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on Labour Economics |
| By: | William Dickens (The Brookings Institution); Lorenz Goette (University of Zurich); Erica L. Groshen (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and IZA); Steinar Holden (University of Oslo, Center for Economic Studies-Information and Forschung Institute (CESifo)); Julian Messina (CSEF, University of Salerno, and European Central Bank); Mark Schweitzer (Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland); Jarkko Turunen (European Central Bank); Melanie Ward (European Central Bank, and IZA) |
| Abstract: | How do the complex institutions involved in wage setting affect wage changes? The International Wage Flexibility Project provides new microeconomic evidence on how wages change for continuing workers. We analyze individuals’ earnings in 31 different data sets from sixteen countries, from which we obtain a total of 360 wage change distributions. We find a remarkable amount of variation in wage changes across workers. Wage changes have a notably non-normal distribution; they are tightly clustered around the median and also have many extreme values. Furthermore, nearly all countries show asymmetry in their wage distributions below the median. Indeed, we find evidence of both downward nominal and real wage rigidities. We also find that the extent of both these rigidities varies substantially across countries. Our results suggest that variations in the extent of union presence in wage bargaining play a role in explaining differing degrees of rigidities among countries. |
| Keywords: | Wage setting, Wage change distributions, Downward nominal wage rigidity, Downward real wage rigidity |
| JEL: | E3 J3 J5 |
| Date: | 2007–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:171&r=lab |
| By: | William R. Johnson |
| Abstract: | The observation that many workers report wanting to work more or fewer hours at their current rate of pay appears to contradict standard neoclassical theory. Although most jobs limit the ability of workers to choose hours, economists typically assume that workers can choose hours by choosing jobs. The puzzle is why workers have not chosen jobs which allow them to work the number of hours they prefer. This paper outlines two classes of reasons that hours constraints might be observed in a neoclassical market equilibrium – mismatch (caused by search costs or market thinness) or wedges between imagined and feasible hours-compensation combinations (caused by market power, implicit contracts, overtime premia and fixed costs of employment like fringe benefits.) Using proxies for each of these putative explanations and cross-section data on self-reported hours constraints I find support for explanations that rely on fixed cost fringe benefits, overtime premia, search costs and unions but no support for the monopsony power or market thinness explanations. Moreover, the data are consistent with two strong empirical implications of hours constraints being illusory in the sense that the jobs constrained workers would prefer are not economically feasible. |
| Keywords: | hours of work, constraint, desired hours |
| JEL: | J22 J32 |
| Date: | 2006–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vir:virpap:367&r=lab |
| By: | Graversen,Brian Krogh; Ours,Jan C. van (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how a mandatory activation program in Denmark affects the job finding rate of unemployed workers. The activation program was introduced in an experimental setting where about half of the workers who became unemployed in the period from November 2005 to March 2006 were randomly assigned to the program while the other half was not. It appears that the activation program is very effective. The median unemployment duration of the control group is 14 weeks, while it is 11.5 weeks for the treatment group. The analysis shows that the job finding rate in the treatment group is 30% higher than in the control group. This result is mainly driven by the more intensive contacts between the unemployed and the public employment service. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance;unemployment duration;experiment |
| JEL: | C41 H55 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:2006126&r=lab |
| By: | Paolo Buonanno (Department of Economics, University of Bergamo) |
| Abstract: | The effect of military service on subsequent earnings has not been taken into account in the decennial debate on the abolition of military conscription in Western Europe. This paper provides evidence of the long-term effects of conscription on subsequent earnings. In our analysis, we use a regression-discontinuity approach to obtain unbiased estimates. The RD design used is based on a sharp discontinuity due to the abolition of military conscription in the UK in 1960. We study the effects of the abolition of compulsory military service in the UK on labour market outcomes. Our analysis sheds light on the importance of early labour career phase on labour market outcome. |
| Keywords: | Regression discontinuity approach, Quasi-natural experiment, Military service, wages |
| JEL: | J30 J31 J24 I20 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:brg:wpaper:0604&r=lab |
