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Liam Delaney: New Blog

2011-04-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Liam Delaney: New Blog: "I will be posting on this blog for the near future. I am mostly inept at technology and design but I really enjoy sharing links and discussi..."

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-03-06

2010-03-08T06:34:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	Universidad de la República
Issue date:	2010-03-06
Papers:	5

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Trade Liberalization, Inequality and Poverty in Brazilian States
Marta Castilho; Marta Menéndez; Aude Sztulman
The Impact of International Trade Flows on the Growth of Brazilian States
Marie Daumal; Selin Ozyurt
SMEs and Regional Economic Growth in Brazil
Túlio A. Cravo; Adrian Gourlay; Bettina Becker
Does Conflict Disrupt Growth? Evidence of the Relationship between Political Instability and National Economic Performance
Polachek, Solomon; Sevastianova, Daria
Effects of Reserve Requirements in an Inflation Targeting Regime: The Case of Colombia
Hernando Vargas Herrera; Carlos Varela; Yanneth R. Betancourt; Norberto Rodríguez

Contents.

Trade Liberalization, Inequality and Poverty in Brazilian States

Date:	2009-12
By:	Marta Castilho (Universidade Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Marta Menéndez (Université Paris-Dauphine, LEDa-DIAL, Paris - Paris School of Economics) Aude Sztulman (Université Paris-Dauphine, LEDa-DIAL, Paris)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt201002&r=lam
This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization and international trade on household income inequality and poverty using detailed micro-data across Brazilian states, from 1987 to 2005. Results suggest that Brazilian states that were more exposed to tariff cuts experienced smaller reductions in household poverty and inequality. If significance of results on Brazilian states depends on the choice of poverty and inequality indicators, robust and contrasting results emerge when we disaggregate into rural and urban areas within states. Trade liberalization contributes to poverty and inequality increases in urban areas and may be linked to inequality declines in rural areas (no significant effect is found for rural poverty). In terms of observed integration to world markets, import penetration plays a similar role as trade liberalization for Brazilian states as a whole. On the contrary, rising export exposure appears to have significantly reduced both measures of household welfare. _________________________________ Cet article étudie l’impact de la libéralisation commerciale et du commerce international sur les inégalités de revenu et le niveau de pauvreté des ménages au sein des états brésiliens, à partir de données individuelles sur la période 1987-2005. D’après l’étude économétrique, les états brésiliens, davantage touchés par la libéralisation commerciale, ont connu de plus faibles réductions des inégalités ou de la pauvreté. Pour les états brésiliens dans leur ensemble, la significativité des résultats dépend du choix des indicateurs de pauvreté et d’inégalité mais, dès lors que l’on distingue les zones rurales et urbaines au sein des états, les effets sont robustes et contrastés. En zone urbaine, la libéralisation commerciale aurait contribué à accroître les niveaux de pauvreté et d’inégalité, tandis qu’elle entraînerait une diminution des inégalités en zone rurale (aucun impact significatif n’est observé sur la pauvreté rurale). En termes d’insertion des états brésiliens dans le commerce international, une hausse du taux de pénétration des importations joue dans le même sens que la libéralisation commerciale. Mais la propension à exporter d’un état contribuerait à réduire tant la pauvreté que les inégalités de revenu.
Keywords:	Trade liberalization, poverty and inequality; Brazilian states, Libéralisation commerciale, pauvreté et inégalités, états brésiliens.
JEL:	D31

The Impact of International Trade Flows on the Growth of Brazilian States

Date:	2010-01
By:	Marie Daumal (Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Université Paris-Dauphine, LEDa, UMR DIAL) Selin Ozyurt (Université Paris-Dauphine)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dia:wpaper:dt201001&r=lam
The aim of this paper is to explore the impact of Brazil’s trade openness on regional inequalities by estimating the effect of international trade flows on growth of Brazilian states, depending on their income level. For this purpose, we run dynamic growth regressions, using the system GMM estimator, on a panel data set including 26 Brazilian states for the 1989 - 2002 period. Growth rates of Brazilian states are regressed on control variables and on Brazilian states’ trade openness variables. All variables vary across both states and year. The results indicate that trade openness benefits more the Brazilian states with higher levels of per capita income, thereby tending to increase regional inequalities in Brazil. Besides, we find that trade openness advantages more the states with a good level of human capital as well as the industrialized states rather than the states whose main activity is agriculture. The problem that this study reveals is that international trade seems to provide additional advantages to already well developed Brazilian states while one of the priorities of the Brazilian federal government is to achieve a better territorial balance in Brazil. _________________________________ Ce travail a pour objectif d’estimer l’impact des flux de commerce international sur la croissance des Etats brésiliens. A l’aide de l’estimateur GMM, le taux de croissance des Etats brésiliens est régressé sur divers déterminants de la croissance et sur leur taux d’ouverture commerciale. La base de données en panel contient les 26 Etats brésiliens sur la période 1989 - 2002. Les estimations de l’équation de croissance montrent que les flux de commerce international des Etats favorisent davantage la croissance des Etats riches que celle des Etats les moins développés. Nous montrons également qu’il existe au Brésil une convergence conditionnelle. Les Etats pauvres ont un taux de croissance plus élevé que les Etats riches mais il semble que leurs états stationnaires soient très différents les uns des autres, ce qui nous amène à penser que les inégalités régionales resteront importantes dans l’avenir.
Keywords:	International trade, growth equation, GMM estimator, Brazilian states, Commerce international, équation de croissance, estimateur GMM, Etats brésiliens.
JEL:	F43

