Xenos, Peter and Midea Kabamalan. "A comparative history of age-structure and social transitions among Asian youth." East-West Center Working Papers, Population Series, No. 110 (July 2002). 40 pp. Abstract: The youth expansion or youth bulge is an important political and policy issue in Asia as in other regions of the world, but the phenomenon is subject to a good deal of misunderstanding and misplaced emphasis. Taking the long view, this paper highlights the significant magnitude but temporary character of the youth bulge. A cross-national comparison shows Asian societies today in all stages of demographic and outh transitions. The authors argue that the absolute numbers of youth should take second place in policy deliberations to the more important element of social change and the changing social composition of the youth population. Recent Asian history has seen a unique confluence of demographic and social changes. Combining UN-estimated national population data for 1950–1990 with UN population projections through 2025 gives an historical perspective on the youth demographic transition in 17 Asian countries. The paper links these demographic data with reconstructions and projections of selected aspects of social transformation among youth over the same timespan. Analysis reveals a combination of a demographic youth bulge and a concurrent transformation in the social composition of youth that the authors label the "youth transition." This conujunction of demographic and social change is unique in history, as highlighted by contrast with European experience many decades earlier. http://www2.ewc.hawaii.edu/pop/pop54000.htm
Wils, A. B.. "Population-Development-Environment in Mozambique." IR-02-049 (July 2002). http://www.iiasa.ac.at/docs/Admin/PUB/Catalog/PUB_SUBJECT_Population_Dynamics.html
Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A., J. Leiwen and B. C. O´Neill. "Demographic composition and projections of car use in Austria." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-034 (2002). Abstract: Understanding the factors driving demand for transportation in industrialized countries is important in addressing a range of environmental issues. Though non-economic factors have received less attention, recent research has found that demographic factors are important. While some studies have applied a detailed demographic composition to analyze past developments of transportation demand, projections for the future are mainly restricted to aggregate demographic variables such as numbers of people and/or households. In this paper, we go beyond previous work by combining cross-sectional analysis of car use in Austria with detailed household projections. We show that projections of car use are sensitive to the particular type of demographic disaggregation employed. For example, the highest projected car use - an increase of about 20 per cent between 1996 and 2046 - is obtained if we apply the value of car use per household to the projected numbers of households. However, if we apply a composition that differentiates households by size, age and sex of the household head, car use is projected to increase by less than 3 per cent during the same time period. (Keywords: household projections, car use demand, demographic composition). http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Zeng, Y., E. Stallard and Z. L. Wang. "Estimating age-status-specific demographic rates that are consistent with the projected summary measures in family households projection." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-033 (2002). Abstract: This paper proposes procedures for estimating age-status-specific demographic rates to ensure that the projected summary measures of marriage/union formation and dissolution and marital and non-marital fertility in the future years are achieved consistently. The procedures proposed in this paper can be applied in both macro and micro models for family household or actuarial/welfare projections and simulations that need the time-varying age-status-specific demographic rates as input. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
M. Kreyenfeld. "Crisis or adaptation reconsidered: a comparison of East and West German fertility patterns in the first six years after the ´Wende´." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-032 (2002). Abstract: Similar to other Eastern European countries, East Germany experienced a rapid decline in period fertility rates after the fall of communism. This decline has been discussed along the lines of a ´crisis´ and a ´adaptation´ to western demographic patterns. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we discuss the factors which foster and hamper a convergence of fertility behavior in East and West Germany. Secondly, we use data from the German micro-census to analyze the fertility patterns of the cohorts born 1961-1970. Major results from our empirical analysis are that East Germans who are still childless at unification are more rapid to have their first child in the subsequent years than comparable West Germans. However, regarding second parity births, the pattern reverses. Here, East Germans display a lower transition rate than their counterparts in the West. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Strandberg, M. and J. M. Hoem. "Patterns of twinning for Swedish women, 1961-1999." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-031 (2002). Abstract: The Nordic population registers provide a unique possibility to study the demographic behavior of small population groups and rare events. In this paper, we study the childbearing behavior of Swedish mothers of twins between 1961 and 1999, inclusive. The twinning rate has increased since the mid-1970s in response to a growing use of fertility-stimulating treatments such as in-vitro fertilization. Such medical procedures are applied mainly to women beyond prime childbearing ages. Nevertheless, we find no simple age pattern in twinning rates. They do not just increase with the woman´s age. Our most consistent finding is that mothers of twins wait noticeably longer than women with singletons before they have another child. This apart, mothers with twins at their first birth have next-birth fertility patterns very similar to women who have two singletons at their first two births. This commonality in childbearing behavior does not extend to higher-order births, though. For mothers with a singleton and a pair of twins, the progression to a third birth depends very much on whether the twins came first or second. We also discover that at parities beyond 3, twinning rates increase with parity, especially at very short durations since the previous birth. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Erlangsen, A., U. Bille-Brahe, and B. Jeune. "Differences in suicide between the old and the oldest old." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-030 (2002). Abstract: Objectives -- The purpose of our study was to examine the differences in trends of suicide mortality between the old aged 65-79 years and the oldest old aged 80 years or above. Methods -- All persons aged 50 or above who committed suicide in Denmark during 1972-1997 were included. Suicide rates were analysed by sex, age, civil status and methods. A Lexis diagram was applied to study age, period, and cohort effects. Results -- In all, 17,328 (10,220 men and 7,108 women) committed suicide. The highest suicide rate was found among the oldest old men, and since the mid-1990’s, also for women. Marriage has a preventive effect on suicide, however this effect decreases with increasing age. With increasing age, more determined suicide methods are used. Discussion -- A distinct difference in the suicide mortality of the old and the oldest old was found. Suicides among the old have more in common with the suicide patterns of the middle-aged than with the oldest old. Oldest old committing suicide, have a high suicide intent. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Bernardi, L. "Determinants of individual AIDS risk perception: knowledge, behavioural control, and social influence." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-029 (2002). Abstract: In sub-Saharan Africa an almost universal awareness of AIDS lethality and of HIV sexual transmission mechanism coexists together with a reluctance in adopting consequent preventive measures as protected sexual intercourse. The socio-psychological literature on health-related behaviour emphasises the perception of being at risk of HIV/AIDS infection as being one of the necessary conditions for preventive behaviour to be adopted. Analysing data from the Kenya Diffusion and Ideational Change (KDIC) Project, this paper investigates the determinants of the reported degree of risk perception of getting infected by HIV/AIDS. In particular, adopting a social interaction approach, we argue that individual risk perception is shaped by social network influences. We use information about conversation related to AIDS and HIV infection risk occurring among individuals and their social network members. We are able to show to what extent neglecting individuals´ reciprocal influences into explanatory models leads to a mis-estimation of the weight of other factors, as AIDS related knowledge and behavioural factors. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Von der Lippe, H., U. Fuhrer, and B. Meyer-Probst. "Fatherhood – is it my intention? 30-year-old childless men in East Germany’s extremely low fertility context talk about their desire for children." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-028 (2002). Abstract: Recent demands to include psychological theories of decision-making in research on family formation coincide with calls for improving research on male fertility and fatherhood. In this paper, we address these notions and present findings from in-depth interviews with 30-year-old childless men in eastern Germany. We consider questions related to conception of fatherhood and subjective determinants of fertility decisions. We analyze fourteen interviews using an innovative analytical paradigm. We derive our method from the contemporary social cognitive theory of intention formation. The focus lies on an examination and interpretation of male attitudes, values, motives, interests, goals, action beliefs, and self-concepts, and in how far these are connected to intentions for parenthood. Our results indicate that wide differences among men exist, as exemplified in their divergent narratives. We apply two competing social psychological theories in interpreting our findings. We discuss the Theory of Symbolic Self-Completion and the Theory of Reasoned Action. Both are valuable in explaining the processes that drive male fertility intentions. We also explore implications for future research on fertility intentions and the need to bring together psychology and sociology. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Hank, K. "The Differential Influence of Women´s Residential District on the Risk of Entering First Marriage and Motherhood in Western Germany." Rostock, MPIDR Working Paper WP-2002-027 (2002). Abstract: This article investigates the role of women´s residential district in the process of family formation in western Germany during the 1980s and 1990s. Our analysis of the transition to first marriage and motherhood is based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), which we merge with a rich set of district-level data. The estimated multilevel discrete-time logit models suggest that (1) basically all regional heterogeneity in women´s entry into parenthood is due to differences in the respondents´ marital status, while there is (2) a constant and significant regional variation in women´s first marriage probabilities, which cannot be explained by population composition or structural contextual effects. Thus, regional influences on fertility behavior do not have an autonomous quality, but are merely mediated through a latent contextual effect on women´s risk of entering first marriage, which we attribute to regional socio-cultural milieus. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Moretti, Enrico. "Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data." NBER Working Paper No. w9108 (August 2002). Abstract: Economists have speculated for at least a century that the social return to education may exceed the private return. In this paper, I estimate spillovers from college education by comparing wages for otherwise similar individuals who work in cities with different shares of college graduates in the labor force. OLS estimates show a large positive relationship between the share of college graduates in a city and individual wages, over and above the private return to education. A key issue in this comparison is the presence of unobservable individual characteristics, such as ability, that may raise wages and be correlated with college share. I use a confidential version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate a model of non-random selection of workers among cities. By observing the same individual over time, I can control for differences in unobserved ability across individuals and differences in the return to skills across cities. I then investigate the hypothesis that the correlation between college share and wages is due to unobservable city-specific shocks that may raise wages and attract more highly educated workers to different cities. To control for this source of potential bias, I turn to Census data and use two instrumental variables: the lagged city demographic structure and the presence of a land--grant college. The results from Census data are remarkably consistent with those based on the NLSY sample. A percentage point increase in the supply of college graduates raises high school drop-outs' wages by 1.9%, high school graduates' wages by 1.6%, and college graduates wages by 0.4%. The effect is larger for less educated groups, as predicted by a conventional demand and supply model. But even for college graduates, an increase in the supply of college graduates increases wages, as predicted by a model that includes conventional demand and supply factors as well as spillovers. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Pollak, Robert A. "An Intergenerational Model of Domestic Violence." NBER Working Paper No. w9099 (August 2002). Abstract: This paper proposes and analyzes an intergenerational model of domestic violence (IMDV) in which behavioral strategies or scripts are transmitted from parents to children. The model rests upon three key assumptions: * The probability that a husband will be violent depends on whether he grew up in a violent home. * The probability that a wife will remain with a violent husband depends on whether she grew up in a violent home. * Individuals who grew up in violent homes tend to marry individuals who grew up in violent homes. The IMDV calls attention to three features neglected in the domestic violence literature. The first is the marriage market. If some men are more likely than others to be violent as husbands and some women are more likely than others to remain in violent marriages, then the probability that such individuals marry each other is crucial. The second neglected feature is divorce: ongoing domestic violence requires the conjunction of a husband who is violent and a wife who stays. Third, variables and policies that reduce the rate of domestic violence in the short run are likely to reduce it even further in the long run. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Socioeconomic Status and Health: Why is the Relationship Stronger for Older Children? NBER Working Paper No. w9098 (August 2002). Abstract: Case, Lubotsky, and Paxson (2001) show that the well-known relationship between socio- economic status (SES) and health exists in childhood and grows more pronounced with age. However, in cross-sectional data it is difficult to distinguish between two possible explanations. The first is that low-SES children are less able to respond to a given health shock. The second is that low SES children experience more shocks. We show, using panel data on Canadian children that: 1) the gradient we estimate in the cross section is very similar to that estimated previously using U.S. children; 2) both high and low-SES children recover from past health shocks to about the same degree; and 3) that the relationship between SES and health grows stronger over time mainly because low-SES children receive more negative health shocks. In addition, we examine the effect of health shocks on math and reading scores. We find that health shocks affect test scores and future health in very similar ways. Our results suggest that public policy aimed at reducing SES-related health differentials in children should focus on reducing the incidence of health shocks as well as on reducing disparities in access to palliative care. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Diamond, Peter A. and Peter R. Orszag. "An Assessment of the Proposals of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security." NBER Working Paper No. w9097 (August 2002). Abstract: The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security proposed three reform plans. Two, analyzed here, restore actuarial balance in the absence of individual accounts. One achieves this balance solely through benefit reductions. The other uses new dedicated revenue to cover one-third of the actuarial deficit, reducing benefits to close the rest. Both plans cut disability and young survivor benefits in step with retirement benefits, while bolstering benefits for long-career low earners and surviving spouses with low benefits. The plans both include voluntary individual accounts that replace part of the scaled-back Social Security system. Payroll taxes are diverted to the accounts and one of the plans also requires a (subsidized) add-on contribution for those choosing accounts. Under both models, any payroll tax deposited in an individual account is also recorded in a 'liability account' for the worker. The liability account tracks the diverted payroll revenue (with interest) and is paid off by reducing traditional benefits. The individual accounts are subsidized through a sub-market interest rate on the liability accounts. This subsidy worsens the financial position of the Trust Fund. The accounts also create a cash-flow problem. Consequently, by themselves, the individual accounts make Social Security's solvency problems worse both in the short run and over the long run. To offset the adverse impact of the accounts, the plans call for large transfers of general revenues (despite substantial projected budget deficits). If all (two-thirds of) eligible workers opted for the accounts, the new revenues required over the next 75 years would amount to between 1.2 and 1.5 (0.8 and 1.1) percent of payroll. Holding the disabled harmless from the benefit reductions would raise the required transfers to between 1.5 and 1.7 (1.1 and 1.3) percent of payroll (compared to a projected actuarial deficit of 1.9 percent of payroll under current law). Despite requiring this much general revenue relative to paying scheduled benefits, the plans would produce significant reductions in expected combined benefits. At the end of 75 years, however, assets in the accounts would amount to between 53 and 66 (35 and 44) percent of GDP, and the value to Social Security of the accumulated liabilities that reduce later benefits would amount to more than 20 (15) percent of GDP. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Gokhale, Jagadeesh, Laurence J. Kotlikoff, and Alexi Sluchynsky. "Does It Pay to Work?" NBER Working Paper No. w9096 (August 2002). Abstract: Does it pay to work? Given the number and complexity of federal and state tax and transfer systems, this is a tough question to answer. The problem is greatly compounded by the fact that what one earns in one year alters not just current taxes and transfer payments in that year, but in future years as well. There are five dynamic linkages here. First, earning more in the present typically alters current saving and, therefore, future levels of capital income and capital income taxes. Second, earning more in the present generally alters not just current, but also future levels of consumption, and, therefore, future consumption taxes. Third, changing future levels of income and assets changes the eligibility for and levels received of income- and asset-tested transfer benefits. Fourth, the most important transfer program, Social Security, explicitly links future transfer payments to current earnings. Fifth, income taxes in retirement can depend on past labor earnings because Social Security benefits depend on past earnings and these benefits can be subject to federal income taxation. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Kearney, Melissa Schettini. "Is There an Effect of Incremental Welfare Benefits on Fertility Behavior? A Look at the Family Cap." NBER Working Paper No. w9093 (August 2002). Abstract: A number of states have recently instituted family cap policies, under which women who conceive a child while receiving cash assistance are not entitled to additional cash benefits upon the birth of the child. This paper takes advantage of the variation across states in the timing of the policy's implementation to determine if family cap policies are discouraging women from having additional births. Vital statistics birth data for the years 1989 to 1998 offer no evidence that family cap policies lead to a reduction in births to women ages 15 to 34. The data reject a decline in births of more than one percent. The finding is robust to multiple specification checks. The data also reject large declines in higher-order births among demographic groups with relatively high welfare participation rates. Curiously, the data suggest increases in higher-order births to unmarried black and white high-school dropouts and to unmarried black teens approximately one year after the implementation of a family cap. The data reject a decline in births of more than four percent for unmarried white high-school graduates and unmarried white teens. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Mitchell, Olivia S. and David McCarthy. "Annuities for an Ageing World." NBER Working Paper No. w9092 (August 2002). Abstract: Substantial research attention has been devoted to the pension accumulation process, whereby employees and those advising them work to accumulate funds for retirement. Until recently, less analysis has been devoted to the pension decumulation process -- the process by which retirees finance their consumption during retirement. This gap has recently begun to be filled by an active group of researchers examining key aspects of the pension payout market. One of the areas of most interesting investigation has been in the area of annuities, which are financial products intended to cover the risk of retirees outliving their assets. This paper reviews and extends recent research examining the role of annuities in helping finance retirement consumption. We also examine key market and regulatory factors. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Klein, Michael W. "Work and Play: International Evidence of Gender Equality in Employment and Sports." NBER Working Paper No. w9081 (July 2002). Abstract: "This paper addresses the question of whether societies that afford economic opportunity to women offer other opportunities as well. The analysis in this paper shows that the performance of a country's women in international athletic competition reflects the degree of their relative participation in that country's labor market. There is a significant positive relationship across countries between a high ratio of the labor force participation rate of women to the labor force participation rate of men and the number and type of medals won by a country's women in the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. Teams representing countries with high relative labor force participation rates also were both more likely to qualify for the 1999 Women's Soccer World Cup and to do well in that competition. This effect of relative labor force participation rates on athletic success is found while controlling for a nation's income per capita, population, men's performance in related sporting events, rate of participation of women in government, and fertility rate. These results suggest that the participation of women in a country's labor force is an important reflection of their opportunities in other areas as well." http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Krueger, Alan B. and Jitka Maleckova. "Education, Poverty, Political Violence and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?" NBER Working Paper No. w9074 (July 2002). Abstract: "The paper investigates whether there is a causal link between poverty or low education and participation in politically motivated violence and terrorist activities. After presenting a discussion of theoretical issues, we review evidence on the determinants of hate crimes. This literature finds that the occurrence of hate crimes is largely independent of economic conditions. Next we analyze data on support for attacks against Israeli targets from public opinion polls conducted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These polls indicate that support for violent attacks does not decrease among those with higher education and higher living standards. The core contribution of the paper is a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in Hezbollah militant activities in Lebanon. The evidence we have assembled suggests that having a living standard above the poverty line or a secondary school or higher education is positively associated with participation in Hezbollah. We also find that Israeli Jewish settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank in the early 1980s were overwhelmingly from high-paying occupations. The conclusion speculates on why economic conditions and education are largely unrelated to participation in, and support for, terrorism." http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Hanushek, Eric A. "The Long Run Importance of School Quality." NBER Working Paper No. w9071 (July 2002). Abstract: The role of schooling and school quality in the economy has become very confused, in part because of attempts to argue different positions on educational policy. Research demonstrates that school quality has a strong impact on individual earnings, on the distribution of income, and on overall economic growth. In contrast to these long run factors, today's school quality has little to do with current business cycles or unemployment rates. This paper emphasizes the importance of school quality -- measured by math and science test scores -- on economic growth. While U.S. growth has been strong over the 20th century, it has not been the result of high quality schooling relative to that in other countries. Instead other factors such as open labor markets and high quality colleges and universities appear to have masked the mediocre performance by U.S. students. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Helliwell, John F. "How's Life? Combining Individual and National Variables to Explain Subjective Well-Being." NBER Working Paper No. w9065 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper attempts to explain international and inter-personal differences in subjective well-being over the final fifth of the twentieth century. The empirical work makes use of data from three waves of the World Values survey covering about fifty different countries. The analysis proceeds in stages. First there is a brief review of some reasons for giving a key role to subjective measures of well-being. This is followed by a survey of earlier empirical studies, a description of the main variables used, a report of results and tests, and discussion of the links among social capital, education, income and well-being. The main innovation of the paper, relative to earlier studies of subjective well-being, lies in its use of large international samples of data combining individual and societal level variables, thus permitting the simultaneous identification of individual-level and societal-level determinants of well-being. This is particularly useful in identifying the direct and indirect linkages between social capital and well-being. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Hope, Corman, and Naci Mocan. "Carrots, Sticks and Broken Windows." NBER Working Paper No. w9061 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of economics conditions (carrots) and sanctions (sticks) on murder, assault, robbery, burglary and motor vehicle theft in New York City, using monthly time-series data spanning 1974-1999. Carrots are measured by the unemployment rate and the real minimum wage; sticks are measured by felony arrests, police force and New York City residents in prison. In addition, the paper tests the validity of the 'broken windows' hypothesis, where misdemeanor arrests are used as a measure of broken windows policing. The broken windows hypothesis has validity in case of robbery and motor vehicle theft. The models explain between 33 and 86 percent of the observed decline in these crimes between 1990 and 1999. While both economic and deterrence variables are important in explaining the decline in crime, the contribution of deterrence measures is larger than those of economic variables. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Card, David and Lara D. Shore-Sheppard. "Using Discontinuous Eligibility Rules to Identify the Effects of the Federal Medicaid Expansions on Low Income Children." NBER Working Paper No. w9058 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper exploits the discrete nature of the eligibility criteria for two major federal expansions of Medicaid to measure the effects on Medicaid coverage, overall health insurance coverage, and the probability of visiting a doctor. The '100 percent' expansion, effective in 1991, extended Medicaid eligibility to children born after September 30, 1983 in families below the poverty line. We estimate that this law led to about a 10 percentage point rise in Medicaid coverage for children born just after the cutoff date, and a similar or slightly smaller rise in overall health insurance. It also increased the fraction of children in the newly eligible group with a doctor visit in the previous year. The '133 percent' expansion, effective in 1990, extended Medicaid to children under 6 in families with incomes below 133 percent of the poverty line. This law had relatively small effects on Medicaid coverage for children near the eligibility limits, and little or no effect on health insurance coverage. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Carneiro, Pedro and James J. Heckman. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. w9055 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper examines the family income -- college enrollment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. We distinguish short-run liquidity constraints from the long-term factors that promote cognitive and noncognitive ability. Long-run factors crystallized in ability are the major determinants of the family income -- schooling relationship, although there is some evidence that up to 8% of the U.S. population is credit constrained in a short-run sense. Evidence that IV estimates of the returns to schooling exceed OLS estimates is sometimes claimed to support the existence of substantial credit constraints. This argument is critically examined. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Blau, Francine D., Lawrence M. Kahn, Joan Y. Moriarty, and Andre Portela Souza. "The Role of the Family in Immigrants' Labor-Market Activity: Evidence from the United States." NBER Working Paper No. w9051 (July 2002). Abstract: We use Census of Population microdata for 1980 and 1990 to examine the labor supply and wages of immigrant husbands and wives in the United States in a family context. Earlier research by Baker and Benjamin (1997) posits a family investment model in which, upon arrival, immigrant husbands invest in their human capital while immigrant wives work to provide the family with liquidity during this period. Consistent with this model, they find for Canada that immigrant wives work longer hours upon arrival than comparable natives, but, with time in Canada, they are eventually overtaken by native wives. In contrast, we find that, among immigrants to the United States, both husbands and wives work and earn less than comparable natives upon arrival, with similar shortfalls for men and women. Further, both immigrant husbands and wives have similar, positive assimilation profiles in wages and labor supply and eventually overtake both the wages and the labor supply of comparable natives. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Saez, Emmanuel. "Optimal Progressive Capital Income Taxes in the Infinite Horizon Model." NBER Working Paper No. w9046 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper analyzes optimal progressive capital income taxation in an infinite horizon model where individuals differ only through their initial wealth. We show that, in that context, progressive taxation is a much more powerful and efficient tool to redistribute wealth than linear taxation on which previous literature has focused. We consider progressive capital income tax schedules taking a simple two-bracket form with an exemption bracket at the bottom and a single marginal tax rate above a time varying exemption threshold. Individuals are taxed until their wealth is reduced down to the exemption threshold. When the intertemportal elasticity of substitution is not too large and the top tail of the initial wealth distribution is infinite and thick enough, the optimal exemption threshold converges to a finite limit. As a result, the optimal tax system drives all the large fortunes down a finite level and produces a truncated long-run wealth distribution. A number of numerical simulations illustrate the theoretical result. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Turner, Sarah E. and John Bound. "Closing the Gap or Widening the Divide: The Effects of the G.I. Bill and World War II on the Educational Outcomes of Black Americans." NBER Working Paper No. w9044 (July 2002). Abstract: The effects of the G.I. Bill on collegiate attainment may have differed for black and white Americans owing to differential returns to education and differences in opportunities at colleges and universities, with men in the South facing explicitly segregated colleges. The empirical evidence suggests that World War II and the availability of G.I. benefits had a substantial and positive impact on the educational attainment of white men and black men born outside the South. However, for those black veterans likely to be limited to the South in their educational choices, the G.I. Bill had little effect on collegiate outcomes, resulting in the exacerbation of the educational differences between black and white men from southern states. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Bertola, Giuseppe, Francine D. Blau, and Lawrence M. Kahn. "Labor Market Institutions and Demographic Employment Patterns." NBER Working Paper No. w9043 (July 2002). Abstract: Using data from 17 OECD countries over the 1960-96 period, we investigate the impact of institutions on the relative employment of youth, women, and older individuals. Theoretically, we show that labor market institutions meant to improve workers' income share imply larger disemployment effects for groups whose labor supply is more elastic. Using an empirical model that allows us to control for unmeasured country-specific factors that affect relative employment and unemployment, we find that, for both men and women, more extensive involvement of unions in wage-setting significantly decreases the employment rate of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged, with no significant effects on the relative unemployment of these groups. In contrast, a larger role for unions has insignificant effects on male-female employment differentials, but raises female unemployment relative to male unemployment. These results suggest that union wage-setting policies price the young and elderly out of employment and drive disemployed individuals in these groups to non-labor-force (education, retirement) states. A possible scenario for women is that high union wages encourage female labor force participation, but that women who would otherwise be disemployed by high wage floors are able to find work in unregulated sectors or are absorbed by public employment. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Haines, Michael R. "Ethnic Differences in Demographic Behavior in the United States: Has There Been Convergence?" NBER Working Paper No. w9042 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper looks at the fertility, mortality, and marriage experience of racial, ethnic, and nativity groups in the United States from the 19th to the late 20th centuries. The first part consist of a description and critique of the racial and ethnic categories used in the federal census and in the published vital statistics. The second part looks at these three dimensions of demographic behavior. There has been both absolute and relative convergence of fertility across groups, It has been of relatively recent origin and has been due, in large part, to stable, or even slightly increasing, birth rates for the majority white population combined with declining birth rates for blacks and the Asian-origin, Hispanic-origin, and Amerindian populations. This has not been true for mortality. The black population has experienced absolute convergence but relative deterioration in mortality (neonatal and infant mortality, maternal mortality, expectation of life at birth, and age-adjusted death rates), in contrast to the Amerindian and Asian-origin populations. The Asian-origin population actually now has age-adjusted death rates significantly lower than those for the white population. The disadvantaged condition of the black population and the deteriorating social safety net are the likely origins of this outcome. Finally, there was a trend toward earlier and more extensive marriage from about 1900 up to the 1960s. At this point, coincident with the end of the 'Baby Boom,' there has been a movement to later marriage for both males and females among whites, blacks, and the Hispanic-origin populations. This trend has been more extreme in the black population, especially among females. There has also been a significant rise in proportions never-married at ages 45-54 among blacks and, to a lesser extent, among Hispanics. So here too, there has been some divergence. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Charles, Kerwin and Patrick Kline. "Relational Costs and the Production of Social Capital: Evidence from Carpooling." NBER Working Paper No. w9041 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper posits that individuals can more easily form social connections with persons of the same race. If true, the greater the incidence among his neighbors of persons of his race, the more likely an individual is to make neighborhood social capital connections, and the more likely he is to engage in activities which require it. The paper tests this idea using an indicator of individual social capital never previously studied: whether the person uses a carpool to get to work. We identify exogenous variation in adult neighborhood racial makeup arising from the racial makeup of the state in which the person was born in the year that he was born, and relate this exogenous portion of adult neighborhood racial composition to individual carpooling propensity using a TSLS approach. The results from this analysis, and from robustness tests which focus on neighborhoods with virtually identical racial distributions, show evidence of strong cross-racial relational difficulties, but interestingly, only for particular pairs of racial groups. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Jofre-Bonet, Mireia and Jody L. Sindelar. "Drug Treatment as a Crime Fighting Tool." NBER Working Paper No. w9038 (July 2002). Abstract: Drugs and crime are known to be correlated, but the direction of causality and the magnitude of the relationship have not been well established. We take a new approach to estimating this relationship and examine a little used, multi-site dataset of 3,500 inner-city drug users entering treatment. We analyze the change in crime and in drug use pre and post treatment, controlling for other covariates. We take first differences to address omitted variable problems. For our sample, we find that treatment reduces drug use which, in turn, reduced drug decreases crime. Reduced drug use due to treatment is associated with 54% fewer days of crime for profit, ceteris paribus. Our evidence suggests that, reduced drug use is causally related to reduced crime. This finding is robust to different specifications and subsamples. Our findings broadly suggest that drug treatment may be an effective crime-fighting tool. Given the huge and growing expense of the criminal justice system, drug treatment might be cost-effective relative to incarceration. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Hellerstein, Judith K. and David Neumark. "Ethnicity, Language, and Workplace Segregation: Evidence from a New Matched Employer-Employee Data Set." NBER Working Paper No. w9037 (July 2002). Abstract: We describe the construction and assessment of a new matched employer-employee data set (the Decennial Employer-Employee Dataset, or DEED) that we have undertaken as a part of a broad research agenda to study segregation in the U.S. labor market. In this paper we examine the role of segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and language proficiency, contributing new, previously unavailable descriptive information on segregation along these lines, and evidence on the wage premia or penalties associated with this segregation. The DEED is much larger and more representative across regional and industry dimensions than previous matched data sets for the United States, and improvements along both of these dimensions are essential to isolating the importance of segregation by language and ethnicity in the workplace. Our empirical results reveal considerable segregation by Hispanic ethnicity and by English language proficiency. We find that Hispanic workers, but not white workers, suffer wage penalties from employment in a workplace with a large share of Hispanic workers, and even more so a large share of Hispanic workers with poor English language proficiency. In addition, we find that segregation of Hispanic workers among other Hispanics with similar English language proficiency does not reduce the penalties associated with poor own language skills. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Charles, Kerwin Kofi. "Is Retirement Depressing?: Labor Force Inactivity and Psychological Well-Being in Later Life." NBER Working Paper No. w9033 (June 2002). Abstract: This paper assesses how retirement - defined as permanent labor force non-participation in a man's mature years - affects psychological welfare. The raw correlation between retirement and well-being is negative. But this does not imply causation. In particular, people with idiosyncratically low well-being, or people facing transitory shocks which adversely affect well-being might disproportionately select into retirement. Discontinuous retirement incentives in the Social Security System, and changes in laws affecting mandatory retirement and Social Security benefits allows the exogenous effect of retirement on happiness to be estimated. The paper finds that the direct effect of retirement on well-being is positive once the fact that retirement and well being are simultaneously determined is accounted for. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Charles, Kerwin Kofi and Ming-Ching Luoh. "Gender Differences in Completed Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. w9028 (June 2002). Abstract: This paper summarizes the dramatic changes in relative male-females educational attainment over the past three decades. Stock measures of education among the entire adult population show rising attainment levels for both men and women, with men enjoying an advantage in schooling levels throughout this interval. Cohort specific analysis reveals that these stock measures mask two interesting patterns: (a) gender difference at the cohort level had vanished by the early 1950 birth cohort and reversed sign ever since; (b) for several cohorts, attainment rates were flat for women and flat and falling for men. This last is puzzling in the face of the large college premia that these cohorts observed when making their schooling choices. We present a simple human capital model showing how the anticipated dispersion of future wages should affect educational investment and find that a model which includes measures of future earnings dispersion fits the data for relative schooling patterns quite well. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Crocker, Keith J. and John R. Moran. "Contracting With Limited Commitment : Evidence From Employment-based Health Insurance Contracts." CPR Working Paper Series No. 45. Abstract: When an individual’s health status is observable, but evolving over time, the key to maintaining a successful health insurance arrangement is to have the healthier members of the group cross-subsidize those who experience adverse health outcomes. We argue that impediments to worker mobility may serve to mitigate the attrition of healthy individuals from employer-sponsored insurance pools, thereby creating a de facto commitment mechanism that allows for more complete insurance of health risks than would be possible in the absence of such frictions. Using data on health insurance contracts obtained from the 1987 National Medical Expenditure Survey, we find that the quantity of insurance provided, as measured by lifetime limits on benefits and annual stop-loss amounts, is positively related to the degree of worker commitment. These results illustrate the importance of commitment in the design of long-term contracts, and provide an additional rationale for the practice of bundling health insurance with employment. http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/cprwps/wpslst.htm
Knodel, John, and Truong Si Anh. "Vietnam's Older Population: The View from the Census." PSC Research Report 02-523 (August 2002). Abstract: The present study provides a descriptive analysis of Vietnam's older population based primarily on special tabulations from the 3 percent public use sample of the 1999 census. Comparison with the 1989 census reveals remarkable stability in the living arrangements of Vietnamese elderly with respect to coresidence with children, even as the country is a undergoing a major transformation of its economy. Rural elderly are far more like to remain economically active and to be clearly disadvantaged in terms of educational attainment, housing quality, and access to mass media. Women compare unfavorably to men with respect to formal educational attainment and literacy and are far more likely to be widowed. Older men and women, however, do not differ in terms of housing quality nor in the likelihood of coresiding with children. While older women are less likely to be economically active than men, they are more likely to be active in house keeping and related work. Thus many older Vietnamese men and women are not simply dependents but make useful contributions to the family's ability to sustain themselves. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Harris, David R. "In the Eye of the Beholder: Observed Race and Observer Characteristics." PSC Research Report 02-522 (August 2002). Abstract: Over the past decade there has been intense debate about racial categories, but surprisingly little discussion of racial categorization. Specifically, there has been little attention devoted to if, and how, characteristics of observers affect observed race. This is troubling because racial classification data are the foundation upon which scholarly studies of race, and policy initiatives to fight discrimination, rest. In this paper I present findings from a web-based survey that was designed to address gaps in our understanding of racial categorization. As part of the Study of Observed Race, 1,672 college freshmen were presented with photographs of individuals, and asked to identify each person's race. Results indicate that observers' race, sex, and familiarity with racial groups each influence how they classify by race, and that there are important interactions between observers' characteristics. I close by discussing the implications of my findings for the 2000 census. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Harris, David R., and Justin L. Thomas. "The Educational Costs of Being Multiracial: Evidence from a National Survey of Adolescents." PSC Research Report 02-521 (August 2002). Abstract: There is clear evidence that the number of multiracial children in the U.S. is growing, yet existing research offers few insights into how outcomes for these children compare to those of their single-race peers. We address this gap by using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to assess racial differences in education. Specifically, we compare vocabulary scores, grade point averages, and odds of repeating a grade for multiracial and single-race youth. Our findings deviate substantially from the predictions of the marginal man hypothesis, an influential, rarely tested thesis about the consequences of being multiracial. We find that white/black youth have outcomes that are unlike those of blacks, and white/American Indians do not differ from whites, but the situation is more complex for white/Asians. We close by acknowledging that racial classification is a social process, and discussing the implications of racial fluidity for assessments of educational differences. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Frey, William H. "Census 2000 Reveals New Native-Born and Foreign-Born Shifts Across U.S." PSC Research Report 02-520 (August 2002). Abstract: This analysis of Census 2000 shows that the US native born population is moving toward a different set of states and metropolitan areas -- in the growing parts of the South and West, than the traditional immigrant gateways which show largest foreign born gains. At the same time, a new migration dynamic is developing such that these "domestic migration magnets" are now attracting foreign born residents who are beginning to disperse from the gateways. This dispersal includes both recent foreign born that immigrated over the 1990-2000 decade as well as "secondary migrant" foreign born residents that arrived in the US prior to 1990. Because they are losing their hold on both U.S.-born and "secondary" foreign-born migrants, mature melting pot states such as California and New York are becoming even more reliant on new foreign-born immigrants as a source of population growth. This dynamic should continue to make them more demographically distinct from the faster growing states. The new waves of foreign-born migrants dispersing into domestic migrant magnet states such as Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina appear to reflect a mirror image of domestic migrants with respect to education and income. This influx of foreign-born migrants with less selective socio-demographic attributes, coupled with rising levels of residential segregation, may by setting the stage for emerging "barbell economies" in these fast-growing states. These conclusions are based on an analysis of 1990 and 2000 U.S. Census place of birth statistics, used to examine state and metropolitan area change attributable to persons born in another state, or foreign-born persons. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Lam, David, and Letícia Marteleto. "Small Families and Large Cohorts: The Impact of the Demographic Transition on Schooling in Brazil." PSC Research Report 02-519 (August 2002). Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of changing age structure and family size on schooling in Brazil. Cohorts born before 1982 were born during a period of falling family size but increasing cohort size. We show that the growth of the school-aged population peaked around 1990, coinciding with the onset of increasing enrollment rates in the 1990s. Pooling household survey data from 1977 to 1999, we estimate the effect of family size, cohort growth, and parental schooling on school enrollment. All have effects in the predicted directions, with the combined variables explaining over 70% of increased enrollment over the period. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Bound, John, Julie Berry Cullen, Austin Nichols, and Lucie Schmidt. "The Welfare Implications of Increasing Disability Insurance Benefit Generosity." PSC Research Report 02-518 (August 2002). Abstract: The focus on efficiency costs in the empirical literature on Disability Insurance (DI) provides a misleading view of the adequacy of payment levels. In order to evaluate whether workers are over- or under-insured through the social insurance program, we develop a framework that allows us to simulate the benefits as well as the costs associated with marginal changes in payment generosity from a representative cross-sectional sample of the population. Under the assumption that individuals are reasonably risk averse, our simulations suggest the typical worker would value increased benefits somewhat above the average costs of providing them. However, we find that benefit increases tend to lower average utility when we average across all individuals in our sample, particularly at high levels of risk aversion. This counterintuitive finding arises because some lower income DI-insured workers face replacement rates that are near or above one. For such individuals, a benefit increase would represent transfers from an even lower income state of the world in which they are not on DI to one in which they are, a transfer that would not be beneficial even if there were no behavioral distortions associated with the provision of DI benefits. Datasets used: Current Population Survey, Survey of Income and Program Participation, Consumer Expenditure Survey. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Shrestha, Sundar S., Sujan Shrestha and Ann E. Biddlecom. "The Household Registration System: Methods and Issues in Collecting Continuous Data on Demographic Events." PSC Research Report 02-517 (July 2002). Abstract: This paper describes a unique demographic surveillance system in Nepal where migrants are tracked outside the study area and data on various demographic behaviors are collected from them. The process for collecting registry data, the procedures implemented to follow migrant individuals and households and basic demographic research results are discussed. Of the 8,878 people who resided in the study neighborhoods when the registry system began, 27 percent eventually migrated outside the study area neighborhoods within 30 months. Of the total registry population in July 1999, more than one-third were residing outside of the study area neighborhoods, 55 percent of these out-migrants were still residing within Chitwan district and 45 percent resided in other districts in Nepal or other countries. The importance of understanding changes in the timing and sequencing of demographic events makes attention to migration a necessary facet of demographic data collection. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Farley, Reynolds. "Race Reporting in the Census of 2000: How Do Multiracial Groups Compare to Monoracial Groups on Key Characteristics?" PSC Research Report 02-516 (July 2002). Abstract: Prior to 2000, U.S. censuses assumed that respondents had just one racial identity. The Census of 2000 allowed respondents to identify with one or more of the 6 major racial classifications. Thus, people identified themselves as members of one race or identified with one of 57 combinations of two or more of those races. In addition to answering this complex and sometimes confusing race question, all respondents were asked to indicate whether or not their origin was Spanish or Hispanic. The study reported here analyzed data from the Census of 2000 and the Census 2000 Supplemental Survey to describe the multiracial population and compare it to the monoracial population in the U.S. Clear geographic patterns emerged, with multiracial identification being most common in Hawaii and the Pacific Rim states and least frequent in the Deep South. Age patterns also emerged: respondents under age 15 were more likely to be multiracial than were older individuals. The most commonly reported multiple races were: White and Other Race (Spanish origin); White and American Indian; White and Asian; and Black and Other Race (Spanish-origin). Datasets used: Census of 2000, Census 2000 Supplemental Survey. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Turner, Sarah, and John Bound. "Closing the Gap or Widening the Divide: The Effects of the G.I. Bill and World War II on the Educational Outcomes of Black Americans ." PSC Research Report 02-515 (July 2002). Abstract: The effects of the G.I. Bill on collegiate attainment may have differed for black and white Americans owing to differential returns to education and differences in opportunities at colleges and universities, with men in the South facing explicitly segregated colleges. The empirical evidence suggests that World War II and the availability of G.I. benefits had a substantial and positive impact on the educational attainment of white men and black men born outside the South. However, for those black veterans likely to be limited to the South in their educational choices, the G.I. Bill had little effect on collegiate outcomes, resulting in the exacerbation of the educational differences between black and white men from southern states. Datasets used: U.S. Census PUMS data; 1979 Survey of Veterans. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/series.html#rr
Haveman, R., T. Kaplan, and B. Wolfe, with S. Barone. "Patterns of Long-Term Utilization of Medicaid and Food Stamps by Wisconsin Welfare Leavers." SR82 (July 2002). http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp/sr/srlist.htm
Deaton, Angus and Salman Zaidi. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis." Living Standards Measurement Study, Working Paper No. 135. Abstract: An analyst using household survey data to construct a welfare metric is often confronted with a number of theoretical and practical problems. What components should be included in the overall welfare measure? Should differences in tastes be taking into account when making comparisons across people and households? How best should differences in cost-of-living and household composition be taken into consideration? Starting with a brief review of the theoretical framework underpinning typical welfare analysis undertaken based on household survey data, this paper provides some practical guidelines and advice on how best to tackle such problems. It outlines a three-part procedure for constructing a consumption-based measure of individual welfare: (i) aggregation of different components of household consumption to construct a nominal consumption aggregate, (ii) construction of price indices to adjust for differences in prices faced by households, and (iii) adjustment of the real consumption aggregate for differences in household composition. Examples based on survey data from eight countries – Ghana, Vietnam, Nepal, the Kyrgyz Republic, Ecuador, South Africa, Panama, and Brazil – are used to illustrate the various steps involved in constructing the welfare measure, and the STATA programs used for this purpose are provided in the appendix. The paper also includes examples of some analytic techniques that can be used to examine the robustness of the estimated welfare measure to underlying assumptions. http://www.worldbank.org/html/prdph/lsms/research/wp/wp_title.html
Robalino, David A., Carol Jenkins, and Karim El Maroufi. "The Risks and Macroeconomic Impact of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa: Why Waiting to Intervene Can Be Costly." Working Paper No. 2874 (July 30, 2002). Abstract: Robalino, Jenkins, and El Maroufi develop a model of optimal growth to assess the risks of an HIV/AIDS epidemic and the expected economic impact in nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa region—Algeria, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen. The model incorporates an HIV/AIDS diffusion component based on two transmission factors—sexual intercourse and exchange of infected needles among intravenous drug users. Given high levels of uncertainty on the model parameters that determine the dynamics of the epidemic and its economic impact, the authors explore large regions of the parameter space. The prevalence rates in year 2015 would be below 1 percent in 16 percent of the cases, while they would be above 3 percent in 50 percent of the cases. On average, GDP losses across countries for 2000–2025 could approximate 35 percent of today’s GDP. In all countries it is possible to observe scenarios where losses surpass today’s GDP. The authors quantify the impact of expanding condom use and access to clean needles for intravenous drug users. They show that these interventions act as an insurance policy that increases social welfare. They also show that delaying action for five years can cost, on average, the equivalent of six percentage points of today’s GDP. This paper—a product of the Human Development Group, Middle East and North Africa Region—is part of a larger effort in the region to raise awareness about the social and economic cost of HIV/AIDS. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Clarke, George R. G. and Scott J. Wallsten. "Universal(ly Bad) Service: Providing Infrastructure Services to Rural and Poor Urban Consumers." Working Paper No. 2868 (July 19, 2002). Abstract: Until recently, utility services (telecommunications, power, water, and gas) throughout the world were provided by large, usually state-owned, monopolies. However, encouraged by technological change, regulatory innovation, and pressure from international organizations, many developing countries are privatizing state-owned companies and introducing competition. Some observers worry that even if reforms improve efficiency, they might compromise an important public policy goal—ensuring “universal access” for low-income and rural households. Clarke and Wallsten review the motivation for universal service, methods used to try to achieve it under monopoly service provision, how reforms might affect these approaches, and the theoretical and empirical evidence of the impact of reform on these consumers. Next, using household data from around the world, they investigate empirically the historical performance of public monopolies in meeting universal service obligations and the impact of reform. The results show the massive failure of state monopolies to provide service to poor and rural households everywhere except Eastern Europe. Moreover, while the data are limited, the evidence suggests that reforms have not harmed poor and rural consumers, and in many cases have improved their access to utility services. Nevertheless, because competition undermines traditional methods of funding universal service objectives (cross-subsidies), the authors also review mechanisms that could finance these objectives without compromising the benefits of reforms. This paper—a product of Regulation and Competition Policy, Development Research Group—is a background paper for the Policy Research Report on The Regulation of Infrastructure. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
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