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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2017‒08‒20
three papers chosen by |
| By: | Neidhöfer, Guido; Serrano, Joaquín; Gasparini, Leonardo |
| Abstract: | The causes and consequences of the intergenerational persistence of inequality are a topic of great interest among various fields in economics. However, until now, issues of data availability have restricted a broader and cross-national perspective on the topic. Based on rich sets of harmonized household survey data, we contribute to filling this gap computing time series for several indexes of relative and absolute intergenerational education mobility for 18 Latin American countries over 50 years, and making them publicly available. We find that intergenerational mobility has been rising in Latin America, on average. This pattern seems to be driven by the high upward mobility of children from low-educated families; at the same time, there is substantial immobility at the top of the distribution. Significant cross-country differences are observed and are associated with income inequality, poverty, economic growth, public educational expenditures and assortative mating. |
| Keywords: | inequality,intergenerational mobility,equality of opportunity,transition probabilities,assortative mating,education,human capital,Latin America |
| JEL: | D63 I24 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:201720&r=ltv |
| By: | Jan (J.C.) van Ours (Erasmus School of Economics; Tinbergen Institute, The Netherlands); Ali Palali (CPB) |
| Abstract: | Our paper investigates the effect of tobacco control policies on smoking initiation in eleven European countries. We analyze longitudinal data of individuals by using information about their age of onset of smoking. We apply hazard rate models to study smoking initiation. Thus, we are able to take into account observed and unobserved personal characteristics as well as the effect of the introduction of a variety of tobacco control policies including bans on tobacco advertisements, smoke-free air regulation, health warnings on packages of cigarettes and treatment programs to help smokers quitting. We find that none of these tobacco control policies influence smoking initiation. |
| Keywords: | tobacco control policies; smoking initiation; hazard rate models |
| JEL: | I12 C41 |
| Date: | 2017–08–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20170074&r=ltv |
| By: | Grace Lordan; David Neumark |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of minimum wage increases on employment in automatable jobs – jobs in which employers may find it easier to substitute machines for people – focusing on low-skilled workers from whom such substitution may be spurred by minimum wage increases. Based on CPS data from 1980-2015, we find that increasing the minimum wage decreases significantly the share of automatable employment held by low-skilled workers, and increases the likelihood that low-skilled workers in automatable jobs become unemployed. The average effects mask significant heterogeneity by industry and demographic group, including substantive adverse effects for older, low-skilled workers in manufacturing. The findings imply that groups often ignored in the minimum wage literature are in fact quite vulnerable to employment changes and job loss because of automation following a minimum wage increase. |
| JEL: | J23 J38 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23667&r=ltv |