SMEs and Regional Economic Growth in Brazil

Date:	2010-01
By:	Túlio A. Cravo (Dept of Economics, Loughborough University) Adrian Gourlay (Dept of Economics, Loughborough University) Bettina Becker (Dept of Economics, Loughborough University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lbo:lbowps:2010_01&r=lam
This paper examines the relationship between the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector and economic growth for an annual panel of Brazilian states for the period 1985-2004. We investigate the importance of the relative size of the SME sector measured by the share of the SME employment in total formal employment and the level of human capital in SMEs measured by the average years of schooling of SME employees. The empirical results indicate that the relative importance of SMEs is negatively correlated with economic growth, a result that is consistent with previous studies examining developing countries. In addition, our results also show that human capital embodied in SMEs may be more important for economic growth than the relative size of the SME sector.
Keywords:	Firm size, market structure, economic growth, human capital.
JEL:	O1

Does Conflict Disrupt Growth? Evidence of the Relationship between Political Instability and National Economic Performance

Date:	2010-02
By:	Polachek, Solomon (Binghamton University, New York) Sevastianova, Daria (University of Southern Indiana)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4762&r=lam
Current empirical growth models limit the determinants of country growth to geographic, economic, and institutional variables. This study draws on conflict variables from the Correlates of War (COW) project to ask a critical question: How do different types of conflict affect country growth rates? It finds that wars slow the economy. Estimates indicate that civil war reduces annual growth by .01 to .13 percentage points, and high-intensity interstate conflict reduces annual growth by .18 to 2.77 percentage points. On the other hand, low-intensity conflict slows growth much less than high-intensity conflict, and may slightly increase it. The detrimental effect of conflict on growth is intensified when examining non-democracies, low income countries, and countries in Africa.
Keywords:	war, economic growth, conflict
JEL:	C2

Effects of Reserve Requirements in an Inflation Targeting Regime: The Case of Colombia

Date:	2010-02-11
By:	Hernando Vargas Herrera Carlos Varela Yanneth R. Betancourt Norberto Rodríguez
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000094:006710&r=lam
The Colombian economy and financial system have coped reasonably well with the effects of the global financial crisis. Hence, “unconventional” policy measures have not been at the center of the policy decisions and discussions. Nominal short term interest rates have remained the main monetary policy tool and “Quantitative easing” measures have not been central in the policy response. The one “unconventional” monetary instrument used by the Central Bank in Colombia has been changes in reserve requirements (RR) on financial system deposits. Interestingly, they were adopted before the global financial crisis, as a reaction to domestic credit conditions. The effects of RR on interest rate and interest rate pass-through in an inflation targeting regime are not as straightforward as those under a monetary targeting regime. Conceptually, those effects depend on the degree of substitution between deposits and central bank credit as sources of funds for banks and on the extent to which RR changes affect the risks facing banks. The empirical results for Colombia suggest that RR are important long run determinants of business loan interest rates and have been effective in strengthening the pass-through from policy to deposit and lending interest rates.

This nep–lam issue is ©2010 by Maximo Rossi. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, it must include this copyright notice. It may not be sold, or placed in something else for sale.

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

_______________________________________________
nep-lam mailing list
nep-lam@lists.repec.org
http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-lam

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-03-06

2010-03-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	University of the Republic
Issue date:	2010-03-06
Papers:	8

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Social network theory and analysis: a preliminary exploration. CHERE Working Paper 2009/5
Marion Haas
Obesity and Happiness
Marina-Selini Katsaiti
Slip Sliding Away: Further Union Decline in Germany and Britain
Addison, John T.; Bryson, Alex; Teixeira, Paulino; Pahnke, André
The Political Economy of Intergenerational Income Mobility
Ichino, Andrea; Karabarbounis, Loukas; Moretti, Enrico
Measuring What Employers Really Do about Entry Wages over the Business Cycle
Martins, Pedro S.; Solon, Gary; Thomas, Jonathan P.
Policies to Create and Destroy Human Capital in Europe
James J. Heckman; Bas Jacobs
Family Values and the Regulation of Labor
Alberto F. Alesina; Yann Algan; Pierre Cahuc; Paola Giuliano
A Shred of Credible Evidence on the Long Run Elasticity of Labor Supply
Orley C. Ashenfelter; Kirk B. Doran; Bruce Schaller

Contents.