| By: | Barkume, Anthony J. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a replication of research reported by Steven Trejo in the 1991 American Economic Review. Trejo used labor force data from the seventies to assess the relevance of two contrasting views of the impact of overtime pay regulation. This paper reports research using a recent representative sample of U.S. private industry jobs that includes employer-reported measures of usual annual hours of overtime work and comprehensive measures of employer costs for job compensation. Comparisons are made between a set of jobs likely to be subject to U.S. overtime pay regulation—jobs paid hourly on 40 hour a week schedules—with another set of jobs that can offer overtime but are not likely to be subject to Federal overtime requirements—jobs on reduced hour schedules. The main findings of the research are: (1) higher wage rates are associated with a lower incidence of overtime work among the set of jobs with 40 hour work schedules, but not among the set of jobs with reduced hour schedules (2) in jobs using overtime work, more usual overtime work is associated with lower wage rates among the jobs with 40 hour work schedules, but not among the jobs on reduced hour schedules (3) higher “quasi-fixed” job compensation, such as employer health insurance costs, is associated with a higher incidence of overtime use. The paper also discusses some of the difficulties of interpreting these statistical results in the context of the labor market models considered by Trejo. |
| Keywords: | overtime work hours; hedonic wage curve |
| JEL: | J31 J33 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bls:wpaper:ec070010&r=lab |
| By: | Rob Euwals; Jaco Dagevos; Mérove Gijsberts; Hans Roodenburg |
| Abstract: | On the basis of three micro datasets, the German Socio-Economic Panel 2002, the Dutch Social Position and Use of Provision Survey 2002 and the Dutch Labour Force Survey 2002, we investigate the labour market position of Turkish immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands. We compare labour market outcomes of Turkish immigrants, including both the first and second generation, and natives in both countries by using the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition method. We find that Turkish immigrants have lower employment rates, lower tenured job rates and lower job prestige scores than natives. In both countries, the lower level of education and the age composition of the Turkish immigrants partly explains the unfavourable labour market position. The standardized gap – the gap that remains after correction for the observed individual characteristics – in the employment and tenured job rate remains large for the Netherlands, while the standardized gap in the job prestige score remains large for Germany. Differences in past immigration policies between Germany and the Netherlands are likely to be important for explaining the labour market position of Turkish men in both countries. |
| Keywords: | Immigration; Integration; Labour Market |
| JEL: | C25 F22 J15 J61 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:75&r=lab |
| By: | Ester Faia (Department of Economics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Ramon Trias Fargas 25-27, 08005 Barcelona, Spain.) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the design of optimal monetary policy (in terms of unconstrained Ramsey allocation) in a framework with sticky prices and matching frictions. Furthermore I consider the role of real wage rigidities. Optimal policy features significant deviations from price stability in response to various shocks. This is so since search externalities generate an unemployment/ inflation trade-off. In response to productivity shocks optimal policy is pro-cyclical when the worker’s bargaining power is higher than the share of unemployed people in the matching technology and viceversa. This is so since when the workers’ share of surplus is high there are many searching workers and few vacancies hence the monetary authority has an incentive to increase vacancy profitability by reducing the interest rate and increasing inflation. The opposite is true when the workers’ share of surplus is high. This implies that optimal inflation volatility is U-shaped with respect to workers’ bargaining power. JEL Classification: E52, E24. |
| Keywords: | optimal monetary policy, matching frictions, wage rigidity. |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20070707&r=lab |
| By: | Pierre Koning |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we measure the effectiveness of the Dutch public employment service (PES) for various performance measures, ranging from outflow rates to the timeliness of the benefits allocation. Using unique administrative monthly data from local PES offices during 2004, we exploit the fact that the number of PES workers per job seeker varies substantially between offices. We find additional PES workers to significantly increase outflow rates for short term unemployed and unemployment insurance (UI) recipients. In contrast, no effects are obtained for the outflow rates of long term unemployed and social assistance (SA) recipients. We also find additional PES workers to reduce the inflow into the schemes, to improve the timeliness of UI benefits and to increase the number of vacancies that are registered by offices. Although the effectiveness of PES workers is limited, we conclude that changes in the number of PES workers per client are cost-effective - that is, the extra costs are compensated for by the resulting reduction in benefit expenses. |
| Keywords: | public employment service; project evaluation |
| JEL: | H83 H43 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:73&r=lab |
