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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2007‒06‒18
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Stephen P. Jenkins; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews research about the intergenerational transmission of poverty in industrialized countries. In order to make our survey manageable, we restrict attention to studies that consider the relationship between parental poverty (or 'income') during childhood and later-life outcomes; we do not explicitly consider the impact of other family background variables such as parental education. The general message is that growing up poor has a deleterious impact on later-life chances, and that this impact is not wholly explained by other factors that are themselves correlated with childhood poverty. At the same time, the studies also show that one should be cautious about drawing more specific conclusions. For example, the degree of intergenerational persistence appears to vary depending on the definition of the outcome variable, and different estimation methods provide a range of estimates. In addition, most of re-search about intergenerational links has been undertaken using US data, and it is not clear that any specific conclusions should carry over to another country with very different social norms and institutions including e.g. differences in labour market regulation, and in systems of edu-cation and social security benefits. However we conclude that, broadly speaking, the analyti-cal framework that has been used for high-income countries can also be applied to low-income countries. |
| Keywords: | Poverty, intergenerational transmission, mobility, family background, income, industrialized countries |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp693&r=ltv |
| By: | Stephen P. Jenkins; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | This paper discusses how household panel surveys can be informative about the intergenerational transmission of poverty. We consider issues both of data and of the statistical methods that may be applied to those data. Although the data focus is on panel surveys from developed countries, we also briefly consider data availability in developing countries. We set out a list of survey data requirements for intergenerational analysis, and then discuss how the main household panel surveys in developed countries meet the criteria. In order to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of household panel surveys, the section also compares them with other types of longitudinal studies. Next, we review the estimation methods that have been used to examine the intergenerational transmission of poverty when using household panel surveys. Finally, we provide three examples of household panel surveys in developing countries (Indonesia, Malaysia and Mexico) that meet the data requirements for analysis of the intergenerational transmission of poverty. |
| Keywords: | Demographic change, Consumption structure, Consumption of the elderly |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp694&r=ltv |
| By: | Fernando Muñoz-Bullón; J. Ignacio García-Pérez |
| Abstract: | We analyze the Spanish temporary workers’ transitions into permanent employment and to what extent those who become unemployed are able to achieve a permanent job. Our focus is placed on the role of the individual’s sequence of temporary contracts on the probability of moving from temporary into permanent employment. We apply multiple-spell duration techniques to a longitudinal dataset of temporary workers obtained from Social Security records for the period 1996-2003. We basically find that even though transitions into permanent employment increase with tenure, temporary jobs do not constitute stepping stones towards permanent employment, since the probability of obtaining a permanent job decreases with repeated temporary jobs. Results also show that individuals with high duration of unemployment flow into permanent work less frequently. |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fda:fdaddt:2007-09&r=ltv |
| By: | Johansson, Mats (Institute for Futures Studies); Katz, Katarina (Department of Economics and Business, Karlstad University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate skill mismatch and its impact on gender differences in wage gap and in returns to education in Sweden 1993 to 2002.Women are more likely to have more formal education than what is normally required for their occupation (overeducation), while men are more likely to have less (undereducation).Over- and undereducation contribute far more to the gender wage gap than years of schooling and work experience. In decompositions, adjusting for skill mismatch decreases the gender wage gap by between one tenth and one sixth. This is roughly a third to a half as much as is accounted for by segregation by industry. Thus, taking skill mismatch into account is essential for the analysis of gender wage differentiation, even though it does not alter the result that the estimated returns to education are smaller for women than for men in Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Gender differentials; discrimination; over- and undereducation |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2007–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2007_013&r=ltv |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Alberto Alesina; Francesco Trebbi |
| Abstract: | We explore the question of how political institutions and particularly democracy affect economic growth. Although empirical evidence of a positive effect of democracy on economic performance in the aggregate is weak, we provide evidence that democracy influences productivity growth in different sectors differently and that this differential effect may be one of the reasons of the ambiguity of the aggregate results. We provide evidence that political rights are conducive to growth in more advanced sectors of an economy, while they do not matter or have a negative effect on growth in sectors far away from the technological frontier. One channel of explanation goes through the beneficial effects of democracy and political rights on the freedom of entry in markets. Overall, democracies tend to have much lower entry barriers than autocracies, because political accountability reduces the protection of vested interests, and entry in turn is known to be generally more growth-enhancing in sectors that are closer to the technological frontier. We present empirical evidence that supports this entry explanation. |
| JEL: | H7 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13180&r=ltv |
| By: | Lopez, Humberto; Fajnzylber, Pablo; Calderon, Cesar; Acosta, Pablo |
| Abstract: | Workers ' remittances have become a major source of income for developing countries. However, little is still known about their impact on poverty and inequality. Using a large cross-country panel dataset, the authors find that remittances in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries have increased growth and reduced inequality and poverty. These results are robust to the use of different instruments that attempt to correct for the potential endogeneity of remittances. Household survey-based estimates for 10 LAC countries confirm that remittances have negative albeit relatively small inequality and poverty-reducing effects, even after imputations for the potential home earnings of migrants. |
| Keywords: | Population Policies,Remittances,Inequality,Pro-Poor Growth and Inequality,Poverty Impact Evaluation |
| Date: | 2007–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:4249&r=ltv |