Social network theory and analysis: a preliminary exploration. CHERE Working Paper 2009/5

Date:	2009-10
By:	Marion Haas (CHERE, University of Technology, Sydney)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:her:chewps:2009/5&r=ltv
The rationale for addressing the issue of social networks and social network analysis in the context of health policy is to investigate the extent to which these theoretical and analytical paradigms represent feasible and useful tools to evaluate the effectiveness of strategies aimed at increasing the likelihood that policy makers will use evidence from research in formulating health and health services policy. In this context, the investigation of social network theory and analysis is informed by the needs of the Sax Institute, which is a coalition of University and research groups undertaking public health and health services research in NSW. The aim of the Institute is to build partnerships between researchers and health policy and service delivery agencies and, through these partnerships, develop research assets and programs and support researchers to enable and strengthen policy and practice focused research. Although the final outcome of interest is the formulation of evidence-informed policy (and, by inference, its implementation and the subsequent improvement in outcomes such as enhanced health services delivery and/or improved health status of those affected by the policy), it is unlikely that a direct link between the research evidence used, the formulation of policy, its implementation and any outcomes will be able to be observed within the limited resources available to the Sax Institute. Therefore, for the purposes of this paper, policy formulation and implementation will be treated as processes, and their link to health services and patient/population health status will be assumed. The paper will focus on the use of social networks in encouraging or enhancing links between the research evidence and policy formulation aspects of the process and the feasibility of using social network analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of such links. In particular, the issue of researcher-policy maker interaction will be dealt with, in terms of the extent to which a social network is likely to encourage such interactions and the extent to which interactions, in turn, facilitate the development of evidence-informed policy. The paper is structured as followsa: social networks and social network analysis are described in section 2, including a brief explanation of the theoretical underpinnings of the constructs. Section 3 covers some literature describing how networks have been used to link researchers and policy makers (research policy networks) and any evaluations of such networks. Section 4 will repeat this exercise with examples from the literature of health research policy networks (or similar) and will focus on the extent to which networks are likely to be effective in the context of policy relating to health and health services, and, if they are, what might be the characteristics required for a network to be successful. In turn, this will allow some consideration of how the effectiveness of a network could be evaluated. The final section (section 5) will draw some conclusions from the preceding sections and raise some issues for the Sax Institute to consider.
Keywords:	Social network theory, Australia
JEL:	I10

Obesity and Happiness

Date:	2010
By:	Marina-Selini Katsaiti
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp270&r=ltv
This paper provides insight on the relationship between obesity and happiness. Using the latest available cross sectional data from Germany (GSOEP 2006), UK (BHPS 2005), and Australia (HILDA 2007). We examine whether there is evidence on the impact of overweight on subjective well being. The Hausman test is employed in the univariate and multivariate specifications chosen and reveals evidence for the presence of endogeneity in the German and the Australian data. Instrumental variable analysis is performed under the presence of endogeneity whereas for the UK we run OLS regressions. Results indicate that in all three countries obesity has a negative and significant effect on the subjective well being of individuals. For Germany, using a differences-in-differences methodology, I find that non-overweight/non-obese individuals are on average 0.5 units happier than their overweight/obese counterparts. Our findings also have important implications for the effect of other socio-demographic, economic and individual characteristics on well being.
Keywords:	Happiness, obesity, instrumental variable analysis, subjective well-being
JEL:	D60

Slip Sliding Away: Further Union Decline in Germany and Britain

Date:	2010-02
By:	Addison, John T. (University of South Carolina) Bryson, Alex (National Institute of Economic and Social Research) Teixeira, Paulino (University of Coimbra) Pahnke, André (IAB, Nürnberg)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4760&r=ltv
This paper presents the first comparative analysis of the decline in collective bargaining in two European countries where that decline has been most pronounced. Using workplace-level data and a common model, we present decompositions of changes in collective bargaining and worker representation in the private sector in Germany and Britain over the period 1998-2004. In both countries within-effects dominate compositional changes as the source of the recent decline in unionism. Overall, the decline in collective bargaining is more pronounced in Britain than in Germany, thus continuing a trend apparent since the 1980s. Although workplace characteristics differ markedly across the two countries, assuming counterfactual values of these characteristics makes little difference to unionization levels. Expressed differently, the German dummy looms large.
Keywords:	behavioral and composition effects, patterns of erosion, worker representation, union coverage, union recognition, shift share analysis
JEL:	J50