| By: | Borghans Lex; Weel Bas ter; Weinberg Bruce A. (ROA rm) |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a framework to understand the role of interpersonal interactions in thelabor market including task assignment and wages. Effective interpersonal interactionsinvolve caring, to establish cooperation, and at the same time directness, to communicate inan unambiguous way. The ability to perform these tasks varies with personality and theimportance of these tasks varies across jobs. An assignment model shows that people are most productive in jobs that match their style and earn less when they have to shift to other jobs. An oversupply of one attribute relative to the other reduces wages for people who are better with the attribute in greater supply. We present evidence that youth sociability affects jobs assignment in adulthood. The returns to interpersonal interactions are consistent with the assignment model. |
| Keywords: | education, training and the labour market; |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:umaror:2007001&r=lab |
| By: | Giovanni Mastrobuoni (Collegio Carlo Alberto and Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin) |
| Abstract: | In response to a “crisis” in Social Security financing two decades ago Congress implemented an increase in the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) of two months per year for cohorts born in 1938 and after. These cohorts began reaching retirement age in 2000. This paper studies the effects of these benefit cuts on recent retirement behavior. The evidence strongly suggests that the mean retirement age of the affected cohorts has increased by about half as much as the increase in the NRA. If older workers continue to increase their labor supply in the same way, there will be important implications for the estimates of Social Security trust fund exhaustion that have played such a major role in recent discussions of Social Security reform. |
| Keywords: | Social Security, retirement behaviour |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:53&r=lab |
| By: | Takahiro Ito |
| Abstract: | This paper is an empirical attempt to quantify caste-based discrimination in the labor market using household data taken from rural North India. In the regression analysis, transaction costs associated with entry into the labor market and reservation wages are estimated along with market wages. The estimation results provide evidence of the existence of transaction costs in the labor market and discrimination against backward classes with regard to access to regular employment. In line with previous studies, the results suggest that the achievements of India's reservation policy so far have at best been limited. In addition, a comparison between the estimates from the model employed in this paper and conventional (reduced-form) approaches shows that discrimination in labor market entry is likely to be underestimated in the conventional reduced-form approaches. |
| Keywords: | regular employment, casual employment, labor market, India |
| JEL: | D23 J22 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d06-200&r=lab |
| By: | Manolis Galenianos (Department of Economics, Penn State University); Philipp Kircher (Department of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We consider a directed search model for a finite economy with heterogeneous firms in two informational environments. In the first, the productivity of all firms is publicly observed. We prove existence of equilibria in pure posting strategies by firms and show that wage dispersion is driven by fundamentals. That is, more productive firms post higher wages and wage dispersion is absent when firms are homogeneous. When firms have heterogeneous productivities the equilibrium is not constrained efficient. In the second environment the productivity level of each firm is private information. The main results extend to this environment: Equilibria in pure strategies exist; strategies are increasing in productivity; and constrained efficiency does not obtain. When the productivity level of all firms is drawn from the same distribution, symmetric equilibria exist and the ranking of wages equals that of productivity. |
| Keywords: | Directed Search, Labor Search, Market Power, Wage Differentials, Efficiency |
| JEL: | J31 J63 L13 |
| Date: | 2007–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pen:papers:07-003&r=lab |
| By: | Kenn Ariga; Giorgio Brunello; Roki Iwahashi; Lorenzo Rocco |
| Abstract: | During the postwar period, many countries have de-tracked their secondary schools, based on the view that early tracking was unfair. What are the efficiency costs, if any, of de- tracking schools? To answer this question, we develop a two skills - two jobs model with a frictional labour market, where new school graduates need to actively search for their best match. We compute optimal tracking length and the output gain/loss associated to the gap between actual and optimal tracking length. Using a sample of 18 countries, we find that: a) actual tracking length is often longer than optimal, which might call for some efficient de-tracking; b) the output loss of having a tracking length longer or shorter than optimal is sizeable, and close to 2 percent of total net output. |
| Keywords: | mismatch, school tracking. |
| JEL: | I2 J6 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:35&r=lab |
| By: | Bas Straathof |
| Abstract: | During the last twenty years the share of researchers in the workforce has been rising in OECD countries. In the same period, the distribution of schooling has become more equal. This paper proposes that the rise in the proportion of researchers is caused by the decline in schooling inequality. In particular, comparative static analysis of a semi-endogenous growth model demonstrates that a rising proportion of researchers can be a steady state phenomenon when schooling inequality is declining over time. This outcome can be accompanied by a rise in the wages of high-skilled labor compared to low-skilled labor. |
