294&r=dem |
| By: | Matthias Doepke; Fabrizio Zilibotti |
| Abstract: | We discuss the two-way link between culture and economic growth. We present a model of endogenous technical change where growth is driven by the innovative activity of entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is risky and requires investments that affect the steepness of the lifetime consumption profile. As a consequence, the occupational choice of entrepreneurship hinges on risk tolerance and patience. Parents expecting their children to become entrepreneurs have an incentive to instill these two values in their children. Cultural transmission is Beckerian, i.e., parents are driven by the desire to maximize their children's happiness. We also consider, in an extension, a paternalistic motive for preference transmission. The growth rate of the economy depends on the fraction of the population choosing an entrepreneurial career. How many entrepreneurs there are in a society hinges, in turn, on parental investments in children's patience and risk tolerance. There can be multiple balanced-growth paths, where in faster-growing countries more people exhibit an "entrepreneurial spirit." We discuss applications of models of endogenous preferences to the analysis of socio-economic transformations, such as the British Industrial Revolution. We also discuss empirical studies documenting the importance of culture and preference heterogeneity for economic growth. |
| JEL: | J20 O10 O40 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19141&r=dem |
| By: | Halvor Mehlum; Ragnar Torvik; Simone Valente |
| Abstract: | China’s growth is characterized by massive capital accumulation, made possible by high and increasing domestic savings. In this paper we develop a model with the aim of explaining why savings rates have been high and increasing,and we investigate the general equilibrium effects on capital accumulation and growth. We show that increased savings and capital accumulation stimulates further savings and capital accumulation, through an intergenerational distribution effect and an old-age requirement effect. We introduce what we term the savings multiplier, and we discuss why and how the one-child policy, and the dismantling of the cradle-to-grave social bene?ts provided through the state owned enterprises, have stimulated savings and capital accumulation. |
| Keywords: | China, One-child policy, Overlapping generations, Growth, Savings |
| JEL: | O11 D91 E21 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bny:wpaper:0013&r=dem |
| By: | Meghan R. Busse; Ayelet Israeli; Florian Zettelmeyer |
| Abstract: | In this paper we investigate whether sellers treat consumers differently on the basis of how well-informed consumers appear to be. We implement a large-scale field experiment in which callers request price quotes from automotive repair shops. We show that sellers alter their initial price quotes depending on whether consumers appear to be well-informed, uninformed, or poorly informed about market prices. We find that repair shops quote higher prices to callers who cite a higher expected price. We find that women are quoted higher prices than men when callers signal that they are uninformed about market prices. However, gender differences disappear when callers mention an expected price for the repair. Finally, we find that repair shops are more likely to offer a price concession if asked to do so by a woman than a man. |
| JEL: | D12 D83 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19154&r=dem |
| By: | Liu, Huju<br /> Ostrovsky, Yuri<br /> Zhou, Jie |
| Abstract: | Population aging and the recent global financial crisis underscore the importance of the discussions of the adequacy of retirement preparation in Canada and the soundness of the Canadian retirement income system. The focus of this study is to examine whether the accumulated private savings of Canadian households is adequate for their retirement, given their expected entitlement to public and private pension when they retire. |
| Keywords: | Income, pensions, spending and wealth, Seniors, Household assets, debts and wealth, Household spending and savings, Income, pensions and wealth, Work and retirement |
| Date: | 2013–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp1e:2013029e&r=dem |
| By: | Jonathan Meer; Harvey S. Rosen |
| Abstract: | A general finding in the empirical literature on charitable giving is that among older individuals, both the probability of giving and the conditional amount of donations decrease with age, ceteris paribus. In this paper, we use data on giving by alumni at an anonymous university to investigate end-of-life giving patterns. Our main finding is that taking into account the approach of death substantially changes the age-giving profile for the elderly–in one segment of the age distribution, the independent effect of an increase in age on giving actually changes from negative to positive. We examine how the decline in giving as death approaches varies with the length of time that a given condition is likely to bring about death, and the individual’s age when he died. We find that for individuals who died from conditions that bring about death fairly quickly, there is little decline in giving as death approaches compared to those who died from other causes. Further, the decline in giving as death approaches is steeper for the elderly (for whom death is less likely to be a surprise) than for the relatively young. These findings suggest that our primary result, that failing to take into account the approach of death leads to biased inferences with respect to the age-giving profile, is not merely an artifact of some kind of nonlinearity in the relationship between age and giving. |
| JEL: | D64 H41 I23 J14 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19145&r=dem |