The Political Economy of Intergenerational Income Mobility

Date:	2010-02
By:	Ichino, Andrea (University of Bologna) Karabarbounis, Loukas (Harvard University) Moretti, Enrico (University of California, Berkeley)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4767&r=ltv
The intergenerational elasticity of income is considered one of the best measures of the degree to which a society gives equal opportunity to its members. While much research has been devoted to measuring this reduced-form parameter, less is known about its underlying structural determinants. Using a model with exogenous talent endowments, endogenous parental investment in children and endogenous redistributive institutions, we identify the structural parameters that govern the intergenerational elasticity of income. The model clarifies how the interaction between private and collective decisions determines the equilibrium level of social mobility. Two societies with similar economic and biological fundamentals may have vastly different degrees of intergenerational mobility depending on their political institutions. We offer empirical evidence in line with the predictions of the model. We conclude that international comparisons of intergenerational elasticity of income are not particularly informative about fairness without taking into account differences in politico-economic institutions.
Keywords:	intergenerational mobility, public education, political institutions
JEL:	E24

Measuring What Employers Really Do about Entry Wages over the Business Cycle

Date:	2010-02
By:	Martins, Pedro S. (Queen Mary, University of London) Solon, Gary (Michigan State University) Thomas, Jonathan P. (University of Edinburgh)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4757&r=ltv
In models recently published by several influential macroeconomic theorists, rigidity in the real wages that firms pay newly hired workers plays a crucial role in generating realistically large cyclical fluctuations in unemployment. There is remarkably little evidence, however, on whether employers' hiring wages really are invariant to business cycle conditions. We review the small empirical literature and show that the methods used thus far are poorly suited for identifying employers’ wage practices. We propose a simpler and more relevant approach – use matched employer/employee longitudinal data to identify entry jobs and then directly track the cyclical variation in the real wages paid to workers newly hired into those jobs. We illustrate the methodology by applying it to data from an annual census of employers in Portugal over the period 1982-2007. We find that real entry wages in Portugal over this period tend to be about 1.8 percent higher when the unemployment rate is one percentage point lower. Like most recent evidence on other aspects of wage cyclicality, our results suggest that the cyclical elasticity of wages is similar to that of employment.
Keywords:	real wage cyclicality, entry wages, matched employer-employee data
JEL:	E24

Policies to Create and Destroy Human Capital in Europe

Date:	2010-02
By:	James J. Heckman Bas Jacobs
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15742&r=ltv
Trends in skill bias and greater turbulence in modern labor markets put wages and employment prospects of unskilled workers under pressure. Weak incentives to utilize and maintain skills over the life-cycle become manifest with the ageing of the population. Policies to promote human capital formation reduce welfare state dependency among the unskilled and offset inefficiencies in human capital formation. Skill formation features strong dynamic complementarities over the life-cycle. Investments in the human capital of children have higher returns than investments in the human capital of older workers. There is no trade-off between equity and efficiency at early ages of human development but there is a substantial trade-off at later ages. Later remediation of skill deficits acquired in early years often does not meet the cost-benefit criterion. Positive returns to active labor market and training policies are doubtful. Skill formation is impaired when the returns to skill formation are low due to low skill use and insufficient skill maintenance later on in life. High marginal tax rates and generous benefit systems reduce labor force participation rates and hours worked and thereby lower the utilization rate of human capital. Tax-benefit systems redistribute resources from outsiders to insiders in labor markets, which can be both distortionary and inequitable. Actuarially fairer early retirement and pension schemes reduce the incentives to retire early and strengthen incentives for human capital investment by increasing the time-horizon over which returns to human capital are harvested.
JEL:	H2

Family Values and the Regulation of Labor

Date:	2010-02
By:	Alberto F. Alesina Yann Algan Pierre Cahuc Paola Giuliano
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15747&r=ltv
Flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers to be efficient. Otherwise, firms can take advantage of the immobility of workers and extract monopsony rents. In cultures with strong family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets to avoid moving and limiting the monopsony power of firms, even though regulation generates lower employment and income. Empirically, we do find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages, are less often employed and support more stringent labor market regulations. There are also positive cross-country correlations between the strength of family ties and labor market rigidities. Finally, we find positive correlations between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the twenty first century and family values prevailing before World War II, which suggests that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots.
JEL:	J2

A Shred of Credible Evidence on the Long Run Elasticity of Labor Supply

Date:	2010-02
By:	Orley C. Ashenfelter Kirk B. Doran Bruce Schaller
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15746&r=ltv
Virtually all public policies regarding taxation and the redistribution of income rely on explicit or implicit assumptions about the long run effect of wages rates on labor supply. The available estimates of the wage elasticity of male labor supply in the literature have varied between -0.2 and 0.2, implying that permanent wage increases have relatively small, poorly determined effects on labor supplied. The variation in existing estimates calls for a simple, natural experiment in which men can change their hours of work, and in which wages have been exogenously and permanently changed. We introduce a panel data set of taxi drivers who choose their own hours, and who experienced two exogenous permanent fare increases instituted by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, and we use these data to fit a simple structural labor supply function. Our estimates suggest that the elasticity of labor supply is about -0.2, implying that income effects dominate substitution effects in the long run labor supply of males.
JEL:	H31

This nep–ltv issue is ©2010 by Maximo Rossi. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, it must include this copyright notice. It may not be sold, or placed in something else for sale.

