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on South East Asia |
| By: | Bimardhika, Elghafiky; Halim, Daniel Zefanya |
| Abstract: | Can college-educated women in rapidly developing economies balance career and family, or does compressed economic growth polarize their choices? This paper investigates how Indonesian women navigate these dual objectives across birth cohorts from the 1950s to the 1990s. It utilizes 38 years of Labor Force Survey data to examine aggregate cohort patterns and five rounds of Indonesia Family Life Survey panel data to trace individual life-cycle trajectories. The paper documents increasing polarization among younger cohorts, which either delay marriage and stay in the labor force or opt out of the labor force altogether post-marriage. The paper traces this divergence to two concurrent trends. First, more women enter time-demanding, high-skilled professions traditionally dominated by men. Second, rising conservatism among young men creates marriage market frictions, leaving educated women with stark choices: conform to conservative family expectations by leaving work, or prioritize careers while delaying or forgoing family. |
| Date: | 2026–03–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11326 |
| By: | Howai, Niko; Bian, Alice; De Guzman-Mortillero, Arnica; Robinson, Elizabeth |
| Abstract: | Mangroves, especially in coastal areas, provide collective benefits to households, not just individuals. In this study, we undertake a comparison of individuals’ and couples’ intra-household decision-making on preferences for mangrove preservation expenditure and benefits using a discrete choice experiment (DCE) in Palawan province in the Philippines. We find that men’s and women’s individual preferences differ when responding separately to the survey, and that their joint preferences align more with the men’s preferences. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of the population considered to be marginalised and exempt from contributing to mangrove preservation payments under the DCE. The findings from the exemption interviews suggest strong support for community co-management of mangrove marine protected areas (MPAs), provided that income-generating alternative livelihood projects are created. This, in turn, is combined with the couples’ preferences in the DCE. The resulting preferences for mangrove benefits and their valuation can be used to inform the design and financing of MPAs that include co-managed mangrove protection and restoration projects with locals, as well as policies for the use of mangrove resources on the island. |
| Keywords: | discrete choice experiment; intra-household preferences; in-depth interviews; hierarchical Bayesian logit; mangroves |
| JEL: | C11 C52 D12 Q57 |
| Date: | 2026–05–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138521 |
| By: | Minhyeon Jeong (KOREA INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY (KIEP)); Nam Seok Kim (KOREA INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC POLICY (KIEP)); Wongi Kim (Sungshin Women’s University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how culture influences the success of fertility-control policies. In the 1970s, many developing countries implemented birth-control measures grounded in the quality-quantity trade-off, yet their outcomes diverged, e.g., Taiwan, Thailand, and South Korea achieved rapid fertility declines, while Pakistan, India, and Brazil did not. We propose that societal conformity—the degree to which individuals adhere to norms such as a government-endorsed ideal family size— determines how effectively policy incentives translate into behavior. Using a unified theoretical framework, we show that higher conformity amplifies the impact of birth-control policies on both reducing fertility and increasing investment in children’s education. Under empirically plausible conditions, this strengthened quality-quantity trade-off not only boosts short-run economic growth but also accelerates the shift from agriculture to manufacturing—measured by manufacturing’s employment share—even when manufacturing is more capital-intensive and benefits from human-capital-driven, labor-saving technologies. Finally, we validate these predictions with cross-country empirical evidence, underscoring the pivotal role of culture in shaping demographic change and economic development. |
| Keywords: | fertility; birth policy; culture; growth; structural change |
| JEL: | E22 O16 |
| Date: | 2025–08–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:kiepwp:022486 |
| By: | Dang, Archana; Ratra, Vastav; Singh, Damini; Gupta, Indrani |
