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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2015‒11‒15
nine papers chosen by |
| By: | Carneiro, Pedro (University College London); Lopez Garcia, Italo (RAND); Salvanes, Kjell G. (Norwegian School of Economics); Tominey, Emma (University of York) |
| Abstract: | We extend the standard intergenerational mobility literature by modelling individual outcomes as a function of the whole history of parental income, using data from Norway. We find that, conditional on permanent income, education is maximized when income is balanced between the early childhood and middle childhood years. In addition, there is an advantage to having income occur in late adolescence rather than in early childhood. These result are consistent with a model of parental investments in children with multiple periods of childhood, income shocks, imperfect insurance, dynamic complementarity, and uncertainty about the production function and the ability of the child. |
| Keywords: | child human capital, intergenerational mobility, parental income timing, semiparametric estimation |
| JEL: | J24 E24 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9479&r=ltv |
| By: | Artz, Benjamin (University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh); Goodall, Amanda H (Cass Business School, City University London, and IZA); Oswald, Andrew J (Department of Economics University of Warwick, CAGE and IZA) |
| Abstract: | Nearly all workers have a supervisor or ‘boss’. Yet little is known about how bosses influence the quality of employees’ lives. This study is a cautious attempt to provide new formal evidence. First, it is shown that a boss’s technical competence is the single strongest predictor of a worker’s job satisfaction. Second, it is demonstrated in longitudinal data -- after controlling for fixed effects -- that even if a worker stays in the same job and workplace a rise in the competence of a supervisor is associated with an improvement in the worker’s well-being. Third, a variety of robustness checks, including tentative instrumental-variable results, are reported. These findings, which draw on US and British data, contribute to an emerging literature on the role of expert leaders in organizations. Finally, the paper discusses potential weaknesses of existing evidence and necessary future research. |
| Keywords: | bosses ; expert leaders ; leadership ; job satisfaction ; happiness |
| JEL: | I31 J28 M54 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1072&r=ltv |
| By: | Theodore Figinski (U.S. Department of the Treasury); David Neumark (University of California–Irvine, National Bureau of Economic Research, Institute for the Study of Labor) |
| Abstract: | Reductions in the implicit taxation of Social Security benefits from reducing or eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test (RET) are an appealing – and in many cases successful – means of encouraging labor supply of older individuals receiving benefits. The downside, however, is that the same policy reforms can encourage earlier claiming of Social Security benefits, which permanently lowers benefits paid in the future. Depending on the magnitude of the effects on earnings and how households or individuals adjust their consumption and savings decisions, the net effect can be lower incomes at much older ages well beyond when people have retired. We explore the consequences of the 2000 reforms eliminating the RET from the Full Retirement Age to age 69 for the longer-run evolution of income, focusing in particular on the incidence of low income among older women, who are more likely to have become dependent mainly on income from their Social Security benefits. We find that the elimination of the RET increased the likelihood of having low incomes among women in their mid-70s and older – ages at which the lower benefits from claiming earlier outweigh possibly higher income in the period when women or their husbands increased their labor supply. |
| Date: | 2015–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp325&r=ltv |
| By: | Warn N. Lekfuangfu (LSE - London School of Economics, Chulalongkorn University (THAILAND) - Chulalongkorn University (THAILAND), CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Nattavudh Powdthavee (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR, LSE - London School of Economics); Andrew E. Clark (EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics, PSE - Paris-Jourdan Sciences Economiques - CNRS - Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA) - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - École des Ponts ParisTech (ENPC), CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); George Ward (LSE - London School of Economics, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR) |
| Abstract: | We analyse the relationship between early maternal employment and child emotional and behavioural outcomes in early childhood and adolescence. Using rich data from a cohort of children born in the UK in the early 1990s, we find little evidence of a strong statistical relationship between early maternal employment and any of the emotional outcomes. However, there is some evidence that children whose mother is in full-time employment at the 18th month have worse behavioural outcomes at ages 4, 7, and 12. We suggest that these largely insignificant results may in part be explained by mothers who return to full-time work earlier being able to compensate their children: we highlight the role of fathers’ time investment and alternative childcare arrangements in this respect. |
| Keywords: | Child outcomes,Maternal employment,Well-being,Conduct,ALSPAC |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-01223336&r=ltv |
| By: | Chen, Xi (Yale University) |
