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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Martin Halla; Nicole Schneeweis; Martina Zweimüller; Natalia Danzer |
| Abstract: | We provide a novel interpretation of the estimated treatment effects from evaluations of parental leave reforms. Accounting for the counterfactual mode of care is crucial in the analysis of child outcomes and potential mediators. We evaluate a large and generous parental leave extension in Austria exploiting a sharp birthday cutoff-based discontinuity in the eligibility for extended parental leave and geographical variation in formal childcare. We find that estimated treatment effects on long-term child outcomes differ substantially according to the availability of formal childcare and the mother’s counterfactual work behavior. We show that extending parental leave has significant positive effects on children’s health and human capital outcomes only if the reform induces a replacement of informal childcare with maternal care. We conclude that care provided by mothers (or formal institutions) is superior to informal care-arrangements. |
| Keywords: | : Parental leave, formal childcare, informal childcare, child development, maternal labor supply, fertility |
| JEL: | J13 H52 J22 J12 I38 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2017_06&r=dem |
| By: | Matthew Collin; Theodore Talbot |
| Abstract: | Child marriage is associated with bad outcomes for women and girls. Although many countries have raised the legal age of marriage to deter this practice, the incidence of early marriage remains stubbornly high. We develop a simple model to explain how enforcing minimum age-of-marriage laws creates differences in the share of women getting married at the legal cut-off. We formally test for these discontinuities using multiple rounds of the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) in over 60 countries by applying statistical tests derived from the regression discontinuity literature. By this measure, most countries are not enforcing the laws on their books and enforcement is not getting better over time. Separately, we demonstrate that various measures of age-of-marriage discontinuities are systematically related to with existing, widely-accepted measures of rule-of-law and government effectiveness. A key contribution is therefore a simple, tractable way to monitor legal enforcement using survey data. We conclude by arguing that better laws must be accompanied by better enforcement and monitoring in to delay marriage and protect the rights of women and girls. |
| Keywords: | Child marriage, discontinuity tests, rule of law, legal effectiveness |
| JEL: | J12 K42 |
| Date: | 2017–06–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:458&r=dem |
| By: | Mariacristina De Nardi (UCL, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, CE); Fang Yang (Louisiana State University); Margherita Borella (Unversity of Torino) |
| Abstract: | Wages, labor market participation, hours worked, and savings differ by gender and marital status. In addition, women and married people make up for a large fraction of the population and of labor market participants, total hours worked, and total earnings. For the most part, macroeconomists have been ignoring women and marriage in setting up structural models and by calibrating them using data on males only. In this paper we ask whether ignoring gender and marriage in both models and data implies that the resulting calibration matches well the key economic aggregates. We find that it does not and we ask whether there are other calibration strategies or relatively simple models of marriage that can improve the fit of the model to aggregate data. |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:red:sed017:46&r=dem |
| By: | Postepska, Agnieszka (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the role of ethnicity in the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. Relying on heteroskedasticity to identify parameters in the presence of endogenous regressors, I revisit Borjas ethnic capital hypothesis. I find evidence that the OLS estimates of the effect of ethnic capital on intergenerational transmission of education are biased upwards due to the transfer of unobserved ability. I find that while the role of parental capital has declined over time, ethnic capital has a relatively constant effect on intergenerational transmission of educational attainment. I also find that only women benefit from the quality of the ethnic environment and that the intergenerational transfer of ethnic capital is most prevalent in communities with strong ties measured with endogamy rates. |
| Keywords: | ethnic capital, human capital formation, intergenerational transmission |
| JEL: | J15 J62 D1 Z1 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10851&r=dem |
| By: | Stark, Oded; Byra, Lukasz; Casarico, Alessandra; Übelmesser, Silke |