| Abstract: | Purpose India lacks a comprehensive, village-level assessment of primary healthcare accessibility needed to guide policies for improving access. This article provides a nationwide, village-level baseline measure of public primary healthcare accessibility in India using three distinct spatial metrics. Design/methodology/approach A geocoded census of public healthcare facilities from the National Health Resource Repository is merged with spatial and demographic data for rural census villages. A multi-dimensional framework is developed to assess healthcare accessibility using three metrics: (1) a regional availability metric that captures infrastructure shortfalls relative to Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) norms; (2) a measure using Euclidean distance to the nearest facility and (3) a capacity-constrained, catchment-based propensity-of-access metric conceptually aligned with the two-step floating catchment area method. Descriptive and spatial analyses are conducted at national and sub-national levels to highlight geographic variation in accessibility. Findings The first metric shows that a rural Primary Health Centre (PHC) serves an average of 33, 800 people, exceeding the Indian Public Health Standards norm of 30, 000. The second indicates an average village-to-PHC distance of 5.49 kilometres. The third shows that, when population pressure and distance are considered jointly, residents in 20% of villages are effectively crowded out, even at the national average distance. Originality/value This nationwide, village-level assessment is the first to integrate availability, proximity and capacity-adjusted access across India. The analysis challenges single-metric planning approaches and suggests that upgrading or expanding infrastructure alone cannot resolve persistent spatial and capacity gaps in rural healthcare. The insights extend beyond India, where similar metrics often misstate healthcare accessibility. |
| Keywords: | healthcare accessibility; spatial accessibility; rural India; primary healthcare; public health infrastructure |
| JEL: | I10 I18 I11 R12 C21 |
| Date: | 2026–12–14 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138085 |
| By: | Willem THORBECKE |
| Abstract: | In 2013 the Bank of Japan (BoJ) began multiplying the monetary base. In 2016 it fixed the uncollateralized overnight call rate at -0.1% and the 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) rate in a narrow band around zero. In 2021 it allowed JGB rates to increase. In 2024 it began increasing target rates for the overnight call rate. This paper investigates how monetary policy impacts stock returns both during the ultra-low and negative interest rate era and as the BoJ began normalizing monetary policy. Using Krippner’s (2013) shadow monetary policy rate to measure monetary policy, the results indicate that expansionary monetary policy did little to raise stock returns before 2021. After August 2021, however, contractionary monetary policy lowered returns on many stocks. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:26038 |
| By: | Daisuke TSURUTA |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between managerial aging, succession prospects, and credit allocation to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Japan. We focus on firms managed by elderly owners without designated successors, which we interpret as exhibiting weakened going-concern prospects. Using comprehensive firm-level data, we investigate firm performance, default risk, and bank lending behavior during normal periods and economic crises, particularly the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that firms with elderly managers and those lacking successors exhibit lower profitability, slower growth, and higher probabilities of default and exit, with these adverse effects becoming more pronounced during crises. Despite their weak fundamentals, such firms experience increased reliance on bank borrowing during crisis periods, suggesting potential credit misallocation. This pattern was particularly strong during the COVID-19 crisis, likely reflecting extensive public financial support. Our findings highlight how population aging can distort credit allocation in SMEs and provide new evidence on crisis-driven misallocation in an aging economy. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:26039 |
| By: | Sixian Shu; Midori Wakabayashi |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how spousal retirement affects psychological well-being in Chinese households using 2016–2020 China Family Panel Survey data. Exploiting statutory retirement ages as instruments in a two-stage least squares framework, we identify causal effects of retirement transitions. Results show clear gender asymmetries in these spillover effects. For men, a wife’s retirement increases life satisfaction regardless of the husband’s labor-force status, with further gains in depression and marital satisfaction once both partners retire. For women, a husband’s retirement raises depressive symptoms while the wife remains employed, but this effect disappears after her own retirement, when life satisfaction significantly improves. Mechanism analyses suggest these effects operate through gender-differentiated adjustments in household labor allocation and joint consumption patterns. These findings underscore that retirement in China is a collective family-level transition rather than an individual event, highlighting the role of institutional constraints and gender norms in shaping the welfare of aging couples. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:toh:tupdaa:84 |
| By: | Kazuhiko Kakamu |
