Campbell, Paul R. "Evaluating Forecast Error in State Population Projections Using Census 2000 Counts." Population Division Working Paper Series, No. 57. Abstract: In order to determine if a popular summary statistic, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), is a valid measure of forecast error for the Census Bureau's 1995 to 2000 state population projections, statistical tests and graphs were used to determine if the error distribution is strongly influenced by outliers. It was found that the absolute percentage error distribution is skewed and asymmetrical. Since the MAPE understates accuracy, MAPE-R, a variant of MAPE derived from the transformed absolute percentage error distribution was accepted as more accurate. Using simple extrapolated projections as a standard to compare forecast error, the findings suggest that the Census Bureau's projections are fairly accurate over a short projection horizon. Paper presented at the Federal Forecasters Conference in Washington, D.C. April 18, 2002. http://www.census.gov/population/www/techpap.html
Mulder, Tammany J. "Accuracy of the U.S. Census Bureau National Population Projections and Their Respective Components of Change." Population Division Working Paper Series, No. 50. Abstract: During the 1900's, knowledge of population trends and their future repercussions for the size and distribution of the population became increasingly important as the US experienced major shifts in fertility and net immigration. Population forecasts produced by the Census Bureau are used widely, informing researchers, planners, legislators, and many others, on the future course of population change. Because forecasts are subject to inherent uncertainty, as they are based on a compilation of reasonable assumptions for the components of population change, it is essential to educate customers as to the amount of uncertainty within the forecasts for the population and the components of population change. To date, the Census Bureau has not published a comprehensive analysis of the accuracy of their forecasts. The aim of this research is to address this gap and systematically evaluate the accuracy of the existing Census Bureau forecasts both in terms of their ability to predict the national population as well as individual components of change. Overall, the Census Bureau has greatly improved the level of accuracy found within its forecasts. Recent forecasts produced in the 1990's have minimized the inherent uncertainty and provide a reliable product for consumers in the short term. Improvement in the forecast reliability is, in all likelihood, the result of the stabilization of the components of population change. This study reveals that forecasters failed to foresee turning points in population trends, resulting in erroneous forecasts, particularly for fertility and net immigration. The inadequate base data used for certain series severely reduced accuracy upon beginning the forecast. Consequently, the forecasts maintained higher levels of error throughout the forecast period. In addition, the assumptions formulated by the Bureau were often outperformed by simple assumptions of constancy. The research presented here represents a contribution to the discussion of population forecasting accuracy for the United States; however, additional research is needed. An earlier version of this paper was presented at The Direction of Fertility in the United States meeting in Alexandria, Virginia, October 2, 2001. http://www.census.gov/population/www/techpap.html
Irvine, Ian and Kuan Xu. "Crime, Punishment and the Measurement of Poverty in the United States, 1979-1997." No. 333. Abstract: The rate of incarceration has increased dramatically in the U.S. since 1980. We explore the implications of this increased incarceration on national poverty measurement using micro data for the period 1979–1997. We make use of an as-yet unexplored data set on prisoner earnings, in conjunction with the Current Population Survey to compute earnings of the whole population. It is found that the traditional measurement of poverty, which omits this increased share of the population that has become institutionalized, understates the true degree of poverty in the nineteen nineties to a significant degree. This underestimation has increased during the time period of study. Furthermore, it is the depth of poverty associated with the higher incarceration rate, rather than the higher rate of incarceration alone that has had the greatest impact upon poverty. These results stand in marked contrast to western European economies and Canada. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Rake, Katherine and Mary Daly. "Gender, Household and Individual Income in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the USA and the UK." No. 332. Abstract: This paper examines gender differentials in the resources of households and individuals across seven welfare states. In its first part, it asks whether female-headed households can secure a living income without recourse to either the state or the income of a male partner. It then steps inside the private sphere, for the purpose of investigating gender differentials in individual incomes and the degree to which women and men rely on the family as a source of financial support. Technical details of the methodology employed for this analysis follow in an appendix. http://www.lisproject.org/publications/wpapersg.htm
