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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2018‒03‒05
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Coral del Río; Olga Alonso-Villar |
| Abstract: | Taking into account the well-being losses or gains that each gender-race/ethnicity group has associated with its occupational sorting, this paper explores the social welfare loss that each U.S. large region experiences due to the different circumstances faced by these groups in each regional labor market. To analyze the period 1980–2012 in those terms, we use novel measures that aggregate the well-being losses or gains of the groups consistently with the literature on deprivation. To take into account that disparities among regions may arise from differences in characteristics, this papers uses a propensity score procedure that allows controlling for gender and racial/ethnic composition, immigration profile, educational level, and industrial structure. |
| Keywords: | Occupational segregation; social welfare; gender; race, regions |
| JEL: | D63 D23 J15 J71 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vig:wpaper:1802&r=ltv |
| By: | Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa); Christian Pierdzioch (Department of Economics, Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg, Germany); Andrew J. Vivian (School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK); Mark E. Wohar (College of Business Administration, University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, USA and School of Business and Economics, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to research on the predictability of stock returns in two ways. First, we use quantile random forests to study the predictive value of the various inequality measures across the quantiles of the conditional distribution of stock returns. Second, we examine whether various measures of consumption-based and income-based inequality, measured at a quarterly frequency, have out-of-sample predictive value for stock returns at various forecast horizons. Our results suggest that the inequality measures being studied have predictive value for stock returns in sample, but do not systematically predict stock returns out of sample. |
| Keywords: | Stock returns, Predictability, Inequality measures, Quantile random forests |
| JEL: | C53 G17 |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201809&r=ltv |
| By: | Low, L.; Meghir, C.; Pistaferri, L.; Voena, A. |
| Abstract: | The 1996 PRWORA reform introduced time limits on the receipt of welfare in the United States. We use variation by state and across demographic groups to provide reduced form evidence showing that such limits led to a fall in welfare claims (partly due to \banking" benefits for future use), a rise in employment, and a decline in divorce rates. We then specify and estimate a life-cycle model of marriage, labor supply and divorce under limited commitment to better understand the mechanisms behind these behavioral responses, carry out counterfactual analysis with longer run impacts and evaluate the welfare effects of the program. Based on the model, which reproduces the reduced form estimates, we show that among low educated women, instead of relying on TANF, single mothers work more, more mothers remain married, some move to relying only on food stamps and, in ex-ante welfare terms, women are worse off. |
| Keywords: | time limits, welfare reform, life-cycle, marriage and divorce |
| JEL: | D91 H53 J12 J21 |
| Date: | 2018–02–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1817&r=ltv |
| By: | Fulvio Castellacci (TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo); Henrik Schwabe (TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo) |
| Abstract: | Extant research shows that the relationship between age and well-being is U-shaped. This paper investigates the effects of Internet use on subjective well-being over the life cycle. We argue that Internet use moderates the U-shaped relationship, affecting its turning point and slopes. We use the Eurobarometer annual surveys for the years 2010 to 2013, which provide rich information for close to 100,000 individuals in all European countries. The econometric analysis exploits exogenous variation in broadband Internet take-up across European countries, and presents 2SLS estimations for a recursive bivariate ordered probit model. The results provide support for our main hypothesis. Active Internet users have a different well-being pattern over the life cycle compared to other individuals. Specifically, we find that Internet users experience: (1) a more stable level and less pronounced decrease in life satisfaction in their younger adult life; and (2) an earlier and stronger recovery after the turning point of the U-shape. |
| Date: | 2018–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tik:inowpp:20180215&r=ltv |