| Abstract: | We develop a Bayesian state-space model for analyzing the dynamic evolution of income distributions using grouped income data. The model combines the generalized beta distribution of the second kind (GB2) with latent time-varying parameters to capture changes in the entire income distribution over time. Using Japanese household income data, we examine how demographic factors, particularly population aging and declining household size, affect inequality dynamics. The results show that demographic changes have heterogeneous effects across different parts of the income distribution and contribute substantially to the evolution of inequality. Counterfactual analyses indicate that aging and household size changes affect the lower and upper tails of the distribution differently. Because the proposed framework requires only grouped income data, it can be applied to countries where micro-level income data are unavailable. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.18138 |
| By: | Veda Narasimhan; Jeffrey Weaver |
| Abstract: | Political inclusion is widely believed to improve governance, motivating the creation of elected representatives for highly localized constituencies. This paper studies 1.2 million "hyperlocal" representatives across 150, 000 local governments in rural India. Exploiting discontinuities that determine the number and identity of these representatives, we assess how expanded representation affects governance outcomes. We find precisely estimated null effects on core functions, including public project management, intermediation in access to benefit programs, alignment of policy with citizen preferences, equity of benefit allocation, and oversight of public finances. These findings highlight the limits of expanding political representation if representative capacity is weak. |
| JEL: | D72 H41 H75 O12 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35217 |
| By: | Tomohito HONDA; Chihiro SHIMIZU; Iichiro UESUGI |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how unconventional monetary policy affects the economy when the central bank purchases equities issued by non-bank institutions, focusing on the Bank of Japan's Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) purchase program. Unlike previous studies that examine the impact of monetary policy on the real estate sector primarily through the bank lending channel, this program influences the sector through the risk-taking channel by purchasing equities issued by non-bank institutions. Using detailed data on REITs, we find that: (1) the central bank’s purchases lowered both equity and loan costs for targeted REITs; (2) these REITs acquired riskier properties with higher expected returns; (3) banks reallocated lending from listed real estate companies toward the REIT sector, especially targeted REITs; and (4) real estate prices of properties adjacent to those purchased by REITs increased more than those of more distant properties and the tendency is more pronounced when the properties were purchased by targeted REITs. Together, these findings indicate that central bank equity purchases stimulate risk-taking in targeted non-bank institutions and affect the broader loan and real estate market. |
| Date: | 2026–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:26037 |
| By: | Keiichi Morimoto; Akihiko Noda; Takenobu Yuki |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how wartime economic controls shaped stock-price formation in Japan from 1930 to 1943. We develop a four-portfolio asset-pricing model in which zaibatsu affiliation affects expected payoffs and the translation of valuations into economic scale through lower financing wedges. We then construct daily capitalization-weighted indices and four benchmark portfolios based on a two-by-two sort by zaibatsu affiliation and military orientation. Using a CAPM-AR(p)-SV event-study framework that allows for serial correlation and stochastic volatility, we show that the model rationalizes capitalization concentration, segmented abnormal returns, delayed cumulative adjustment, regime-risk insulation of zaibatsu portfolios, and zaibatsu-concentrated responses to embedded-rent or group-continuation shocks. The evidence is consistent not with a collapse of semi-strong efficiency, but with institutionally contingent efficiency: stock prices continued to respond to news while capitalizing uneven access to credit, materials, and procurement. |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2605.21009 |
| By: | Tatsushi Okuda; Tomohiro Tsuruga; Francesco Zanetti |
| Abstract: | We study why inflation responds differently to economic activity over time. Using survey data covering the universe of Japanese firms, we show that firms are unable to perfectly distinguish aggregate from sector-specific demand changes, leading to positively correlated expectations about these two components. We develop a model with imperfect information that reproduces this pattern and predicts that higher relative volatility of sector-specific demand reduces the sensitivity of inflation to changes in aggregate demand, thus flattening the Phillips curve. Testing this prediction with Japanese data from 1976 to 2022, we find that increases in the volatility of sectoral demand shocks explain significant changes in the Phillips curve slope over the sample period. Our results provide a novel explanation for the flattening of the Phillips curve: the composition of shocks -- not just their magnitude -- critically affects the sensitivity of inflation to aggregate demand. |
| Keywords: | imperfect information, shock heterogeneity, inflation dynamics, survey of expectations of Japanese firms |
| JEL: | E31 D82 C72 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2026-31 |