Helmenstein, Christian, Alexia Prskawetz, and Yuri Yegorov. "Wealth and cohort size: stock market boom or bust ahead?" WP-2002-051. Abstract: Intersecting the life-cycle pattern of savings accumulation with the wealth distribution, this paper studies the impact of heterogeneity in cohort size on the allocation of assets held by private households. Based on a closed form solution to a theoretical model, the results do not lend support to the hypothesis that stock markets are doomed to suffer from a meltdown as the baby-boom cohort retires. Instead, various demographic and economic factors may contribute to attenuate an expected stock market decline. Depending on the shape of the aggregate wealth distribution, the allegedly negative stock market impact of population ageing may even be offset or reversed. On the other hand, contrary to previous work a decline in stock market prices may set in well before collective retirement. http://www.demogr.mpg.de/?http://www.demogr.mpg.de/Publications/working.htm
Epple, Dennis and Richard Romano. "Educational Vouchers and Cream Skimming." NBER Working Paper No.w9354. Abstract: Epple and Romano (1998) show equilibrium provision of education by public and private schools has the latter skim off the wealthiest and most-able students, and flat-rate vouchers lead to further cream skimming. Here we study voucher design that would inject private-school competition and increase technical efficiencies without cream skimming. Conditioning vouchers on student ability without restriction on participating schools' policies fails to effect significantly cream skimming. However, by adding conditions like tuition constraints such as vouchers can reap the benefits of school competition without increased stratification. This can be accomplished while allowing voluntary participation in the voucher system and without tax increases. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Lichtenberg, Frank R. and Suchin Virabhak. "Pharmaceutical-embodied technical progress, longevity, and quality of life: drugs as 'equipment for your health'" NBER Working Paper No.w9351. Abstract: Several econometric studies have concluded that technical progress embodied in equipment is a major source of manufacturing productivity growth. Other research has suggested that, over the long run, growth in the U.S. economy's 'health output' has been at least as large as the growth in non-health goods and services. One important input in the production of health pharmaceuticals is even more R&D- intensive than equipment. In this paper we test the pharmaceutical-embodied technical progress hypothesis the hypothesis that newer drugs increase the length and quality of life and estimate the rate of progress. To do this, we estimate health production functions, in which the dependent variables are various indicators of post-treatment health status (such as survival, perceived health status, and presence of physical or cognitive limitations), and the regressors include drug vintage (the year in which the FDA first approved a drug's active ingredient(s)) and indicators of pre-treatment health status. We estimate these relationships using extremely disaggregated prescription- level cross-sectional data derived primarily from the 1997 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. We find that people who used newer drugs had better post-treatment health than people using older drugs for the same condition, controlling for pre-treatment health, age, sex, race, marital status, education, income, and insurance coverage: they were more likely to survive, their perceived health status was higher, and they experienced fewer activity, social, and physical limitations. The estimated cost of the increase in vintage required to keep a person alive is lower than some estimates of the value of remaining alive for one month. One estimate of the cost of preventing an activity limitation is $1745, and the annual rate of technical progress with respect to activity limitations is 8.4%. People consuming newer drugs tend to experience greater increases (or smaller declines) in physical ability than people consuming older drugs. Most of the health measures indicate that the effect of drug vintage on health is higher for people with low initial health than it is for people with high initial health. Therefore in contrast to equipment-embodied technical progress, which tends to increase economic inequality, pharmaceutical-embodied technical progress has a tendency to reduce inequality as well as promote economic growth, broadly defined. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
DeSimone, Jeff. "Determinants of Drug Injection Behavior: Economic Factors, HIV Injection Risk and Needle Exchange Programs." NBER Working Paper No.w9350. Abstract: This study examines the effects of local cocaine and heroin prices, AIDS rates, and needle exchange programs on drug injection and needle sharing by adult male arrestees in 24 large U.S. cities during 1989 1995. Regressions that control for personal characteristics including income, fixed city and year effects, and city-specific trends indicate that needle exchange programs decrease both injection and sharing. Increases in previous year AIDS prevalence reduce injection by both sharers and non-sharers, leaving the proportion of injectors who share unchanged. Higher cocaine prices lead to less cocaine injection and more sharing, but heroin prices do not effect injection or sharing. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Bhattacharya, Jay, Dana Goldman, and Neeraj Sood. "The Link Between Public and Private Insurance and HIV-Related Mortality." NBER Working Paper No.w9346. Abstract: As policymakers consider expanding insurance coverage for HIV+ individuals, it is useful to ask if insurance has any affect on health outcomes; and, if so, whether public insurance is as efficacious as private insurance in preventing premature deaths among HIV+ patients. Using data from a nationally representative cohort of HIV-infected persons receiving regular medical care, we estimate the impact of different types of insurance on mortality in this population. We find that ignoring observed and unobserved health status leads one to conclude (misleadingly) that insurance may not be protective for HIV patients. After accounting for observed and unobserved heterogeneity, insurance does protect against premature death, but private insurance is more effective than public coverage. The better outcomes associated with private insurance are attributable to the more restrictive prescription drug policies of Medicaid. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Kaplow, Louis. "Why Measure Inequality?" NBER Working Paper No.w9342. Abstract: A large body of literature is devoted to the measurement of income inequality, yet little attention is given to the question, Why measure inequality? However, the reasons for measurement bear importantly on whether and how measurement should be done. Upon examination, normative measures are found to be of questionable value. Descriptive measures, by contrast, may be useful, but the appropriate measure depends on the field of application rather than on general, a priori principles of the sort that are emphasized in the existing measurement literature. Measures of poverty are also considered, and similar conclusions are reached. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Fan, Wei and Michelle J. White. "Personal Bankruptcy and the Level of Entrepreneurial Activity." NBER Working Paper No.w9340. Abstract: The U.S. personal bankruptcy system functions as a bankruptcy system for small businesses as well as consumers, because debts of non-corporate firms are personal liabilities of the firms' owners. If the firm fails, the owner has an incentive to file for bankruptcy, since both business debts and the owner's personal debts will be discharged. In bankruptcy, the owner must give up assets above a fixed exemption level. Because exemption levels are set by the states, they vary widely. We show that higher bankruptcy exemption levels benefit potential entrepreneurs who are risk averse by providing partial wealth insurance and therefore the probability of owning a business increases as the exemption level rises. We test this prediction and find that the probability of households owning businesses is 35% higher if they live in states with unlimited rather than low exemptions. We also find that the probability of starting a business and the probability of owning a corporate rather than non-corporate business are higher for households that live in high exemption states. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Scheve, Kenneth and Matthew Slaughter. "Economic Insecurity and the Globalization of Production." NBER Working Paper No.w9339. Abstract: A common claim in debates about globalization is that economic integration increases worker insecurity. Although this idea is central to both political and academic debates about international economic integration, the theoretical basis of the claim is often not clear. There is also no empirical research that has directly tested the relationship. In this paper, we argue that economic insecurity among workers may be related to riskier employment and/or wage outcomes, and that foreign direct investment may be a key factor contributing to this increased risk by making labor demands more elastic. We present new empirical evidence, based on the analysis of panel data from Great Britain collected from 1991-1999, that FDI activity in the industries in which individuals work is positively correlated with individual perceptions of economic insecurity. This relationship holds in yearly cross-sections, in a panel accounting for individual-specific effects, and in a dynamic panel model also accounting for individual-specific effects. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Blau, Francine D., Lawrence M. Kahn, and Jane Waldfogel. "The Impact of Welfare Benefits on Single Motherhood and Headship of Young Women: Evidence from the Census." NBER Working Paper No.w9338. Abstract: This paper uses data from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 Censuses to investigate the impact of welfare benefits across Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) on the incidence of single motherhood and headship for young women. A contribution of the paper is the inclusion of both MSA fixed effects and MSA-specific time trends to account for fixed and trending unmeasured factors that could influence both welfare benefit levels and family formation. In such a model, we find no effect of welfare benefits on single motherhood for whites or blacks, and a positive effect of welfare benefits on single headship only for blacks. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Ayres, Ian and John J. Donohue III. "Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis." NBER Working Paper No.w9336. Abstract: John Lott and David Mustard have used regression analysis to argue forcefully that 'shall-issue' laws (which give citizens an unimpeded right to secure permits for concealed weapons) reduce violent crime. While certain facially plausible statistical models appear to generate this conclusion, more refined analyses of more recent state and county data undermine the more guns, less crime hypothesis. The most robust finding on the state data is that certain property crimes rise with passage of shall- issue laws, although the absence of any clear theory as to why this would be the case tends to undercut any strong conclusions. Estimating more statistically preferred disaggregated models on more complete county data, we show that in most states shall- issue laws have been associated with more crime and that the apparent stimulus to crime tends to be especially strong for those states that adopted in the last decade. While there are substantial concerns about model reliability and robustness, we present estimates based on disaggregated county data models that on net the passage of the law in 24 jurisdictions has increased the annual cost of crime slightly -- somewhere on the order of half a billion dollars. We also provide an illustration of how our jurisdiction-specific regression model has the capacity to generate more nuanced assessments concerning which states might profit from or be harmed by a particular legal intervention. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Shavell, Steven. "Minimum Asset Requirements." NBER Working Paper No.w9335. Abstract: Requirements that parties have assets of at least a minimum level in order to participate in an activity are frequently imposed. A principal rationale for minimum asset requirements is considered in this article potential injurers have stronger incentives to prevent harm, or not to engage in harmful activities, provided that they have at least the required level of assets at stake if they are sued for causing harm. The optimal minimum asset requirement generally reflects a tradeoff between this advantage and the disadvantage that some parties with assets below a required level ought to engage in the activity (because the benefits they would obtain exceed the expected harm they would cause). Additionally, it is emphasized that minimum asset requirements are socially desirable only when the victims of harm are not customers of firms. When victims of harm are customers of firms, minimum asset requirements are socially undesirable. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Kearney, Melissa Schettini. "State Lotteries and Consumer Behavior." NBER Working Paper No.w9330. Abstract: Despite considerable controversy surrounding the use of state lotteries as a means of public finance, little is known about their consumer consequences. This project investigates two central questions about lotteries. First, do state lotteries primarily crowd out other forms of gambling, or do they crowd out non-gambling consumption? Second, does consumer demand for lottery games respond to expected returns, as maximizing behavior predicts, or do consumers appear to be misinformed about the risks and returns of lottery gambles? Analyses of multiple sources of micro-level gambling data demonstrate that lottery spending does not substitute for other forms of gambling. Household consumption data suggest that household lottery gambling crowds out approximately $38 per month, or two percent, of other household consumption, with larger proportional reductions among low-income households. Demand for lottery products responds positively to the expected value of the gamble, controlling for other moments of the gamble and product characteristics; this suggests that consumers of lottery products are not simply uninformed, but are perhaps making fully-informed purchases. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Bernheim, B. Douglas, and Antonio Rangel. "Addiction and Cue-Conditioned Cognitive Processes." NBER Working Paper No.w9329. Abstract: We propose an economic theory of addiction based on the premise that cognitive mechanisms such as attention affect behavior independently of preferences. We argue that the theory is consistent with foundational evidence (e.g. from neurosciencee and psychology) concerning the nature of decision-making and addiction. The model is analytically tractable, and it accounts for a broad range of stylized facts concerning addiction. It also generates a plausible qualitative mapping from the characteristics of substances into consumption patterns, thereby providing a basis for empirical tests. Finally, the theory provides a clear standard for evaluating social welfare, and it has a number of striking policy implications. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Jones, Charles I. "Why Have Health Expenditures as a Share of GDP Risen So Much?" NBER Working Paper No.w9325. Abstract: Aggregate health expenditures as a share of GDP have risen in the United States from about 5 percent in 1960 to nearly 14 percent in recent years. Why? This paper explores a simple explanation based on technological progress. Medical advances allow diseases to be cured today, at a cost, that could not be cured at any price in the past. When this technological progress is combined with a Medicare- like transfer program to pay the health expenses of the elderly, the model is able to reproduce the basic facts of recent U.S. experience, including the large increase in the health expenditure share, a rise in life expectancy, and an increase in the size of health-related transfer payments as a share of GDP. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Rotemberg, Julio J. "Customer Anger at Price Increases, Time Variation in the Frequency of Price Changes and Monetary Policy." NBER Working Paper No.w9320. Abstract: While much evidence suggests that price rigidity is due to a concern with the reaction of customers, price increases do not seem to be typically associated with drastic reduction in purchases. To explain this apparent inconsistency, this paper develops a model where consumers care about the fairness of prices and react negatively only when they become convinced that prices are unfair. This leads to price rigidity, though the implications of the model are not identical to those of existing models of costly price adjustment. In particular, the frequency of price adjustment ought to depend on economy-wide variables observed by consumers. As I show, this has implications for the effects of monetary policy. It can, in particular, explain why inflation does not fall immediately after a monetary tightening. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Figlio David N. and Joshua Winicki. "Food for Thought: The Effects of School Accountability Plans on School Nutrition." NBER Working Paper No.w9319. Abstract: School accountability systems based on high-stakes testing of students have become ubiquitous in the United States, and are now federal policy as well. This paper identifies a previously-unresearched method through which schools faced with potential sanctions may 'game the system' in order to have higher aggregate student test scores than might otherwise be warranted. There exists a well-established link between nutrition and short-term cognitive functioning. Hence, we investigate whether school districts exploit this relationship by strategically altering school nutrition menus during testing periods in an apparent attempt to artificially increase student test scores. Using detailed daily school nutrition data from a random sample of Virginia school districts, we find that school districts having schools faced with potential sanctions under Virginia's Standards of Learning (SOL) accountability system apparently respond by substantially increasing calories in their menus on testing days, while those without such immediate pressure do not change their menus. Suggestive evidence indicates that the school districts who do this the most experience the largest increases in pass rates. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
