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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2005‒03‒13
eight papers chosen by |
| By: | Avner Shaked |
| Date: | 2005–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:666156000000000570&r=ltv |
| By: | Ernst Fehr; Klaus M. Schmidt |
| Date: | 2005–03–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cla:levrem:666156000000000574&r=ltv |
| By: | Mandana Hajj; Ugo Panizza (Research Department, Inter-American Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | This paper uses individual-level data from Lebanon to test whether there is a difference between the education gender gap of Muslims and Christians. The paper starts by observing that, in Lebanon, the education gender gap completely disappears for cohorts born after the mid 1960s. Next, the paper uses data for young Lebanese and shows that, other things equal, girls (both Muslim and Christian) tend to receive more education than boys and that there is no difference between the education gender gap of Muslims and Christians. Therefore, the paper finds no support for the hypothesis that Muslims discriminate against female education. |
| Keywords: | Religion, Islam, Education, Gender Gap |
| JEL: | Z12 I20 O53 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:1001&r=ltv |
| By: | Alissa Goodman (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Greg Kaplan (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Ian Walker (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the socio-economic consequences of teenage motherhood for a cohort of British women born in 1970. We apply a number of different methodologies on the same dataset, including OLS, a propensity score matching estimator, and an instrumental variables estimator, using miscarriages as an instrument. We bound the biases introduced through IV due to non-randomness, and misreporting of the instrument. Our results are sensitive to the methodologies used. Taking only observed characteristics into account, the effects of teenage motherhood appear large and negative. The pathways are through bigger family size, and negative labour market outcomes for the mother and her partner, and are mitigated by transfers from the state through the British benefit system. Our IV estimates show that almost all these effects are reduced to zero once unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account. However our IV bounds show that biases introduced by non-randomness and misreporting of our instrument could be responsible for all of this apparent reduction in effects. |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2004–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/20&r=ltv |
| By: | Richard Blundell (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Amanda Gosling (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Univeristy of Essex); Hide Ichimura (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Costas Meghir (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines changes in the distribution of wages using bounds to allow for the impact of non-random selection into work. We show that bounds constructed without any economic or statistical assumptions can be informative. However, since employment rates in the UK are often low they are not informative about changes in educational or gender wage differentials. Thus we explore ways to tighten these bounds using restrictions motivated from economic theory. With these assumptions we find convincing evidence of an increase in inequality within education groups, changes in the "return" to education and increases in the relative wages of women. |
| Date: | 2004–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/25&r=ltv |
| By: | Richard Blundell (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London); Hamish Low (Institute for Fiscal Studies and Trinity College, Cambridge); Ian Preston (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College London) |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses the accuracy of decomposing income risk into permanent and transitory components using income and consumption data. We develop a specific approximation to the optimal consumption growth rule and use Monte Carlo evidence to show that this approximation can provide a robust method for decomposing income risk. The availability of asset data enables the use of a more accurate approximation allowing for partial self-insurance against permanent shocks. We show that the use of data on median asset holdings corrects much of the error in the simple approximation which assumes no self-insurance against permanent shocks. |
| Keywords: | income risk, inequality, approximation methods, con- |
| JEL: | C30 D52 D91 |
| Date: | 2004–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/26&r=ltv |
| By: | Samuel Berlinski (Institute for Fiscal Studies and University College, London); ; Sebastian Galiani |
| Abstract: | We provide evidence on the impact of a large construction of pre-primary school facilities in Argentina. We estimate the causal impact of the program on preprimary school attendance and maternal labor supply. Identification relies on a differences-in-differences strategy where we combine differences across regions in the number of facilities built with differences in exposure across cohorts induced by the timing of the program. We find a sizeable impact of the program on pre-primary school participation among children aged between 3 and 5. In spite of this, we do not find much impact on maternal labor market behavior. The implicit childcare subsidy induced by the construction program only appears to have affected positively the labor market supply of the most skilled mothers. |
| Date: | 2004–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ifs:ifsewp:04/30&r=ltv |
| By: | François Bourguignon (World Bank, washington and Delta, Paris); Maria Concetta Chiuri (University of Bari, CHILD and CSEF) |
| Abstract: | The allocation of time is a crucial decision that influences many aspects of household welfare, above all consumption, income level and home production. This paper presents a new methodology to estimate woman domestic productivity using a French time use survey, at least whenever the recursivity property for constrained utility maximization with home production applies. It provides empirical evidence not rejecting a collective model of household decision making over working time, as the sum of time spent in domestic production and market labor time. Our results show also that female domestic productivity is a relevant variable explaining intra-household distribution of resources. |
| Keywords: | Collective models, home production, time- use |
| JEL: | D13 J22 |
| Date: | 2005–03–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:131&r=ltv |