| Abstract: | China launched a pension program for rural residents in 2009, now covering more than 300 million Chinese. This program offers a unique setting for studying the ageing population, given the rapidity of China's population ageing, traditions of filial piety and co-residence, decreasing number of children, and dearth of formal social security, at a relatively low income level. This paper examines whether receipt of the old-age pension payment equips elderly parents and their adult children to live apart and whether parents substitute children's time involved in instrumental support to them with service consumption. Employing a regression discontinuity (hereafter RD) design to a primary longitudinal survey conducted in Guizhou province of China, this paper overcomes challenges in the literature that households eligible for pension payment might be systematically different from ineligible households and that it is difficult to separate the effect of pension from that of age or cohort heterogeneity. Around the pension eligibility age cut-off, results reveal large and significant reduction in intergenerational co-residence of the extended family and increase in service consumption among elderly parents. |
| Keywords: | rural pension, RD Design, living arrangement, service consumption |
| JEL: | H55 I38 J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9482&r=ltv |
| By: | Nikolova, Milena (IZA) |
| Abstract: | Along with political and economic changes, the fall of the socialist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union brought about fundamental institutional reforms. Several studies have examined the causes of the increasing unhappiness which accompanied the transition process, including deteriorating public goods, rising inequality, income volatility, stagnating labor market conditions, and changing norms. Yet, few papers have sought explanations for the life satisfaction differentials between transition and non-transition economies. In this paper, I specifically examine the life satisfaction gap between post-socialist and advanced countries and the role of political institutions in explaining this gap. My results imply that both macroeconomic factors and the rule of law explain the overall life satisfaction differential between the advanced and transition societies. The rule of law had an additional role of reducing the happiness gap in the 1990s and may have even reversed it in the post-crisis years. As institutions and macroeconomic conditions continue to improve, post-socialist countries may complete their transformation processes and achieve quality of life levels comparable with those in the West. |
| Keywords: | subjective well-being, institutions, transition economies |
| JEL: | D02 E02 I31 P20 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9484&r=ltv |
| By: | Elango, Sneha (University of Chicago); García, Jorge Luis (University of Chicago); Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago); Hojman, Andrés (University of Chicago) |
| Abstract: | This paper organizes and synthesizes the literature on early childhood education and childcare. In it, we go beyond meta-analysis and reanalyze primary data sources in a common framework. We consider the evidence from means-tested demonstration programs, large-scale means-tested programs and universal programs without means testing. We discuss which programs are effective and whether, and for which populations, these programs should be subsidized by governments. The evidence from high-quality demonstration programs targeted toward disadvantaged children shows beneficial effects. Returns exceed costs, even accounting for the deadweight loss of collecting taxes. When proper policy counterfactuals are constructed, Head Start has beneficial effects on disadvantaged children compared to home alternatives. Universal programs benefit disadvantaged children. |
| Keywords: | early childhood education, childcare, evaluation of social programs |
| JEL: | J13 I28 C93 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9476&r=ltv |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo (Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona); van Ours, Jan C. (Tilburg University) |
| Abstract: | Using employees' longitudinal data, we study the effect of working hours on the propensity of firms to sponsor training of their employees. We show that, whereas male part-time workers are less likely to receive training than male full-timers, part-time working women are as likely to receive training as full-time working women. Although we cannot rule out gender-working time specific monopsony power, we speculate that the gender-specific effect of working hours on training has to do with gender-specific stereotyping. In the Netherlands, for women it is common to work part-time. More than half of the prime age female employees work part-time. Therefore, because of social norms, men working part-time could send a different signal to their employer than women working part-time. This might generate a different propensity of firms to sponsor training of male part-timers than female part-timers. |
| Keywords: | part-time employment, working hours, firm-sponsored training, gender, human capital |
| JEL: | C33 C35 J24 M51 M53 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9470&r=ltv |
| By: | Casado, Jose Maria; Fernandez, Cristina; Jimeno, Juan F. |
| Abstract: | We measure the contribution of worker flows across employment, unemployment, and non-participation to the change in unemployment in eleven EU countries during the period 2006-2012, paying special attention to which socio-demographic groups in each of the countries were mostly affected by job creation and job destruction during the crisis. We find that age, to a larger extent than educational attainments, is the main determinant of flows from employment into unemployment, particularly in those countries where unemployment increased by most. Secondly, we highlight some institutional features of the labour market (employment protection legislation, unemployment insurance, and the incidence of active labor market policies) that help to explain the cross-country differences in flows between employment and unemployment and in their socio-demographic composition. Finally, we examine if the crisis has led to some employment reallocation across sectors, finding that, so far, there is no clear evidence in favor of cleansing effects. JEL Classification: J6, E24, C25 |
| Keywords: | Great Recession, Labour Flows, Labour Market Institutions, Unemployment |
| Date: | 2015–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20151862&r=ltv |