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

_______________________________________________
nep-ltv mailing list
nep-ltv@lists.repec.org
http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-ltv

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-27

2010-03-04T06:45:00.001-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-27

March 4, 2010 by maximorossi

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

Edited by: Maximo Rossi
Universidad de la Republica

Issue date: 2010-02-27
Papers: 3
Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.
In this issue we have:

Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development
Jeremy Greenwood; Juan M. Sanchez; Cheng Wang

Innovation, Productivity and Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean
Christian Daude

The economics of growth.
Aghion, P.; Howitt, P.
Contents.

Quantifying the Impact of Financial Development on Economic Development
Date: 2010-02
By: Jeremy Greenwood (University of Pennsylvania)
Juan M. Sanchez (Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond)
Cheng Wang (Iowa State University and Fudan University)
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eag:rereps:17&r=lam
How important is financial development for economic development? A costly-state verification model of financial intermediation is presented to address this question. The model is calibrated to match facts about the U.S. economy, such as intermediation spreads and the firm-size distribution for the years 1974 and 2000. The calibrated model is then used to study cross-country data, using international data on interest-rate spreads. The analysis suggests a country like Uganda could increase its output by 140 to 180% if it could adopt the world’s best practice in the financial sector. Still, this amounts to only 34 to 40% of the gap between Uganda’s potential and actual output.
Keywords: costly-state verification, economic development, financial intermediation, firm-size distribution, interest-rate spreads, cross-country output differences, cross-country TFP differences
JEL: E13

Innovation, Productivity and Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean
Date: 2010-02
By: Christian Daude
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:devaaa:288-en&r=lam
GDP per capita in Latin America has been falling behind high-income countries and other benchmarks for decades and the region’s mediocre growth performance is one of the main reasons why poverty reduction, and living standards more generally, in the region is well below that observed in peer countries. In this paper, we explore some of the potential roots of this poor performance by using development accounting techniques. The results point towards total factor productivity as the main culprit for the region’s lack of convergence. In order to investigate what causes the lack of productivity catch-up, we analyse the determinants of technology diffusion, in particular of internet and mobile phone technologies. The empirical results show that institutions, absorption capacity (human capital), and financial constraints are the main explanatory variables of the diffusion gaps in these technologies between the OECD and Latin America. We also explore the performance of the region in terms of health outcomes, reflected in the evolution of life expectancy, and the specific role played by technological innovation and adoption. Finally, a calibration exercise of an endogenous growth model allows us to assess the extent to which the region’s per capita income gap is due to problems in factor accumulation or distortions that reduce the incentives to innovate; the results point to very different situations across countries in the region. While for some countries we find evidence of ‚innovation shortfalls?, other countries’ problems concentrate around low factor accumulation.
En Amérique latine, le PIB par habitant n’a eu de cesse depuis plusieurs décennies de reculer par rapport à celui des pays à hauts revenus et d’autres pays de références. Les mauvaises performances de la région en terme de croissance sont l’une des principales raisons pour lesquelles la réduction de la pauvreté, et de façon générale le niveau de vie, sont bien plus faibles que ceux observés dans les pays. Dans cet article, nous explorons certaines des raisons potentielles de cette mauvaise performance à l’aide de techniques comptables de développement. Les résultats tendent à montrer que la principale cause de l’absence de convergence de la région est la productivité totale des facteurs. Afin de rechercher pourquoi ces pays n’ont pas comblé leur retard de productivité, nous analysons les déterminants des technologies de diffusion, et en particulier internet et les technologies de téléphonie mobile. Les résultats empiriques montrent que les institutions, la capacité d’absorption (capital humain) et les contraintes financières sont les principales variables explicatives de l’écart qui existe entre les pays de l’OCDE et ceux de l’Amérique latine concernant la diffusion de ces technologies. Nous explorons également la performance de la région en matière de santé, mesurée par l’évolution de l’espérance de vie, et le rôle spécifique joué par l’innovation et l’adoption technologique. Finalement, un exercice de calibrage d’un modèle de croissance endogène nous permet d’évaluer jusqu’à quel point la différence de revenu par tête au sein de la région est due à des problèmes d’allocation des facteurs ou à des distorsions qui diminuent les incitations à innover. Les résultats varient fortement d’un pays à l’autre au sein de la région. Si pour certains pays nous mettons en évidence un « manque d’innovation », pour d’autres, la faible accumulation de facteurs demeure le principal problème.
Keywords: economic growth, innovation, Latin America, total factor productivity, croissance économique, innovation, Amérique latine, productivité totale des facteurs
JEL: O10