| By: | Weichselbaumer, Doris (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, a correspondence testing experiment is conducted to examine sexual orientation discrimination against lesbians in Germany. Applications for four fictional female characters are sent out in response to job advertisements: a heterosexual single, a married heterosexual, a single lesbian and a lesbian who is in a 'same-sex registered partnership'. Different results are obtained for the two cities investigated, Munich and Berlin. While single lesbians and lesbians in a registered partnership are equally discriminated in comparison to the heterosexual women in the city of Munich, no discrimination based on sexual orientation has been found in Berlin. Furthermore, for a subset of our data we can compare the effects of a randomized versus a paired testing approach, which suggests that under certain conditions, due to increased conspicuity, the paired testing approach may lead to biased results. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, sexual orientation, Germany |
| JEL: | C93 J15 J71 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7425&r=dem |
| By: | Fitzsimons, Emla; Mesnard, Alice |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how the permanent departure of the father from a household affects children's school enrollment and work participation in rural Colombia. The results indicate that the permanent departure of the father decreases children's school enrollment by approximately 5 percentage points and increases child labor by 3 percentage points. This paper explores the rollout of a conditional-cash-transfer program during the period of study and shows that this program counteracts these adverse effects. When coupled with other evidence, this finding strongly suggests that the channel through which the father's departure most affects children is by reducing the income of very poor households, which tightens their liquidity constraints. This finding also highlights the important safety-net role played by welfare programs with respect to disadvantaged households, particularly because these households are unlikely to have formal or informal mechanisms with which to insure themselves against such vagaries. |
| Keywords: | Labor Policies,Street Children,Primary Education,Youth and Governance,Population Policies |
| Date: | 2013–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6476&r=dem |
| By: | Alexandra Spicer (Economics Discipline Group, University of Technology, Sydney); Olena Stavrunova (Economics Discipline Group, University of Technology, Sydney); Susan Thorp (Finance Discipline Group, UTS Business School, University of Technology, Sydney) |
| Abstract: | Households in many developed economies now reach retirement with lump sums of financial wealth accumulated through defined contribution retirement plans. Managing wealth from individual accumulations and public provision is critical to retirement welfare. We study the dynamics of retirement wealth and asset allocation using the three wealth waves of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) panel survey. We find significant influences of ageing on asset holdings with older households preferring less risk and more liquidity, while maintaining ownership of the family home. In terms of absolute changes in wealth the average retired household accumulated in 2002-06 and decumulated 2006-10 in line with financial market trends. More diversified households did better. The probability of retired households depleting non-housing wealth to less than one month?s Age Pension payment increased over the sample. Finally, in contrast to the US, the overall effect of health shocks on the wealth of retired Australian households is minimal. |
| Keywords: | Retirement wealth; Life-cycle saving; Public pension; Portfolio choice |
| JEL: | D91 E21 G11 |
| Date: | 2013–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uts:ecowps:11&r=dem |
| By: | Huang, Ying; Huffman, Wallace |
| Abstract: | This paper formulates and estimates a structural intertemporal model of a woman’s household participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and her likelihood of being obese. We use an economic model of lifetime behavior in a finite life model to provide the structure of the econometric model, instrumental variable estimation is applied to control for endogeneity of SNAP participation decision, and individual fixed effects control for individual heterogeneity in panel data. Primary data are the panel, NLSY 79 with geocodes. We find that if a woman is in a SNAP household her BMI and probability of being obese are reduced by 15.7% and 56.3 percentage points, respectively. However, individual fixed effects account for much of the variation in her BMI and probability of being obese, suggesting early life attention to women’s weight is an important public policy issue. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Public Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150264&r=dem |
| By: | Hassink, Wolter (Utrecht University); van Leeuwen, Bas (Utrecht University) |
| Abstract: | Many studies indicate that human height is determined largely by childhood circumstances, which in turn influences an adult's labor market opportunities. The aim of this note is to test this thesis by examining the correlation between childhood circumstances and labor market outcomes on the one hand, and heights on the other, when networks are included as proxied by surnames. The fact that, after the inclusion of this surname proxy, we find a correlation only between height and labor market outcomes suggests that, while childhood circumstances affect height largely via social status and networks as captured by surnames, the same does not apply for labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | stature, networks, Indonesia |
