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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Dominique Lemmermann; Regina T. Riphahn |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal effect of age at migration on subsequent educational attainment in the destination country. To identify the causal effect we compare the educational attainment of siblings at age 21, exploiting the fact that they typically migrate at different ages within a given family. We consider several education outcomes conditional on family fixed effects. We take advantage of long running and detailed data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which entails an oversample of immigrants and provides information on language skills. We find significant effects of age at migration on educational attainment and a critical age of migration around age 6. The educational attainment of female immigrants responds more strongly to a high age at immigration than that of males. Also, language skills do not appear to be central for the causal connection between age at migration and educational attainment. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, education, integration, school attainment, Germany, causal estimation, family fixed effect |
| JEL: | I21 J61 C21 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp908&r=dem |
| By: | María Caridad Araujo; Marta Dormal; Norbert Schady |
| Abstract: | Development in early childhood predicts schooling and labor market outcomes in adulthood. In this paper we use a fixed effects identification strategy to assess how differences in the quality of child care affect the communication, fine motor, and problem solving skills of infants and toddlers. We show that children have significantly better development outcomes in classrooms with more experienced caregivers, and classrooms with caregivers who demonstrate higher-quality interactions with children. There is substantial heterogeneity in the effects of caregiver quality on child development. Parents either cannot observe, or do not value, the quality of care. |
| Keywords: | Children, Child development, School Attendance, Child Care Quality, Early Childhood Education, Educational Assessment, Language Development, child care, quality, child development, CLASS, ASQ-3 |
| JEL: | J13 I38 I30 I25 I20 I10 I00 |
| Date: | 2017–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:97738&r=dem |
| By: | Elizabeth Caucutt (Western University Canada); Lance Lochner (University of Western Ontario) |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynastic human capital investment framework to study the importance of potential market failures--family borrowing constraints and uninsured labor market risk--as well as the process of intergenerational ability transmission in determining human capital investments in children at different ages. We explore the extent to which policies targeted to different ages can address these market failures, potentially improving economic efficiency and equity. We show that dynamic complementarity in investment and the timing of borrowing constraints are critical for the qualitative nature of investment responses to income and policy changes. Based on these analytical results, we use data from the Children of the NLSY (CNLSY) to establish that borrowing constraints bind for at least some families with young and old children. Calibrating our model to fit data from the CNLSY, we find a moderate degree of dynamic complementarity in investment and that 12% of young and 14% of old parents borrow up to their limits. While the effects of relaxing any borrowing limit at a single stage of development are modest, completely eliminating all lifecycle borrowing limits dramatically increases investments, earnings, and intergenerational mobility. Additionally, the impacts of policy or family income changes at college-going ages are substantially greater when anticipated earlier, allowing early investments to adjust. Finally, we show that shifting the emphasis of investment subsidies from college-going ages to earlier ages increases aggregate welfare and human capital. |
| Keywords: | market failure, Life-cycle dynastic models, risk, NLSY, CNLSY, borrowing limits, human capital investment |
| JEL: | J24 D19 D81 D47 D63 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2017-040&r=dem |
| By: | Courtemanche, Charles (Georgia State University); Tchernis, Rusty (Georgia State University); Zhou, Xilin (Georgia State University) |
| Abstract: | This study exploits plausibly exogenous variation from the youngest sibling's school eligibility to estimate the effects of parental work on the weight outcomes of older children in the household. Data come from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth linked to the Child and Young Adult Supplement. We first show that mothers' work hours increase gradually as the age of the youngest child rises, whereas mothers' spouses' work hours exhibit a discontinuous jump at kindergarten eligibility. Leveraging these insights, we develop an instrumental variables model that shows that parents' work hours lead to larger increases in children's BMI z-scores and probabilities of being overweight and obese than those identified in previous studies. We find no evidence that the impacts of maternal and paternal work are different. Subsample analyses find that the effects are concentrated among advantaged households, as measured by an index involving education, race, and mother's marital status. |