| Keywords: | Schooling inequality; Economic growth; Skill premium |
| JEL: | O40 I20 J24 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:74&r=lab |
| By: | Siv Gustafsson (Universiteit van Amsterdam); Seble Y. Worku (Universiteit van Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effects of local marriage markets on South African women’s marital decisions. The analysis is motivated by the low proportion of married among African mothers since 48% are never married. This means that the children of all these never married mothers have no access to their fathers' resources. The low sex ratio of 92 men to 100 women among Africans aged 20-40 makes us believe that shortage of marriageable men may explain marriage patterns. Economic theory predicts less attractive marital outcomes for women when the sex ratio is low. We analyze this hypothesis using the 2001 Census of South Africa. An ordered probit model is fitted with the different marital type ranked from less desirable (never married) to more attractive (married civil). The estimation results suggest that both the quantity and quality of marriageable men matter in the marital choice of women who have at least one child. Exposing African women to the White woman’s marriage market and the achievement of educational levels similar to those of Whites increase their probability of marriage by 8%, implying that only 44% of African women are expected to marry even given good marital opportunities and improved levels of education. |
| Keywords: | local marriage market; sex ratio; marriageable men; ordered probit; African; White |
| JEL: | D1 J1 |
| Date: | 2006–11–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20060102&r=lab |
| By: | Margaret Denton; Linda Boos |
| Abstract: | Beyond income, wealth is an important measure of economic well-being, because while income captures the current state of inequality, wealth has the potential for examining accumulated and historically structured inequality. This paper documents the extent of gender inequality in wealth for Canadian women and men aged 45 and older. The analysis uses data from the 1999 Canadian Survey of Financial Security, a large nationally representative survey of household wealth in Canada. Wealth is measured by total net worth as measured by total assets minus debt. We test two general hypotheses to account for gender differences in wealth. The differential exposure hypothesis suggest that women report less wealth accumulation because of their reduced access to the material and social conditions of life that foster economic security. The differential vulnerability hypothesis suggests that women report lower levels of wealth because they receive differential returns to material and social conditions of their lives. Support is found for both hypotheses. Much of the gender differences in wealth can be explained by the gendering of work and family roles that restricts women’s ability to build up assets over the life course. But beyond this, there are significant gender interaction effects that indicate that women are further penalized by their returns to participation in family life, their health and where they live. When women do work, net of other factors, they are better able to accumulate wealth than their male counterparts. |
| Keywords: | wealth, retirement, net assets, gender differences |
| JEL: | J14 J16 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcm:qseprr:413&r=lab |
| By: | Natálie Reichlová (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic); Petr Švarc (Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | We present a model of job search in which information about job opportunities is available either through direct search at the labor market or through network of socially tied individuals. We consider two cases - altruistic and self-interested agents that maximize their utility function. We show that optimal strategies range between full and no referring cases. Altruistic individuals tend to refer more than selfinterested agents. Strategic referring allows agents alleviate employment variation and leads to higher average utility levels and lower unemployment rates. |
| Keywords: | agent-based modeling; networks; strategy; job referring |
| JEL: | J62 J64 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2006–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2006_29&r=lab |
| By: | Frans W.A. van Poppel (Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute); Hendrik P. van Dalen (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam); Evelien Walhout (International Institute for Social History) |
| Abstract: | The emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands over the period 1812-1922 was strongly influenced by the social norm that women should withdraw from the labour market on the eve of marriage. Adherence to this norm is most clearly reflected in the emergence of the housewife among the lower classes, especially at the close of the nineteenth century among wives of farmers. Women in urban municipalities, however, set the norm far earlier and differences across social classes were significantly larger in towns than in rural areas. Paradoxically, the rise of the housewife did not change work pressures for lower–class women. This paradox is resolved by noting that they substituted registered work for unregistered work, e.g., in house industries, working in the family firm or farm. |
