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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Arnaud Chevalier; Olivier Marie |
| Abstract: | Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth rate halved in East Germany. Despite their small sizes, the cohorts conceived during this period of socio-economic turmoil were, as they grew up in reunified Germany, markedly more likely to be arrested than cohorts conceived a few years earlier. This is consistent with negative parental selection during the period of turmoil. We highlight risk attitude as an important selection mechanism, beyond education and other observable characteristics, which explains: (i) why some women did not alter their fertility decisions during these uncertain economic times, (ii) that this risk preference was passed on to their children and (iii) that risk preference is correlated with criminal participation. Maternal selection along risk preference might thus be an important mechanism explaining the greater criminal activity of the children conceived after the fall of the Wall. |
| Keywords: | fertility, crime, parental selection, economic uncertainty, risk attitude |
| JEL: | J13 K42 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9683&r= |
| By: | Jon H. Fiva; Max-Emil M. King |
| Abstract: | Women tend to experience substantial declines in their labor income after their first child is born, while men do not. Do such “child penalties” also exist in the political arena? Using extensive administrative data from Norway and an event-study methodology, we find that women drop out of local politics to a larger extent than men after their first child is born. Parenthood also seems to have a differential long-term effect on women and men's political careers, which may explain why women, especially women with children, are underrepresented at higher levels of the political hierarchy. |
| Keywords: | gender gap, child penalties, political selection |
| JEL: | D63 D72 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9611&r= |
| By: | Katrine M. Jakobsen (Department of Economics, University of Oxford); Thomas H. Jørgensen (CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen); Hamish Low (Department of Economics, University of Oxford and IFS) |
| Abstract: | We study the role of fertility adjustments for the labor market responsiveness of men and women. First, we use longitudinal Danish register data and tax reforms from 2009 to provide new empirical evidence on asymmetric fertility adjustments to tax changes of men and women. Second, we quantify the importance of these fertility adjustments for understanding the labor supply responsiveness of couples through a life-cycle model of family labor supply and fertility. Allowing fertility adjustments increases the labor supply responsiveness of women by 28%. These adjustments affect human capital accumulation and has permanent implications for the gender wage gap within couples. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Labor supply, Human capital accumulation, Gender inequality, Tax reform, Life-Cycle |
| JEL: | J22 J13 D15 H24 |
| Date: | 2022–05–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2204&r= |
| By: | Samuel Baker (University of Bristol); Pietro Biroli (University of Zurich); Hans van Kippersluis (Erasmus University); Stephanie von Hinke (University of Bristol, Erasmus University, and Institute for Fiscal Studies) |
| Abstract: | Adverse conditions in early life can have consequential impacts on individuals' health in older age. In one of the first papers on this topic, Barker and Osmond (1986) show a strong positive relationship between infant mortality rates in the 1920s and ischaemic heart disease in the 1970s. We go `beyond Barker,' first by showing that this relationship is robust to the inclusion of local geographic area fixed effects, but not family fixed effects. Second, we explore whether the average effects conceal underlying heterogeneity: we examine if the infant mortality effect offsets or reinforces one's genetic predisposition for heart disease. We find considerable heterogeneity that is robust to within-area as well as within-family analyses. Our findings show that the effects of one's early life environments mainly affect individuals with the highest genetic risk for developing heart disease. Put differently, in areas with the lowest infant mortality rates, the effect of one's genetic predisposition effectively vanishes. These findings suggests that advantageous environments can cushion one's genetic risk of developing heart disease. |
| Keywords: | Barker hypothesis, developmental origins, gene-by-environment interplay |
| JEL: | I10 I14 I19 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-015&r= |
| By: | Jacob Nielsen Arendt; Christian Dustmann; Hyejin Ku |
| Abstract: | Denmark has accepted refugees from a large variety of countries and for more than four decades. Denmark has also frequently changed policies and regulations concerning integration programs, transfer payments, and conditions for permanent residency. Such policy variation in conjunction with excellent administrative data provides an ideal laboratory to evaluate the effects of different immigration and integration policies on the outcomes of refugee immigrants. In this article, we first describe the Danish experience with refugee immigration over the past four decades. We then review different post-arrival refugee policies and summarize studies that evaluate their effects on the labor market performance of refugees. Lastly, we discuss and contrast these findings in the context of international studies of similar policies and draw conclusions for policy. |
| Keywords: | refugee integration, immigration policies, labor supply, employment, language |
| JEL: | J22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9689&r= |
| By: | Raphaël Franck |
| Abstract: | To analyze the impact of labor scarcity on technology adoption and innovation, this study uses the differential spread of cholera across France in 1832, 1849 and 1854, before the transmission mode of this disease was understood. The results suggest that a larger share of cholera deaths in the population, which can be causally linked to summer temperature levels, had a positive and significant shortrun effect on technology adoption and innovation in agriculture but a negative and significant short-run impact on technology adoption in industry. These results, which are not driven by migration, urbanization, religiosity or local financial intermediation, can be explained by the positive impact of labor scarcity on human capital formation. |
| Keywords: | epidemics, labor scarcity, technology adoption |
| JEL: | I15 N13 O33 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9528&r= |
| By: | DIodato, Dario; Morrison, Andrea; Petralia, Sergio |
| Abstract: | More than 30 million people migrated to the USA between late-ninetieth and early-twentieth century, and thousands became inventors. Drawing on a novel dataset of immigrant inventors in the USA, we assess the city-level impact of immigrants' patenting and their contribution to the technological specialization of the receiving US regions between 1870 and 1940. Our results show that native inventors benefited from the inventive activity of immigrants. In addition, we show that the knowledge transferred by immigrants gave rise to new and previously not exiting technological fields in the US regions where immigrants moved to. |
| Keywords: | Age of Mass Migration; immigration; innovation; knowledge spill-over; patent; USA |
| JEL: | F22 O31 R30 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–03–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114920&r= |