The economics of growth.
Date: 2009-01
By: Aghion, P.
Howitt, P.
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/17829/&r=lam
This comprehensive introduction to economic growth presents the main facts and puzzles about growth, proposes simple methods and models needed to explain these facts, acquaints the reader with the most recent theoretical and empirical developments, and provides tools with which to analyze policy design. The treatment of growth theory is fully accessible to students with a background no more advanced than elementary calculus and probability theory; the reader need not master all the subtleties of dynamic programming and stochastic processes to learn what is essential about such issues as cross-country convergence, the effects of financial development on growth, and the consequences of globalization. The book, which grew out of courses taught by the authors at Harvard and Brown universities, can be used both by advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and as a reference for professional economists in government or international financial organizations.
This nep–lam issue is ©2010 by Maximo Rossi. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, it must include this copyright notice. It may not be sold, or placed in something else for sale.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at .

_______________________________________________
nep-lam mailing list
nep-lam@lists.repec.org

http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-lam

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-27

2010-03-03T04:58:00.001-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

Edited by: Maximo Rossi
Universidad de la República
Issue date: 2010-02-27
Papers: 8
Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.
In this issue we have:

A Detailed Decomposition of Changes in Wage Inequality in Reunified Post-Transition Germany 1999-2006: Accounting for Sample Selection
Usamah Al-farhan

Women between Part-Time and Full-Time Work: The Influence of Changing Hours of Work on Happiness and Life-Satisfaction
Vanessa Gash; Antje Mertens; Laura Romeu Gordo

Rates of Return to University Education: The Regression Discontinuity Design
Fan, Elliott; Meng, Xin; Wei, Zhichao; Zhao, Guochang

Family Values and the Regulation of Labor
Alesina, Alberto; Algan, Yann; Cahuc, Pierre; Giuliano, Paola

Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach
Proto, Eugenio; Sgroi, Daniel; Oswald, Andrew J.

Transport Infrastructure and Poverty Infrastructure
Sununtar Setboonsarng

Drivers and barriers to educational success - evidence from the longitudinal study of young people in England.
Chowdry, H.; Crawford, C.; Goodman, A.

Genes, economics, and happiness
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve; James H. Fowler; Bruno S. Frey

Contents.

A Detailed Decomposition of Changes in Wage Inequality in Reunified Post-Transition Germany 1999-2006: Accounting for Sample Selection
Date: 2010
By: Usamah Al-farhan
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp269&r=ltv
In this article, I analyze the changes in wage inequality in the eastern region, western region and reunified Germany a decade after reunification. For that purpose, I use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel for the period 1999 – 2006, and implement the decomposition methodologies of Fields (2003) and Yun (2006). I find that during the sub-period 1999-2002 each of the characteristics effect, coefficient effect and residual
effect contributed to the increasing levels of wage inequality in Germany. On the other hand, the relative stability in wage inequality during the sub-period 2002-2006 was caused by the fact that the characteristics effect and the residual effect influenced wage inequality negatively, whereas the coefficient effect maintained a positive influence in both the western region, eastern region and in reunified Germany alike. Hence, I conclude that after 1999, changes in wage inequality in Germany can be explained by both; changes in workers characteristics and changes in the wage structure, and not by changes in the wage structure alone, as the case has been during the transition process in the first decade after reunification
Keywords: Wages, Inequality, Decomposition, Transition, Characteristics effect, Coefficient effect, Residual effect, Selection bias, Maximum Likelihood
JEL: D30

Women between Part-Time and Full-Time Work: The Influence of Changing Hours of Work on Happiness and Life-Satisfaction
Date: 2010
By: Vanessa Gash
Antje Mertens
Laura Romeu Gordo
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp268&r=ltv
This paper asks whether part-time work makes women happy. Previous research on labour supply has assumed that as workers freely choose their optimal working hours on the basis of their innate preferences and the hourly wage rate, outcome reflects preference. This paper tests this assumption by measuring the impact of changes in working-hours on life satisfaction in two countries (the UK and Germany using the German Socio-Economic Panel and the British Household Panel Survey). We find decreases in working-hours bring about positive and significant improvement on well-being for women.
Keywords: Temporary Employment, Unemployment, Health
JEL: J41