| Keywords: | marriage; norms; division of labour; housewife; breadwinner |
| JEL: | D13 J12 J16 N34 |
| Date: | 2006–12–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:uvatin:20060107&r=lab |
| By: | Li Gan; Guan Gong |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates to what extent and through which channels that health and educational attainment are interdependent. A dynamic model of schooling, work, health expenditure, and savings is developed. The structural framework explicitly models two existing hypotheses on the correlation between health and education. The estimation results strongly support the interdependence between health and education. In particular, the estimated model indicates that an individual's education, health expenditure, and previous health status all affect his health status. Moreover, the individual's health status affects his mortality rate, wage, home production, and academic success. On average, having been sick before age 21 decreases the individual's education by 1.4 years. Policy experiments indicate that a health expenditure subsidy would have a larger impact on educational attainment than a tuition subsidy. |
| JEL: | C61 I12 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12830&r=lab |
| By: | Miguel A. Malo; Fernando Muñoz-Bullon |
| Abstract: | We analyse whether family-related quits present long-term effects upon women’s careers, which are summarized in three measures of occupational prestige. There is an association between intermittent attachment to the labour market and being engaged in occupations with lower prestige levels. In causal terms, we find that women choose jobs with lower occupational prestige anticipating future family-related quits. The database consists of the retrospective information of the British Household Panel Survey |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:wbrepe:wb070101&r=lab |
| By: | Emmanuelle Auriol (ARQADE and IDEI, Université des Sciences Sociales de Toulouse, and Institut Universitaire de France); Régis Renault (Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Théma and Institut Universitaire de France) |
| Abstract: | The paper introduces status as reflecting an agent's claim to recognition in her work. It is a scarce resource: increasing an agent's status requires that another agent's status is decreased. Higher status agents are more willing to exert effort in exchange for money; better-paid agents would exert a higher effort in exchange for an improved status. Results are coherent with actual management practices: (i) egalitarianism is desirable in a static context; (ii) in a long-term work relationship, juniors' compensations are delayed; past performances are recompensed by pay increases along with an improved status within the organization's hierarchy. |
| Keywords: | repeated moral hazard, internal labor markets, social status |
| JEL: | D82 L23 M12 J33 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ema:worpap:2007-01&r=lab |
| By: | Sonia Oreffice (Clemson University); Brighita Bercea (Clemson University) |
| Abstract: | This paper further explores the role of sex ratios on spouses’ bargaining power, by focusing on educational attainment in order to capture the qualitative aspect of mate availability. Using Census and Current Population Survey data for U.S. metropolitan areas in year 2000, a quality sex ratio is constructed by education brackets to test the effect on the intra-household bargaining power of couples in the corresponding education bracket. We argue that a relative shortage of suitably educated women in the spouse’s potential marriage market increases wives’ bargaining power in the household while it lowers their husbands’. Additionally, we test the prediction that this bargaining power effect is greater as the assortative mating order by education increases. We consider a collective labor supply household model, in which each spouse’s labor supply is negatively related to their level of bargaining power. We find that higher relative shortage of comparably educated women in the couple’s metropolitan area reduces wives’ labor supply and increases their husbands’. Also, the labor supply impact is stronger for couples in higher education groups. No such effects are found for unmarried individuals, which is consistent with bargaining theory. |
| Keywords: | Education, Intra-Household Bargaining Power, Labor Supply |
| JEL: | D12 J12 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2006.133&r=lab |
| By: | Annamaria Lusardi (Dartmouth College); Olivia S. Mitchell (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | We compare wealth holdings across two cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study: the early Baby Boomers in 2004, and individuals in the same age group in 1992. Levels and patterns of total net worth have changed relatively little over time, though Boomers rely more on housing equity than their predecessors. Most important, planners in both cohorts arrive close to retirement with much higher wealth levels and display higher financial literacy than non-planners. Instrumental variables estimates show that planning behavior can explain the differences in savings and why some people arrive close to retirement with very little or no wealth. |
| Keywords: | Wealth holdings, housing wealth, lack of planning, literacy, cohort |
| JEL: | D91 E21 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:54&r=lab |
| By: | Charles T. Clotfelter; Helen F. Ladd; Jacob L. Vigdor |
