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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2016‒02‒04
five papers chosen by |
| By: | Campos-Vazquez,Raymundo M.; Lopez-Calva,Luis-Felipe; Lustig,Nora-451471 |
| Abstract: | Wage inequality has declined in Mexico since 2000. Using data from Mexican labor surveys for the period between 2000 and 2014, this paper investigates whether the decline was driven by wages declining more sharply for younger or older workers. The analysis finds that the wages of older workers declined and the decline was more pronounced in the older cohort. This would seem to support the hypothesis that older workers'skills have become obsolete. |
| Keywords: | Work&Working Conditions,Labor Policies,Youth and Government,Labor Markets,Tertiary Education |
| Date: | 2016–01–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7546&r=ltv |
| By: | Marion Goussé; Nicolas Jacquemet; Jean-Marc Robin |
| Abstract: | We extend the search-matching model of the marriage market of Shimer and Smith (2000) to allow for labor supply, home production, match-specific shocks and endogenous divorce. We study nonparametric identification using panel data on marital status, education, family values, wages, and market and non market hours, and we develop a semiparametric estimator. We estimate how much sorting results from time use specialization or homophilic preferences. We estimate how equilibrium marriage formation affects the wage elasticities of market and non market hours. We estimate individuals’ willingness to pay for marriage and quantify the redistributive effect of intra-household resource sharing. |
| Keywords: | Search-matching, sorting, assortative matching, collective labor supply, structural estimation. |
| JEL: | C78 D83 J12 J22 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1601&r=ltv |
| By: | Matthew Robson (Department of Economics and Related Studies, University of York, UK.); Miqdad Asaria (Centre for Health Economics, University of York, UK.); Richard Cookson (Centre for Health Economics, University of York, UK.); Aki Tsuchiya (Department of Economics and School of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield, UK.); Shehzad Ali (Centre for Health Economics and Department of Health Sciences, University of York, UK.) |
| Abstract: | Policy makers faced with equality-efficiency trade-offs can articulate the nature and extent of their health inequality aversion using social welfare functions. In this study we use data from an online survey of the general public in England (n=246) to elicit health inequality aversion parameters by numerically solving Atkinson and Kolm social welfare functions. We elicit median inequality aversion parameters of 10.95 for Atkinson and 0.15 for Kolm. These values suggest substantial concern for health inequality among the English general public which, at current levels of quality adjusted life expectancy, implies weighting health gains to the poorest fifth of people in society six to seven times as highly as health gains to the richest fifth. |
| Keywords: | health inequality, inequality aversion, social preferences, survey, welfare function |
| Date: | 2016–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chy:respap:125cherp&r=ltv |
| By: | Jean-Yves Duclos; Luca Tiberti |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews and assesses issues involved in the measurement of multidimensional poverty, in particular the soundness of the various “axioms” and properties often imposed on poverty indices. It argues that some of these properties (such as those relating poverty and inequality) may be sound in a unidimensional setting but not so in a multidimensional one. Second, it addresses critically some of the features of recently proposed multidimensional poverty indices, in particular the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) recently put forward by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The MPI suffers from several unattractive features that need to be better understood (given the prominence of the index). The MPI fails in particular to meet all of three properties that one would expect multidimensional poverty indices to obey: continuity, monotonicity, and sensitivity to multiple deprivation. Robustness techniques to address some of the shortcomings of the use of such indices are briefly advocated. |
| Keywords: | Multidimensional poverty; United Nations Development Program; Poverty; Inequality. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 O15 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1602&r=ltv |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Silvia Pasqua; Simona Suardi |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyse the impact of mothers' employment status and formal child care attendance during early childhood on children’s school grades later in life, controlling for socio-demographic factors. We use the year 2008 of the Italian ISFOL-PLUS dataset. The dataset provides information on each respondent’s demographic characteristics, as well as a set of retrospective information on the individual’s school grades at the end of junior high school, high school, and university; along with (in the 2008 wave only) information about the respondent’s formal child care attendance and mother’s employment status when he or she was under age of three. We estimate the effects of maternal employment and child care attendance on the probability that the respondent would have high grades at the end of high school. Since maternal employment and child care attendance are likely to be endogenously determined, we use an Instrumental Variable (IV) approach. Our empirical results show that while having a mother who was working (during early childhood) had no significant effect on an individual’s high school grades, child care attendance had a positive and significant effect. These results have potential policy implications. As maternal employment does not seem to negatively affect the development process of children, while child care attendance appears to have a positive impact on academic achievement, policy makers should consider expanding the availability of child care, and promoting women's participation in the labour market. |
| Keywords: | mothers' employment, child care, child cognitive outcomes |
| JEL: | J13 D1 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cca:wpaper:441&r=ltv |