Rates of Return to University Education: The Regression Discontinuity Design
Date: 2010-02
By: Fan, Elliott (Australian National University)
Meng, Xin (Australian National University)
Wei, Zhichao (Brown University)
Zhao, Guochang (Australian National University)
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4749&r=ltv
Estimating the rate of return to a university degree has always been difficult due to the problem of omitted variable biases. Benefiting from a special feature of the University Admission system in China, which has clear cutoffs for university entry, combined with a unique data set with information on individual National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) scores, we estimate the Local Average Treatment Effects (LATE) of university education based on a Regression Discontinuity design. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to use RD design to estimate the causal effect of a university education on earnings. Our results show that the rates of return to 4-year university education relative to 3-year college education are 40 and 60 per cent for the compliers in the male and female samples, respectively, which are much larger than the simple OLS estimations revealed in previous literature. Since in our sample a large proportion of individuals are compliers (45 per cent for males and 48 per cent for females), the LATEs estimated in this paper have a relatively general implication. In addition, we find that the LATEs are likely to be larger than ATEs, suggesting that the inference drawn from average treatment effects might understate the true effects of the university expansion program introduced in China in 1999 and thereafter.
Keywords: rate of return to education, regression discontinuity design, China
JEL: I21

Family Values and the Regulation of Labor
Date: 2010-02
By: Alesina, Alberto (Harvard University)
Algan, Yann (Sciences Po, Paris)
Cahuc, Pierre (Ecole Polytechnique, Paris)
Giuliano, Paola (University of California, Los Angeles)
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4747&r=ltv
Flexible labor markets require geographically mobile workers to be efficient. Otherwise, firms can take advantage of the immobility of workers and extract monopsony rents. In cultures with strong family ties, moving away from home is costly. Thus, individuals with strong family ties rationally choose regulated labor markets to avoid moving and limiting the monopsony power of firms, even though regulation generates lower employment and income. Empirically, we do find that individuals who inherit stronger family ties are less mobile, have lower wages, are less often employed and support more stringent labor market regulations. There are also positive cross-country correlations between the strength of family ties and labor market rigidities. Finally, we find positive correlations between labor market rigidities at the beginning of the twenty first century and family values prevailing before World War II, which suggests that labor market regulations have deep cultural roots.
Keywords: family values, labor regulation
JEL: E0

Are Happiness and Productivity Lower among University Students with Newly-Divorced Parents? An Experimental Approach
Date: 2010-02
By: Proto, Eugenio (University of Warwick)
Sgroi, Daniel (University of Warwick)
Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick)
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4755&r=ltv
We live in a high-divorce age. It is now common for university faculty to have students who are touched by a recent divorce. It is likely that parents themselves worry about effects on their children. Yet there has been almost no formal research into the important issue of how recent parental-divorce affects students at university. This paper designs such a study. In it, to avoid 'priming', we measure students' happiness with life before we inquire into their family background. We also measure student achievement in a randomized-trial productivity task. Our results seem both of scientific interest and of potential interest to parents. This study finds no evidence that students suffer after parental divorce
Keywords: labor productivity, divorce, well-being, happiness, experimental economics
JEL: J24
Transport Infrastructure and Poverty Infrastructure
Date: 2010
By: Sununtar Setboonsarng
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ess:wpaper:id:2418&r=ltv
The main issues surrounding this concern and provides a range of policy, regulatory, and institutional measures that could help strengthen the impact of transport infrastructure on poverty reduction are summarized.
Keywords: institutional measures, policy, transport, infrastructure, gender dimensions, poverty reduction, investment, income, India, Thailand, rural, savings, developing countries

Drivers and barriers to educational success - evidence from the longitudinal study of young people in England.
Date: 2009-04-30
By: Chowdry, H.
Crawford, C.
Goodman, A.
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:ucllon:http://eprints.ucl.ac.uk/18314/&r=ltv
This study examined why young people from poor families have lower attainment in school, are more likely to become NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) after compulsory education, and are more likely to participate in a range of risky behaviours whilst teenagers. The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England is combined with school and neighbourhood information to document the links between lower socio-economic position and poorer outcomes: identifying the key factors amongst parental education and material resources; school and neighbourhood peer groups; and the attitudes and beliefs of young people and their parents that help sustain those links.