| JEL: | J01 N35 Z13 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7433&r=dem |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick (Anglia Ruskin University) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the long-term correlates of bullying in school with aspects of functioning in adult employment outcomes. Bullying is considered and evaluated as a proxy for unmeasured productivity, and a framework is provided that outlines why bullying might affect employment outcomes through differences in skills and traits. Using Bivariate and Heckit models we employ a variety of specifications and find several interesting patterns. The regression outcomes suggest that labour force participation, employment rate and hourly wages are negatively affected by bullying. In addition, men, homosexuals, immigrants, unmarried people, those having higher negative mental health symptoms, and those having lower human capital are more negatively affected by bullying in terms of labour force participation, employment probability, and hourly wages. Moreover, Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions suggest that labour force participation gaps, employment gaps and hourly wage gaps between minority and majority groups, especially for gay men and the disabled, can be explained by bullying incidents. It seems likely that having been a victim of bullying also has economic implications later in life due to withdrawal from the labour market and lower wages. |
| Keywords: | bullying, personality traits and processes, human capital, labour force, employment, wages |
| JEL: | E24 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7432&r=dem |
| By: | Nicola Branson; Murray Leibbrandt |
| Abstract: | In this paper we document the impact of education levels on labour market outcomes from 1994 to 2010 using national household survey data. We show that higher levels of education are strongly rewarded in the labour market in terms of earnings and that a tertiary qualification improves an individual’s prospects of employment. While the premium for matric and incomplete secondary has fallen marginally over the period, the premium to tertiary has risen, especially for women. Differences in the reward to education level are evident for Africans versus the overall population, between urban and rural areas and for younger versus older workers. In particular, the premium to tertiary education has increased at a higher rate for Africans than for the overall population.<P>L'éducation et son rendement sur le marché du travail en Afrique du Sud, 1994-2010<BR>Dans cette étude nous examinons les rendements de l’éducation sur le marché du travail entre 1994 et 2010 à l’aide d’enquêtes-ménages nationales. Nous montrons que le rendement de l’éducation supérieure en termes de salaire est très élevé et qu’un diplôme du supérieur augmente également la probabilité d’être employé. Alors qu’un niveau d’éducation secondaire a eu des rendements en légère baisse au cours de la période, le rendement de l’éducation tertiaire a augmenté, surtout pour les femmes. A niveau éducatif donné, des différences de rendement sont observées entre les Africains et la population totale, les zones rurales et urbaines et entre les jeunes et les séniors. En particulier, les rendements de l’éducation tertiaire a augmenté plus rapidement pour les Africains que pour la population totale. |
| Keywords: | education, employment, earnings, South Africa, national household survey data, emploi, éducation, salaires, Afrique du Sud, enquête ménage nationale |
| JEL: | I24 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2013–02–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1022-en&r=dem |
| By: | Yu, Gaogao; Nayga, Rodolfo M.; Thomsen, Michael R.; Whiteside‐Mansell, Leanne; Swindle, Taren M. |
| Abstract: | We examine the effect of proximity to large grocery stores and convenience stores on consumption of different food groups among a sample of children enrolled in Head Start preschools. Food store proximity is measured in two ways: (1) as the distance from the census block of residence to the nearest store of a given type and (2) as the density of stores within a one-mile radius of the census block. We estimate the probability that a child is at risk for over or under consumption of a given food item. Food-store proximity is instrumented using the proportion of commercially zoned land surrounding the residence. Findings suggest that children in households with greater access to large grocery stores are at less risk for under consumption of healthy foods but are also at greater risk for over consumption of sugary beverages. |
| Keywords: | diet quality, food environment, childhood obesity, Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:149710&r=dem |
| By: | Fisher, Monica; Reimer, Jeffrey J.; Carr, Edward R. |
| Abstract: | This study tests the null hypothesis that it is sufficient to interview only the household head to obtain accurate information on household income. Results show that using a husband’s estimate of his wife’s income does not produce statistically reliable results for poverty analysis. Estimates of the wife’s income provided by the husband and wife are in agreement in only six percent of households. While limiting interviews to one person has the advantage of reducing the time and expense of household surveys, this appears detrimental in terms of accuracy, and may lead to incorrect conclusions on the determinants of poverty. |
| Keywords: | Africa, gender, household dynamics, household surveys, Malawi, poverty, International Development, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:149924&r=dem |
| By: | Kaushal, Neeraj (Columbia University); Shang, Ce (University of Illinois at Chicago) |
