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on Demographic Economics |
| By: | Chiara Puccioni; Daniela Vuri |
| Abstract: | This study evaluates the impact of an Italian government initiative launched in 2007, which allocated €1 billion to regional governments to enhance early childhood care services for children aged 0-2, targeting both public and private childcare options. Exploiting variations in the timing of implementation across regions, we assess the program’s effectiveness in increasing the public provision of early childcare services and maternal labor market participation. Results show a significant increase in both public childcare slots and labor market participation among mothers. However, the initiative had limited effects on less-educated women, likely due to the service’s relatively high costs, which may hinder broader accessibility. |
| Keywords: | early childcare services, mothers’ labor supply, staggered difference-in-difference, dynamic estimates |
| JEL: | C21 C22 H52 H75 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11656 |
| By: | Benjamin Bridgman |
| Abstract: | Longevity contributes to welfare, but little is known about the relationship between wealth and longevity prior to World War II. This paper examines longevity of the very highest income people during the 20th century using several “rich lists.” I find that the very wealthy did not have lower mortality early on. Life expectancy at age 40 flipped from a 1.9 year penalty to a 7.5 year bonus. This increase in longevity inequality has a welfare impact that is an order of magnitude larger than increasing consumption inequality from 1950 to 1985. The urban longevity penalty of the early 20th century, particularly due to poor air quality, likely contributed to the rich penalty. The rich, a very urban population, died from causes that were more common in urban areas, particularly pneumonia. |
| JEL: | D31 E01 E21 J11 |
| Date: | 2025–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bea:papers:0135 |
| By: | Rory Allanson (University of Strathclyde); Matthew Robson (Erasmus University Rotterdam and Tinbergen Institute) |
| Abstract: | We develop a social choice experiment to estimate public preferences on population ethics. Our experiment poses three within-subject treatments in which participants allocate scarce resources to determine the health-related quality-of-life, and existence, of two population groups. Within a flexible social welfare function, we estimate participant-level preferences for inequality aversion, average vs total welfare maximisation, and minimum `critical level' thresholds. By combining random behavioural and random utility models we also explicitly model `noise' in decision making. Using a sample of British adults (n=115, obs.=5, 060), we find that 98.7% of respondents are inequality averse, prioritising the worst-off at the expense of efficiently maximising overall health. The modal group of participants (39.2%) maximise total welfare and have a critical level threshold of zero, however there is extensive heterogeneity in participants' population preferences. We then demonstrate how these preferences can aid policymaking, where difficult trade-offs emerge between equity and efficiency, average and total welfare, and population size. |
| Keywords: | Experiment, Health, Social Welfare, Inequality, Population Ethics |
| JEL: | C90 D63 I18 |
| Date: | 2024–11–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240067 |