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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2011‒11‒07
six papers chosen by |
| By: | Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris); Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris); Shleifer, Andrei (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | We use several data sets to consider the effect of teaching practices on student beliefs, as well as on organization of firms and institutions. In cross-country data, we show that teaching practices (such as copying from the board versus working on projects together) are strongly related to various dimensions of social capital, from beliefs in cooperation to institutional outcomes. We then use micro-data to investigate the influence of teaching practices on student beliefs about cooperation and students' involvement in civic life. A two-stage least square strategy provides evidence that teaching practices have an independent sizeable effect on student social capital. The relationship between teaching practices and student test performance is nonlinear. The evidence supports the idea that progressive education promotes social capital. |
| Keywords: | education, social capital, institutions |
| JEL: | I2 Z1 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6052&r=ltv |
| By: | Blundell, Richard W (University College London); Francesconi, Marco (University of Essex); van der Klaauw, Wilbert (Federal Reserve Bank of New York) |
| Abstract: | This paper formulates a simple model of female labor force decisions which embeds an in-work benefit reform and explicitly allows for announcement and implementation effects. We explore several mechanisms through which women can respond to the announcement of a reform that increases in-work benefits, including sources of intertemporal substitution, human capital accumulation, and labor market frictions. Using the model's insights and information of the precise timing of the announcement and implementation of a major UK in-work benefit reform, we estimate its effects on single mothers' behavior. We find important announcement effects on employment decisions. We show that this finding is consistent with the presence of short-run frictions in the labor market. Evaluations of this reform which ignore such effects produce impact effect estimates that are biased downwards by 15 to 35 percent. |
| Keywords: | policy evaluation, in-work benefit, anticipation effects, labor market frictions, intertemporal substitution |
| JEL: | D10 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6050&r=ltv |
| By: | Mark Huggett (Georgetown University); Gustavo Ventura (University of Iowa); Amir Yaron (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) |
| Abstract: | Is lifetime inequality mainly due to differences across people established early in life or to differences in luck experienced over the working lifetime? We answer this question within a model that features idiosyncratic shocks to human capital, estimated directly from data, as well as heterogeneity in ability to learn, initial human capital, and initial wealth. We find that, as of age 23, differences in initial conditions account for more of the variation in lifetime earnings, lifetime wealth and lifetime utility than do differences in shocks received over the working lifetime. |
| Keywords: | Lifetime Inequality, Human Capital, Idiosyncratic Risk |
| JEL: | E21 D3 D91 |
| Date: | 2010–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2011-020&r=ltv |
| By: | Blundell, Richard W (University College London); Bozio, Antoine (Institute for Fiscal Studies, London); Laroque, Guy (CREST-INSEE) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents the key stylised facts underlying the evolution of labour supply at the extensive and intensive margins in the last forty years in three countries: United-States, United-Kingdom and France. We develop a statistical decomposition that provides bounds on changes at the extensive and intensive margins. This decomposition is also shown to be coherent with the analysis of labour supply elasticities at these margins. We use detailed representative micro-datasets to examine the relative importance of the extensive and intensive margins in explaining the overall changes in total hours worked. |
| Keywords: | labor supply, employment, hours of work |
| JEL: | J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6051&r=ltv |
| By: | Christopher Pissarides |
| Abstract: | Employment in the European Union is still falling short of the objectives set by the continent's leaders more than 10 years ago. Nobel laureate Chris Pissarides explains why Europe remains behind the United States in job creation, particularly in business services and the health and education sectors. |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepcnp:354&r=ltv |
| By: | Miguel N. Foguel; Carlos Henrique L. Corseuil; Rodrigo F. Dias; DanielD. Santos |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2009:231&r=ltv |