| Abstract: | We study the earnings of Mexican immigrants in their traditional and newer destinations in the US. Analysis based on longitudinal data suggests that during 2001-2009, the real wage of Mexican immigrants increased 1-2% a year at the traditional destinations, but remained mostly statistically insignificant at the newer destinations. Mexicans at the traditional destinations exhibited greater residential stability: internal migration, non-follow up in the longitudinal data, and predicted return migration were higher among immigrants at the newer destinations than among immigrants at the traditional destinations. Predicted return migration was found to be selective on past earnings among men, but not among women. For men, a 10 percentage point increase in predicted probability of return migration was associated with a 0.3-0.5% lower wage in the year prior to return. |
| Keywords: | Mexican immigrants, selection, earning assimilation, geographic dispersion, return migration |
| JEL: | J61 J15 |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7427&r=dem |
| By: | Bruno Martorano; UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre |
| Abstract: | This paper focuses on a portion of the Australian fiscal stimulus and in particular on the 2009 Household Stimulus Package composed of three main cash payments: the Back to School Bonus, the Single Income Family Bonus and the Tax Bonus for Working Australians. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of these bonus payments in reducing poverty and stimulating consumption. In addition, our analysis gives special attention to these outcomes among children and poor people, due to their increased vulnerability during times of crisis. |
| Keywords: | consumption; economic analysis; economic crisis; evaluation; evaluation analysis; poverty; poverty mitigation; |
| JEL: | C14 D10 E62 H2 I3 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:inwopa:inwopa697&r=dem |
| By: | Krause, Brooke Laura |
| Abstract: | This study estimates the impact of childhood malnutrition on educational achievement of Peruvian children. While there is growing evidence in the literature that a child’s nutrition is important for his or her own educational development, this paper will focus on the nuances of what type of nutritional status, and at what stage of childhood, is most critical for educational achievement. The data used in this study comes from a longitudinal survey in Peru conducted by Oxford University’s Young Lives project. This study accounts for the potential endogeneity and measurement error in the child anthropometric measures by using instrumental variables approach. |
| Keywords: | Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150598&r=dem |
| By: | Liu, Huju<br /> Ostrovsky, Yuri<br /> Zhou, Jie |
| Abstract: | Le vieillissement de la population et la recente crise financiere mondiale font ressortir l'importance des discussions concernant le caractere adequat de la preparation a la retraite au Canada et la fiabilite du systeme de revenu de retraite canadien. La presente etude vise a determiner si l'epargne personnelle des menages canadiens est suffisante pour la retraite, compte tenu des prestations de regimes generaux et prives auxquels ils ont droit a la retraite. |
| Keywords: | Revenu, pensions, depenses et richesse, Aines, Actif, endettement et richesse des menages, Depenses et epargne des menages, Revenu, pension et patrimoine, Travail et retraite |
| Date: | 2013–06–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp1f:2013029f&r=dem |
| By: | Wang, Donghui |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the rate of returns to private investment in education in urban China, focusing on gender differences. It shows that in general females have higher rates of returns to schooling than males after taking account of sample selection bias and the endogeneity of schooling, despite the fact that females usually have less schooling and lower income. However, the advances of females become less prominent after controlling for occupational choices. Furthermore, the sub samples of rural-to-urban migrant workers and urban-resident workers display different patterns: for urban residents, females have slightly higher rates of returns to schooling, while migrant workers show an opposite hierarchy of gender differences in returns to schooling, in the sense that males have higher returns to schooling than females. |
| Keywords: | Labor and Human Capital, Public Economics, |
| Date: | 2013–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:umapmt:150764&r=dem |
| By: | Magaña-Lemus, David; Ishdorj, Ariun; Rosson, C. Parr III |
| Abstract: | Food security is defined as the situation when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for a healthy and active life (FAO 1996). According to official figures, 24.8% of Mexican population experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2010. This represents an increase of 3.1 percentage points with respect to 21.7% in 2008. In other words, this represents an increase of 4.1 million individuals, from 23.9 to 28 million, living under these conditions in two years, from 2008 to 2010 (CONEVAL 2011). CONEVAL validated the Mexican Food Security Scale (EMSA, for its acronym in Spanish) as a reliable instrument to measure food security using Rasch model at the national and state level in Mexico (Carrasco, Peinador, and Aparicio 2010). Despite the validity that the food security scale is proved to have, to the best of our knowledge, there is no available study that has intended to find association between demographic factors and food insecurity at a national level in Mexico. This study will bridge the gap in the literature regarding the identification of factors that determine food insecurity in Mexico. The data used in this study come from The Socioeconomic Conditions Module (MCS 2010, for its acronym in Spanish) of the National Household Income and Expenditure Survey (ENIGH, for its name in Spanish) in the third quarter of 2010. In this study we use an ordered probit model, along with nationally representative data and a newly developed food security scale for Mexico. The analysis was conducted for the general (total) population first and then for a subpopulation group of rural lower-income households. We found that households with younger, less-educated household heads were more likely to suffer food insecurity. Other groups that were found to be vulnerable in terms of food insecurity include: households headed by a single, widow or divorced mother, households with disabled family members, households with strong indigenous background, rural households, low income families, non-agricultural households and households with kids. