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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2020‒08‒24
seven papers chosen by |
| By: | Aronsson, Thomas (Department of Economics, Umeå University); Hetschko, Clemens (University of Leeds and CESifo, Munich); Schöb, Ronnie (Freie Universität Berlin and CESifo) |
| Abstract: | Societies see growing support for populist politicians who advocate an end to globalization. Our behavioral economics model links impatience to voters’ appraisals of an income shock due to globalization that is associated with short-run costs and delayed gains. The model shows that impatient individuals may reject further globalization if they are subject to borrowing constraints. Using German data, we confirm that impatient voters choose right-wing antiglobalist parties. Similarly, we show for the United Kingdom that a preference for immediate gratification increases the support for right-wing anti-globalist parties as well as for Brexit. A policy implication of our study is that governments may use up-front redistribution to gain voters’ support for further globalization. |
| Keywords: | Globalization; time-preference; impatience; time-inconsistency; populism; Brexit; up-front redistribution |
| JEL: | D72 D91 F15 F61 F68 H53 |
| Date: | 2020–07–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0978&r=all |
| By: | Kai Barron (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin); Heike Harmgart (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, London); Steffen Huck (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin); Sebastian Schneider (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn); Matthias Sutter (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn) |
| Abstract: | We measure the prevalence of discrimination between Jordanian host and Syrian refugee children attending school in Jordan. Using a simple sharing experiment, we find only little discrimination. Among the Jordanian children, however, we see that those who descended from Palestinian refugees do not discriminate at all, suggesting that a family history of refugee status can generate solidarity with new refugees. We also find that parents’ narratives about the refugee crisis are correlated with the degree of discrimination, suggesting that discriminatory preferences are being transmitted through parental attitudes. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, refugees, children, experiment, integration |
| JEL: | C91 D90 J15 C93 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:003&r=all |
| By: | Chowdhury, Shyamal; Sutter, Matthias; Zimmermann, Klaus F. |
| Abstract: | Economic preferences are important for lifetime outcomes such as educational achievements, health status, or labor market success. We present a holistic view of how economic preferences are related within families. In an experiment with 544 families (and 1,999 individuals) from rural Bangladesh we find a large degree of intergenerational persistence of economic preferences. Both mothers’ and fathers’ risk, time and social preferences are significantly (and largely to the same degree) positively correlated with their children’s economic preferences, even when controlling for personality traits and socio-economic background data. We discuss possible transmission channels for these relationships within families and find indications that there is more than pure genetics at work. Moving beyond an individual level analysis, we are the first to classify a whole family into one of two clusters, with either relatively patient, risk-tolerant and pro-social members or relatively impatient, risk averse and spiteful members. Socio-economic background variables correlate with the cluster to which a family belongs to. |
| Keywords: | Economic preferences within families,intergenerational transmission of preferences,time preferences,risk preferences,social preferences,family clusters,socio-economic status,Bangladesh,experiment |
| JEL: | C90 D1 D90 D81 D64 J13 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:592&r=all |
| By: | Daniela Del Boca; Noemi Oggero; Paola Profeta; Maria Cristina Rossi |
| Abstract: | Using new survey data collected in April 2020 from a representative sample of Italian women, we analyse jointly the effect of COVID-19 on the working arrangements, housework and childcare of couples where both partners work. ties. According to our empirical estimates, changes to the amount of housework done by women during the emergency do not seem to depend on their partners’ working arrangements. With the exception of those continuing to work at their usual place of work, all of the women surveyed spend more time on housework than before. In contrast, the amount of time men devote to housework does depend on their partners’ working arrangements: men whose partners continue to work at their usual workplace spend more time on housework than before. The link between time devoted to childcare and working arrangements is more symmetric, with both women and men spending less time with their children if they continue to work away from home. Similar results emerge for our sample of women not working before the emergency. Finally, analysis of work-life balance satisfaction shows that working women with children aged 0-5 are those who say they find balancing work and family more difficult during COVID-19.The work-life balance is especially difficult to achieve for those with partners who continue to work outside the home during the emergency. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, work arrangements, housework, childcare |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8403&r=all |
| By: | Eric A. Hanushek; Lavinia Kinne; Philipp Lergetporer; Ludger Woessmann |
| Abstract: | Patience and risk-taking – two cultural traits that steer intertemporal decision-making – are fundamental to human capital investment decisions. To understand how they contribute to international differences in student achievement, we combine PISA tests with the Global Preference Survey. We find that opposing effects of patience (positive) and risk-taking (negative) together account for two-thirds of the cross-country variation in student achievement. In an identification strategy addressing unobserved residence-country features, we find similar results when assigning migrant students their country-of-origin cultural traits in models with residence-country fixed effects. Associations of culture with family and school inputs suggest that both may act as channels. |
| Keywords: | culture, patience, risk-taking, preferences, intertemporal decision-making, international student achievement, PISA |
| JEL: | I21 Z10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8407&r=all |
| By: | Andrew E. Clark (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Huifu Nong (SunYat-sen University); Hongjia Zhu (Jinan University [Guangzhou]); Rong Zhu (Flinders University [Adelaide, Australia]) |
| Abstract: | The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to widespread school shutdowns, and many schools have opted for education using online learning platforms. Using administrative data from three middle schools in China, this paper estimates the causal effects of online learning on student performance. Using the difference-in-differences approach, we show that online education improves students' academic achievement by 0.22 of a standard deviation, relative to those who stopped receiving learning support from their school during the COVID-19 lockdown. All else equal, students from a school having access to recorded online lessons delivered by external higher-quality teachers have achieved more progress in academic outcomes than those accessing lessons recorded by teachers in their own school. We find no evidence that the educational benefits of distance learning differ for rural and urban students. However, there is more progress in the academic achievement of students using a computer for online education than that of those using a smartphone. Last, low achievers benefit the most from online learning while there is no significant impact for top students. Our findings have important policy implications for educational practices when lockdown measures are implemented during a pandemic. |
| Keywords: | academic achievement,COVID-19 pandemic,online learning |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-02901505&r=all |
| By: | Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina); Chen, Liwen (East China Normal University); Ozturk, Orgul Demet (University of South Carolina) |
| Abstract: | Although the adverse labor market effects of economic recessions have been well documented, a notable omission in the literature is how recessions impact workers' job match quality. This paper considers the short and longer-term losses in productivity associated with the job changing brought in train by the two most recent recessions. Changes in match quality are the mechanism, with dislocated workers being reemployed in jobs for which they are more mismatched. Using monthly data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Current Population Survey (CPS), we document direct changes in occupational match quality and the associated changes in wages. We first investigate how workers' match qualities change over the lifecycle and report that the total amount of mismatch averaged over all workers of the younger cohort actually decreased through time. For the older cohort, we then explore the role of age, education, gender, and occupational task groups. Economic recessions are shown to disproportionately harm the match quality of mid-aged workers versus that of young workers; to have more serious consequences for the match quality of men than women, especially highly educated men; and lead to occupational polarization, thereby amplifying the skill mismatch of mid-aged workers. |
| Keywords: | recessions, match quality, mismatch, wage loss, mid-career effects, mancessions, downskilling |
| JEL: | E24 J24 J63 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13393&r=all |