| Abstract: | We ask which migration policy a developed country will choose when its objective is to attain the optimal skill composition of the country's workforce, and when the policy menu consists of an entry fee and a quota. We compare these two policies under the assumptions that individuals are heterogeneous in their skill level as well as in their skill type, and that individuals of one skill type, say "scientists," confer a positive externality on overall productivity whereas individuals of the other skill type, say "managers," do not confer such an externality. We find that a uniform entry fee encourages self-selection such that the migrants are only or mostly highly skilled managers. The (near) absence of migrant scientists has a negative effect on the productivity of the country's workforce. Under a quota: the migrants are (a) only averagely skilled managers if the productivity externality generated by the scientists is weak, or (b) only averagely skilled scientists if the productivity externality generated by the scientists is strong. In (a), a uniform entry fee is preferable to a quota. In (b), a quota is preferable to a uniform entry fee. If, however, the entry fee for scientists is sufficiently below the entry fee for managers, then migrants will be only or mostly highly skilled scientists, rendering a differentiated entry fee preferable to a quota even when the productivity externality is strong. Instituting a differentiated fee comes, though, at a cost: the fee revenue is not as high as it will be when migrants are only or mostly managers. We conclude that if maximizing the revenue from the entry fee is not the primary objective of the developed country, then a differentiated entry fee is the preferred policy. |
| Keywords: | International migration,A quota,A uniform entry fee,A differentiated entry fee,Heterogeneous human capital,Optimal skill composition of the developed country's workforce,Total factor productivity |
| JEL: | D62 F22 J24 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuewef:99&r=dem |
| By: | Michael Clemens; Claudio E. Montenegro; Lant Pritchett |
| Abstract: | Large international differences in the price of labor can be sustained by differences between workers, or by natural and policy barriers to worker mobility. We use migrant selection theory and evidence to place lower bounds on the ad valorem equivalent of labor mobility barriers to the United States, with unique nationally-representative microdata on both US immigrant workers and workers in their 42 home countries. The average price equivalent of migration barriers in this setting, for low-skill males, is greater than $13,700 per worker per year. Natural and policy barriers may each create annual global losses of trillions of dollars. |
| Keywords: | migration, labor mobility, migrant selection theory, migration barriers, policy |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J71 O15 |
| Date: | 2016–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgd:wpaper:428&r=dem |
| By: | Eliason, Marcus; Hensvik, Lena; Kramarz, Francis; Nordstrom Skans, Oskar |
| Abstract: | The paper studies how social connections affect firm-level hiring decisions and performance. We use register data to characterize the social connections of firms' employees. For causal identification, we use displacements which create directed supply shocks towards the firms of the displaced workers' social connections. We make sure that our results are fully driven by these directed supply shocks. Results show that firms appear to prefer employed workers they are connected to over unconnected or unemployed workers when hiring. The employed and connected mostly go to high-productivity firms whereas the unemployed and unconnected tend to go to low-productivity firms. Strong connections - family, recent, durable, formed in small groups, between socially similar agents - matter the most. Displacements shocks cause connected firms, in particular low-productivity ones, to hire those workers they are connected to. Unconnected hires and separations are essentially unaffected. These supply shocks therefore cause the creation of additional jobs which increase firms' employment. In addition, we use these shocks to show that hiring connected workers has a positive causal impact on firm performance. These results are consistent with a stylized framework where connections reduce hiring frictions and where the firm-level possibility to hire connected workers is a function of changing outside options of these workers. |
| Keywords: | job creation; Job Displacement; job search; networks |
| JEL: | J23 J30 J60 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12135&r=dem |
| By: | Checchi, Daniele (University of Milan); De Poli, Silvia (FBK-IRVAPP); Rettore, Enrico (University of Trento) |
| Abstract: | We study a reform occurred in Italy in 2008 in the formation of selection committees for qualifying as university professor. Prior to the reform members of the selection committees were elected by their peers, after the reform they have been randomly drawn. This policy was intended to increase the equality of opportunities of candidates via a reduction of the role played by connections to commissioners. Results show that the reform was ineffective in reducing the probability contribution of being an insider, but attenuated the impact of being connected to a commissioner without significantly raising the impact of scientific quality of candidates on the outcome of competitions. We also find that candidates internalised the changed environment and adapted their strategy of application. |
| Keywords: | university recruitment, incentives, negotiation, formal procedures |
| JEL: | M51 I23 D82 J45 |
| Date: | 2017–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp10844&r=dem |