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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Reijnders, Laurie S.M. (Groningen University) |
| Abstract: | What are the effects of child care subsidies on education, fertility and the sectoral allocation of the labour force? In a general equilibrium setting the availability of affordable professional child care will have an impact on the relative supplies of educated and uneducated workers and the cross-sectional fertility pattern. In absence of taxes and subsidies the optimal choice of financial assets early in life (taking marriage market conditions into account) is such that individuals who decide to attend college save relatively little. As a consequence, a couple with an uneducated wife and an educated husband has the most children, while parents who are both educated have the least. Introducing an ad valorem subsidy on child care financed by a proportional tax on income leads to an increase in fertility for all households. As more uneducated workers are employed in the service sector the college wage premium goes down and college graduation rates drop. This latter consequence is even more pronounced if the tax system is progressive. If the aim of the subsidy is to stimulate fertility, then this can be more effectively done by providing a specific subsidy per child. However, this reduces the supply of labour, especially by uneducated married women. |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gro:rugsom:14007-eef&r=dem |
| By: | Zhiling Wang; Thomas de Graaff; Peter Nijkamp (VU University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This study analyses the impact of cultural composition on regional attractiveness from the perspective of migrant sorting behaviour. We use an attitudinal survey to quantify cultural distances between natives and immigrants in the area concerned, and estimate the migrants’ varying preferences for both cultural diversity and cultural distance. To account for regional unobserved heterogeneity, our econometric analysis employs artificial instrumental variables, as developed by Bayer et al. (2004). The main conclusions are twofold. On the one hand, cultural diversity increases regional attractiveness. On the other hand, average cultural distance greatly weakens regional attractiveness, even when the presence of network effect is controlled for. |
| Keywords: | migration, cultural diversity, cultural distance, destination choice, sorting |
| JEL: | R2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2014–06–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20140066&r=dem |
| By: | Okemena Onemu (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | Gender differences in preferences regarding social relationships and competitive environments are well documented in psychology and economics. Research also shows that social relationships and competition among co-workers are affected by the incentive schemes workers are exposed to. We combine these two stylized facts and hypothesize that men and women differ in how they rate their co-worker relationships when they work under individual incentives, group incentives, or a combination of the two. This hypothesis is explored using survey data on 14,743 highly educated employees from 78 different organizations in the Netherlands. We find correlational evidence that, in the absence of individual incentives, group incentives improve co-worker relationships for women, but deteriorate co-worker relationships for men. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, gender differences, interpersonal relations, social interaction |
| JEL: | J3 M52 |
| Date: | 2014–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20140009&r=dem |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (DEDI & CEIS, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Pierluigi Conzo (Dept. of Economics and Statistics, University of Turin); Fabio Pisani (Faculty of Economics, University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | The productive and allocative theories predict that education has positive impact on health: the more educated adopt healthier life styles and use more efficiently health inputs and this explains why they live longer. We find partial support for these theories with an econometric analysis on a large sample of Europeans aged above 50 documenting a significant and positive correlation among education years, life styles, health outputs and functionalities. We however find confirmation for an anomaly already observed in the US, namely the more educated are more likely to contract cancer. Our results are robust when controlling for endogeneity and reverse causality in IV estimates with instrumental variables related to quarter of birth and neighbours’ cultural norms |
| Keywords: | health satisfaction, education, life satisfaction, public health costs |
| JEL: | I21 I12 I31 |
| Date: | 2015–04–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:341&r=dem |