| Keywords: | childhood obesity, maternal employment, women's labor supply |
| JEL: | I12 J22 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10739&r=dem |
| By: | Kseniia Gatskova; Artjoms Ivlevs; Barbara Dietz |
| Abstract: | We study how migration affects education of girls in Tajikistan—the poorest post-Soviet state and one of the most remittance-dependent economies in the world. Using data from a threewave household panel survey conducted in 2007, 2009, and 2011, we find that the effect of migration on girls’ school attendance differs markedly by age. School attendance of young girls (ages 7–11) improves when either parents or sibling migrate, as well as when the household starts receiving remittances. In contrast, school attendance of teenage girls (ages 12–17) falls when siblings migrate, while parental migration and remittances have no effect. Having a grandmother as the head of household after parents (typically fathers) migrate improves school attendance of young and teenage girls, but reduces school attendance of young women (ages 18–22). We also find that in localities where the share of migrants is already high, an increase in the share of migrant households is associated with an increase in the marriage rate. Our results support various channels through which emigration of household members may affect girls’ and young women’s education: relaxation of budget constraints, increase in household work, change in the head of household, and pressure to marry early. Overall, our study suggests that the net effect of migration on girls’ schooling turns from positive to negative with girls’ age; this implies that migration may be detrimental to women’s empowerment in Tajikistan and casts doubts on whether migration is an appropriate long-term development strategy for this country. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-104&r=dem |
| By: | Jean-Marie Baland; Roberta Ziparo |
| Abstract: | This paper is intended to bridge the theoretical literature describing efficient intrahousehold behaviour and the development literature that collects empirical regularities pointing toward the existence of strategic decision-making among spouses. It examines the key elements of the collective model and discusses its relevance to analysing intra-household behaviour in poor countries. It explores the role that risk and uncertainty, information asymmetries, power imbalances, arranged marriages, strategic investment, gender norms, and extended households play in the attainment of efficiency. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2017-108&r=dem |
| By: | Piera Bello (Istituto di economia pubblica (IdeP), Facoltà di scienze economiche, Università della Svizzera italiana, Svizzera) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effects of nominal exchange rate fluctuations on cross-border mobility and on retailer firms' sales. Exchange rate shocks may affect the labour supply decisions of cross-border workers and the propensity for consumers to shop across the border. By using hourly data on traffic flows in Ticino, the southernmost canton of Switzerland, and data on Italian supermarkets, I analyse the effects of the Swiss franc appreciation on cross-border travel by both Italian workers and Swiss consumers and on Italian retailers' sales. I find that a 10% appreciation of the Swiss franc increases the number of cars along the border by 1.5-3% more than in the rest of the canton. This effect is found only during specific time intervals, which differ according to the direction of the flow (the early morning from Italy to Switzerland, the afternoon from Switzerland to Italy and late morning for both directions). Moreover, I show that a stronger Swiss Franc positively affects supermarkets' sales in Italian provinces bordering Switzerland. Finally, I provide additional evidence for the labour supply hypothesis by using data on search volumes provided by Google Trends and official statistics on cross-border commuters in Switzerland. |
| Keywords: | Geographic labor mobility, Labor supply, Traffic flows |
| JEL: | J61 J22 R41 |
| Date: | 2017–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lug:wpidep:1701&r=dem |
| By: | David S. Jacks (Simon Fraser University); Krishna Pendakur (Simon Fraser University); Hitoshi Shigeoka (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | Exploiting a newly constructed dataset on county-level variation in prohibition status from 1933 to 1939, this paper asks two questions: what were the effects of the repeal of federal prohibition on infant mortality? And were there any significant externalities from the individual policy choices of counties and states on their neighbors? We find that dry counties with at least one wet neighbor saw baseline infant mortality increase by roughly 3% while wet counties themselves saw baseline infant mortality increase by roughly 2%. Cumulating across the six years from 1934 to 1939, our results indicate an excess of 13,665 infant deaths that could be attributable to the repeal of federal prohibition in 1933. |
| Keywords: | federal prohibition, infant mortality, policy externalities |
| JEL: | H73 I18 J10 N30 |
| Date: | 2017–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2017-036&r=dem |