| Abstract: | Education researchers and policy makers agree that teachers differ in terms of quality and that quality matters for student achievement. Despite prodigious amounts of research, however, debate still persists about the causal relationship between specific teacher credentials and student achievement. In this paper, we use a rich administrative data set from North Carolina to explore a range of questions related to the relationship between teacher characteristics and credentials on the one hand and student achievement on the other. Though the basic questions underlying this research are not new - and, indeed, have been explored in many papers over the years within the rubric of the "education production function" - the availability of data on all teachers and students in North Carolina over a ten-year period allows us to explore them in more detail and with far more confidence than has been possible in previous studies. We conclude that a teacher's experience, test scores and regular licensure all have positive effects on student achievement, with larger effects for math than for reading. Taken together the various teacher credentials exhibit quite large effects on math achievement, whether compared to the effects of changes in class size or to the socio-economics characteristics of students, as measured, for example, by the education level of their parents. |
| JEL: | I21 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12828&r=lab |
| By: | Timothy J. Halliday (Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa; John A. Burns School of Medicine) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how the gender composition of migrant flows and the intra-household allocation of labor are employed as risk-coping strategies in El Salvador. We show that agricultural productivity shocks primarily increased male migration to the US and, at the same time, increased the number of hours that the household devoted to agricultural activities. In contrast, damage sustained from the 2001 earthquakes exclusively stunted female migration. We argue that the reasons for this were that the earthquakes increased the demand for home production and that the costs of retaining women at home in the disaster's wake were lower than for men. |
| Date: | 2007–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:200701&r=lab |
| By: | M. Kate Bundorf; Melinda Henne; Laurence Baker |
| Abstract: | During the last two decades, the treatment of infertility has improved dramatically. These treatments, however, are expensive and rarely covered by insurance, leading many states to adopt regulations mandating that health insurers cover them. In this paper, we explore the effects of benefit mandates on the utilization and outcomes of infertility treatments. We find that use of infertility treatments is significantly greater in states adopting comprehensive versions of these mandates. While greater utilization had little impact on the number of deliveries, mandated coverage was associated with a relatively large increase in the probability of a multiple birth. For relatively low fertility patients who responded to the expanded insurance coverage, treatment was often unsuccessful and did not result in a live birth. For relatively high fertility patients, in contrast, treatment often led to a multiple, rather than a singleton, birth. We also find evidence that the beneficial effects on the intensive treatment margin that have been proposed in other studies are relatively small. We conclude that, while benefit mandates potentially solve a problem of adverse selection in this market, these benefits must be weighed against the costs of the significant moral hazard in utilization they induce. |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2007–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12820&r=lab |
| By: | Ximena Peña |
| Abstract: | This paper attempts to explain the decrease and reversal of the education gap between males and females. Given a continuum of agents, the education decisions are modelled as an assignment game with endogenous types. In the first stage agents choose their education level and in the second they participate in the labor and marriage markets. Competition among potential matches ensures that the efficient education levels can always be sustained in equilibrium, but there may be inefficient equilibria. Combining asymmetries intrinsic to the modelled markets the model reproduces the observed education gap. |
| Keywords: | Assortative matching, efficiency, gender, education. Classification JEL: |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:427&r=lab |
| By: | Laura Zimmermann; Klaus F. Zimmermann; Amelie Constant |
| Abstract: | This paper uses the concept of ethnic self-identification of immigrants in a twodimensional framework. It acknowledges the fact that attachments to the home and the host country are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are three possible paths of adjustment from separation at entry, namely the transitions to assimilation, integration and marginalization. We analyze the determinants of ethnic selfidentification in this process using samples of first-generation immigrants for males and females separately, and controlling for pre- and post-migration characteristics. We find strong gender differences and the unimportance of a wide range of premigration characteristics like religion and education at home. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic self-identification, first-generation immigrants, gender, ethnicity |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J16 Z10 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp657&r=lab |