McGarry, Kathleen. "Health and Retirement: Do Changes in Health Affect Retirement Expectations?" NBER Working Paper No.w9317. Abstract: The choice of a retirement date is one of the most important decisions facing older workers. It is a decision that will affect their economic well-being for the remainder of their lives. One of the factors that undoubtedly impacts this choice is the worker's health. However, the many studies examining the realtionship between health and retirement have failed to reach agreement on the relative importance of health in comparison to financial variables. Efforts to do so have been hampered by the difficulty of correctly measuring health status. Much of the concern centers on the fear that subjective reports of health are biased by individuals using poor health as a justification for early retirement. This paper takes advantage of a unique measure of labor force attachment, the subjective probability of continued work, to re-examine the role of health and changes in health status By focusing exclusively on workers I eliminate the concern about justification bias among retired individuals and find that subjective reports of health do have important effects on retirement, effects that are arguably stronger than those of the financial variables. The effects of subjective health remain large even when more objective measures of health, such as disease conditions, are included in the model. I also find that changes in retirement expectations are driven to a much greater degree by changes in health than by changes in income or wealth. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Charles, Kerwin Kofi and Erik Hurst. "The Correlation of Welath Across Generations." NBER Working Paper No.w9314. Abstract: This paper examines the similarity in wealth between parents and their children, and explores alternative explanations for this relationship. We find that the age-adjusted elasticity of child wealth with respect to parental wealth is 0.37, before the transfer of bequests. Lifetime income and ownership of particular assets, both of which exhibit strong intergeneration similarity, jointly explain nearly two-thirds of the wealth elasticity. Education, past parental transfers, and expected future bequests account for little of the remaining elasticity. Using new experimental evidence, we assess the importance of risk tolerance. The risk tolerance measures vary as theory would predict with the ownership of risky assets, and are highly correlated between parents and children. However, they explain little of the intergenerational correlation in the propensity to own different assets, suggesting that children's savings propensities are determined by mimicking their parents' behavior, or the inheritance of preferences not related to risk tolerance. Additionally, these risk tolerance measures explain only a small part of the remaining intergenerational wealth elasticity. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Borjas, George J. "The Wage Structure and the Sorting of Workers into the Public Sector." NBER Working Paper No.w9313. Abstract: This paper uses data from the U.S. Decennial Census and the Current Population Surveys to document the differential shifts that occurred in the wage structures of the public and privatesectors between 1960 and 2000. The wage gap between the typical public sector worker and a comparable private sector worker was relatively constant for men during this period, but declined substantially for women. Equally important, wage dispersion in the public sector was increasing relative to wage dispersion in the private sector prior to 1970, at the time when public sector employment was rising rapidly. Since 1970, however, there has been a significant relative compression of the wage distribution in the public sector. The different evolutions of the wage structures in the two sectors are an important determinant of the sorting of workers across sectors. As a result of the relative wage compression, the public sector found it increasingly more difficult to attract and retain high-skill workers. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Black, Sandra E. and Amir Sufi. "Who Goes to College? Differential Enrollment by Race and Family Background." NBER Working Paper No.w9310. Abstract: While trends in college enrollment for blacks and whites have been the subject of study for a number of years, little attention has been paid to the variation in college enrollment by socioeconomic status (SES). It is well documented that, controlling for family background, blacks are more likely to enroll in college than whites. This relationship is somewhat deceptive, however. Upon closer examination, we find that blacks are more likely to enroll in college than their white counterparts only among low-SES individuals. Among high SES individuals, this pattern is reversed. We also find that this relationship is strongest in the 1970s and appears to disappear over time; by the 1990s, blacks are no more likely to attend college than whites at any end of the SES distribution. This paper first documents this phenomenon and then attempts to understand what is driving these differences across the distribution of family background characteristics and why the relationship is changing over time. Although they have a significant impact on college enrollment behavior, tuition costs and local labor markets explain very little of racial differences in college entry. We do uncover different responses to tuition and labor markets by individuals from different ends of the SES distribution, an important consideration for policies targeted at improving college enrollment for low-SES individuals. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Shapiro, Matthew D. and Joel Slemrod. "Did the 2001 Tax Rebate Stimulate Spending? Evidence from Taxpayer Surveys." NBER Working Paper No.w9308. Abstract: In 2001, many households received rebate checks as advanced payments of the benefit of the new, 10 percent federal income tax bracket. A survey conducted at the time the rebates were mailed finds that few households said that the rebate led them mostly to increase spending. A follow-up survey in 2002, as well as a similar survey conducted after the attacks of 9/11, also indicates low spending rates. This paper investigates the robustness of these survey responses and assesses whether such surveys are useful for policy evaluation. It also draws lessons from the surveys for macroeconomic analysis of the tax rebate. http://www.nber.org/new.html#latest
Lim, Nelson. "Friends or Foes?: Immigrant Competition Hypothesis Revisited." 02-11. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Lim, Nelson. "Who Has More Soft-skills?: Employers' Subjective Ratings of Work Qualities of Racial and Ethnic Groups." 02-10. Abstract: Recently, researchers of urban inequalities documented a racial and ethnic hierarchy embedded in employers’ minds, with results from existing qualitative studies being quite consistent. This paper aims to replicate these findings using data from a sample of 1069 employers from four major urban regions: New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. The results from the quantitative analyses coincide with previous findings of a racial and ethnic hierarchy existing, and suggest that structural factors—regions, organizational diversity, size, and formality—are more important in explaining employers’ ratings than their ascribed characteristics. Conclusions include the study’s weaknesses and directions for future research. http://www.rand.org/labor/dru.html
Smeeding, Timothy M. "Globalization, Inequality, and the Rich Countries of the G-20: Evidence from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS)." CPR Working Paper Series No. 48. Executive Summary: The purpose of this study is to summarize and comment upon what we know about the determinants of both the level and trend in economic inequality over the past two decades, and to relate these findings to the progress of globalization in these nations. While the fruits of economic progress in rich nations have not been equally spread, we argue that most citizens in rich Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations have benefited from the trend toward global economic progress. We begin with a summary of the differences in overall economic inequality within the G-20 nations based on LIS (Luxembourg Income Study) data and recent work by others. Here we find that social policies, wage distributions, time worked, social and labor market institutions and demographic differences all have some influence on why there are large differences in inequality among rich nations at any point in time. In contrast, trade policy has not been shown to have any major impact on economic inequality. Next, we turn to trends in inequality. We find modest and sometimes dissimilar changes in the distribution of income have taken place within most advanced nations, with most finding a higher level of inequality in the mid-to-late 1990s than in the 1980s. Inequality, however, has not risen markedly in some nations (e.g., Denmark, Germany, France, and Canada) over this period, while its rise has slowed in several other nations during the late 1990s. The explanations for rising inequality in rich countries are many, and no one single set of explanations is ultimately convincing. In particular, there is no evidence that we know of that trade and globalization is bad for rich countries. This suggests that rising economic inequality is not inevitable, or that it necessarily hurts low skill-low income families. Rather it suggests that globalization does not force any single outcome on any country. Domestic policies and institutions still have large effects on the level and trend of inequality within rich and middle-income nations, even in a globalizing world economy. http://www-cpr.maxwell.syr.edu/cprwps/wpslst.htm
VanLandingham, Mark, Wassana Im-em, and Chanpen Saengtienchai. "Community Reaction to Persons with HIV/AIDS and their Parents in Thailand." PSC Research Report 02-530. Abstract: We systematically explore community reaction to persons with HIV/AIDS (PHAs) and their families in Thailand from a variety of perspectives and using a variety of data sources. We explore these community reactions during the time of the PHAs' illness and after their deaths. Quantitative data sources include a survey of young adult PHAs (n=425); a survey of parents who suffered the death of an adult child to AIDS (n=394 cases); a KAP study of AIDS that includes both older and young adults (n=1174); and quantitative data from local key informants about cases in their area (n=286 cases). Qualitative sources include 18 in-depth interviews of parents who lost an adult child to AIDS; 49 in-depth interviews of village health volunteers; 6 focus group discussions of community health officials; and 6 group interviews with community hospital nurses. Data were collected