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150518&r=dem |
| By: | Dillon, Andrew |
| Abstract: | Malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies such as anemia have well-documented consequences on children’s health and schooling, cognitive functioning, and long term economic returns. This paper addresses the potential role of mother’s knowledge on reducing malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies drawing on the social networks literature to better understand the role of knowledge provider characteristics and social network structure have on knowledge diffusion. A cluster randomized control trial was implemented to test an agricultural production and nutrition education program, targeted to mothers of children aged 3-12 months at baseline living across four districts in Gourma province, Burkina Faso. Villages were randomly assigned to either the control group or to one of two treatment groups based on knowledge provider characteristics. Both treatment groups participated in a two-year program that included homestead food production, aimed to increase production of high quality foods, and a nutrition information component, aimed to improve knowledge and adoption of optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices. The two treatment groups differed in the actors who delivered the nutrition information messages, either older women leaders (OWL villages) or village health committee members (HC villages). This paper investigates the role that the nutrition information delivery strategy and social networks play in diffusing nutrition information among young mothers. The diffusion strategy may affect the young mother’s confidence in and retention of new nutritional information, while social network structure may reinforce nutritional messages through peer effects. We find IYCF knowledge diffusion is higher in HC villages relative to OWL villages, while social network measures, degree and betweeness, have statistically significant, but smaller effects on certain categories of IYCF knowledge. The increased knowledge effects explain one of the causal pathways through which the intervention has an impact on childhood anemia (26% of a standard deviation) in the HC treatment, but not the OWL treatment. |
| Keywords: | Consumer/Household Economics, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150524&r=dem |
| By: | Asirvatham, Jebaraj; Nayga, Rodolfo M. Jr.; Thomsen, Michael R. |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether peers are a contributing factor in the increase in childhood obesity rates, and whether peer effects vary by race, gender and residential neighborhood. We control for the commercial food environment around schools and residence when estimating peer effects given that the food environment constitutes an important set of factors that have not been adequately measured and accounted for in previous studies. We find that the weight of peers within the same grade in a school significantly impacts body mass index (BMI) z-score of an individual student. A typical student’s BMI z-score increases when facing heavier peers and it decreases when facing lighter peers. The results show differential peer-effects across race and gender, but more so by gender than by race. |
| Keywords: | peer-effects, obesity, overweight, childhood obesity, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy, D10, D71, I10, Z13, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150417&r=dem |
| By: | Yuan, Yuan; You, Wen; Boyle, Kevin |
| Keywords: | Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea13:150727&r=dem |
| By: | Michael Grossman; Erdal Tekin; Roy Wada |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine the effect of food prices on clinical measures of obesity, including body mass index (BMI) and percentage body fat (PBF) measures derived from bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), among youths ages 12 through 18. The empirical analyses employ data from various waves of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) merged with several food prices measured by county and year. This is the first study to consider clinically measured levels of body composition rather than BMI to investigate the effects of food prices on obesity among youths. We also examine whether the effects of food prices on body composition differ by gender and race/ethnicity. Our findings suggest that increases in the real price of one calorie in food for home consumption and the real price of fast-food restaurant food lead to improvements in obesity outcomes among youths. We also find that an increase in the real price of fruits and vegetables has negative consequences for these outcomes. Finally, our results indicate that measures of PBF derived from BIA and DXA are no less sensitive and in some cases more sensitive to the prices just mentioned than BMI. |
| JEL: | I1 I18 |
| Date: | 2013–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19143&r=dem |