during 1999 - 2001 from a variety of settings throughout Thailand. We find community reaction to PHAs and their families to be somewhat variable across cases, social group, and type of observer, but overall much more positive than one might conclude from existing research on the topic. The overwhelming majority of key informant reports on communities and affected families, and parents of PHAs report either a generally positive community response or a neutral one. Results from our sample of PHAs, who are recruited from PHA support groups, are more mixed. For that minority who were treated poorly, it is suggested by at least some of our data sources that being male, living in the city, living in an area without an NGO working on AIDS, being described as having problematic character, or being at either extreme of the socioeconomic spectrum may elevate the risk of experiencing negative community reaction. Research and policy implications of the findings are discussed. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/search-results.shtml?query=seriesList&seriesCode=rr
Friedman, Jed, John Knodel, Bui The Cuong, and Truong Si Anh. "Gender and Intergenerational Exchange in Vietnam." PSC Research Report 02-529. Abstract: Although both women and the elderly are assumed to be disadvantaged in much of the world, systematic empirically based studies of interactions between gender and aging are rare. We examine the gender dimensions of elderly support and economic well-being in Vietnam based on data from the 1999 3% census sample and two regional surveys of the elderly conducted in 1996 and 1997. The study incorporates both descriptive and multivariate analysis of sources of support including work, non-familial support, and especially familial support through intergenerational exchange, the most import source for most elderly Vietnamese. We consider the gender of both the recipient and provider of support. Vietnam provides a particularly interesting context for the study given substantial regional cultural differences in the extent of the patriarchal/patrilineal family systems. These differences are most readily apparent in the wide regional variation in preferences of elderly to reside with married sons rather than married daughters. The receipt of intergenerational transfers, the most important form of elderly support in Vietnam shows little significant variation across gender once the mediating effect of marital status differences is taken into account. In addition, gender differences in economic well-being, as measured by an index of household wealth and through self-perceptions of economic satisfaction, are very modest once other factors, most notably marital status and age, that are correlated both with gender and the receipt of familial and non-familial support are taken into account. http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/search-results.shtml?query=seriesList&seriesCode=rr
Gyimah, Stephen Obeng. "Ethnicity and infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: The case of Ghana." Discussion Paper 02-10. http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/sociology/popstudies/dp2002.html
Deininger, Klaus and Songqing Jin. "The Impact of Property Rights on Households’ Investment, Risk Coping, and Policy Preferences: Evidence from China." Working Paper No. 2931. Abstract: Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support. Data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others, suggest that greater tenure security, especially if combined with transferability of land, had a positive impact on agricultural investment and, within the time frame considered, led neither to an increase in inequality of land distribution nor a reduction in households’ ability to cope with exogenous shocks. Household support for more secure property rights is increased by their access to other insurance mechanisms, suggesting some role of land as a safety net. At the same time, past exposure to this type of land right has a much larger impact quantitatively, suggesting that a large part of the resistance to changed property rights arrangements disappears as household familiarity with such rights increases. This paper—a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of land market policy. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
Deininger, Klaus and Songqing Jin. "Land Rental Markets as an Alternative to Government Reallocation? Equity and Efficiency Considerations in the Chinese Land Tenure System." Working Paper No. 2930. Abstract: Deininger and Jin develop a model of land leasing with agents characterized by unobserved heterogeneity in ability and presence of an off-farm labor market. In this case, decentralized land rental may contribute to equity and efficiency goals and may have several advantages over administrative reallocation. The extent to which this is true empirically is explored using data from three of China’s poorest provinces. The authors find that both processes redistribute land to those with lower endowments but that land rental markets are more effective in doing so and also have a larger productivity-enhancing effect than administrative reallocation, implying that more active land rental markets would allow producers to realize significant productivity gains. At the same time, the presence of a large number of producers whose participation in rental markets remains constrained suggests that efforts to reduce transaction costs in land rental markets would be warranted. This paper—a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group—is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of policy on land markets. http://econ.worldbank.org/resource.php?type=5
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and Ecology Information Services
Rm. 4471 Social Science Building
1180
Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1393 USA
Email: jbunke@ssc.wisc.edu