Genes, economics, and happiness
Date: 2010-02
By: Jan-Emmanuel De Neve
James H. Fowler
Bruno S. Frey
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:iewwpx:475&r=ltv
Research on happiness has produced valuable insights into the sources of subjective well-being. A major finding from this literature is that people exhibit a 'baseline' happiness that shows persistent strength over time, and twin studies have shown that genes play a significant role in explaining the variance of baseline happiness between individuals. However, these studies have not identified which genes might be involved. This article presents evidence of a specific gene that predicts subjective well-being. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we show that individuals with a transcriptionally more efficient version of the serotonin transporter gene (5HTT) are significantly more likely to report higher levels of life satisfaction. Having one or two alleles of the more efficient type raises the average likelihood of being very satisfied with one's life by 8.5% and 17.3%, respectively. This result may help to explain the stable component of happiness and suggests that genetic association studies can help us to better understand individual heterogeneity in subjective well- being.
Keywords: Happiness, subjective well-being, genetics
JEL: A12

This nep–ltv issue is ©2010 by Maximo Rossi. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, it must include this copyright notice. It may not be sold, or placed in something else for sale.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-13

2010-02-19T04:04:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	Universidad de la Republica
Issue date:	2010-02-13
Papers:	5

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Depósitos Em Moeda Estrangeira Como Hedge Para Investidores Brasileiros De Longo Prazo: Uma Aplicação Da Teoria Da Escolha Estratégica De Portfólio
Carlos Eduardo Meyer dos Santos; Marcos Antonio C. da Silveira
Real Gross Domestic Income, Relative Prices and Economic Performance Across the OECD
Macdonald, Ryan
Is Informality Bad? Evidence from Brazil, Mexico and South Africa
Bargain, Olivier; Kwenda, Prudence
Falling Kidnapping Rates and the Expansion of Mobile Phones in Colombia
Santiago Montenegro; Álvaro Pedraza
Collective Action forWatershed Management: Field Experiments in Colombia and Kenya
Juan Camilo Cárdenas; Luz Ángela Rodríguez; Nancy Johnson

Contents.

Depósitos Em Moeda Estrangeira Como Hedge Para Investidores Brasileiros De Longo Prazo: Uma Aplicação Da Teoria Da Escolha Estratégica De Portfólio

Date:	2010-01
By:	Carlos Eduardo Meyer dos Santos Marcos Antonio C. da Silveira
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipe:ipetds:1462&r=lam
O viés doméstico é observado na composição dos portfólios de diferentes classes de ativos financeiros. A literatura oferece argumentos conflitantes quanto à racionalidade deste comportamento no caso de portfólios investidos em títulos de curto prazo, usualmente denominados depósitos em moeda. No contexto de uma economia sujeita à forte volatilidade cambial, o pensamento convencional sugere que investidores conservadores devem concentrar estes depósitos em títulos domésticos. No entanto, estes instrumentos podem ser bastante arriscados para um investidor de longo prazo devido à incerteza quanto à taxa de juros de curto prazo vigente nos períodos futuros. Não menos importante, sob a hipótese da paridade descoberta de juros, pode ser ótimo para este investidor manter depósitos em moeda estrangeira como hedge intertemporal contra uma deterioração das oportunidades domésticas de investimento. Na raiz deste argumento está o fato de que o menor retorno esperado dos títulos domésticos, à medida que estimula a saída de capitais, é acompanhado pela depreciação real da moeda doméstica. Logo, depósitos em moeda estrangeira reduzem a volatilidade da riqueza futura, uma vez que o tamanho da riqueza corrente tende a aumentar quando seu retorno esperado diminui. Este trabalho avalia a eficiência dos depósitos em moeda estrangeira como hedge intertemporal para investidores brasileiros de longo prazo. A principal conclusão é que investidores razoavelmente conservadores devem manter parte significativa destes depósitos em dólares, libras e ienes. The home bias is observed in the composition of portfolios of different classes of financial assets. The literature offers conflicting arguments about the rationality of this behavior in the case of the portfolios invested in short-term securities, commonly known as currency deposits. In the context of an economy subject to strong volatility, the conventional wisdom suggests that conservative investors should concentrate these deposits on domestic bonds. However, these instruments can be very risky for a long-term investor due to uncertainty about the future short-term interest rate. Not least important, under the assumption of uncovered interest parity, it may be optimal for this investor to maintain foreign currency deposits as a hedge against a deterioration of the domestic investment opportunities. On the root of this argument is the fact that the lower expected return on domestic bonds, as it stimulates the outflow of capital, it is accompanied by real depreciation of the domestic currency. Therefore, the foreign currency deposits reduce the volatility of future wealth as the size of current wealth tends to increase when its expected return decreases. This work evaluates the effectiveness of the foreign currency deposits as an intertemporal hedge for Brazilian long-term investors. The main conclusion is that fairly conservative investors should allocate significant part of these deposits in dollars, pounds and ienes.

Real Gross Domestic Income, Relative Prices and Economic Performance Across the OECD

Date:	2010-01-28
By:	Macdonald, Ryan
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stc:stcp5e:2010059e&r=lam
This paper uses Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data to examine changes in labour productivity, real gross domestic product (GDP), real gross domestic income (GDI), economic aggregates and relative economic growth over time. Real GDI combines changes in production (real GDP), with a trading gain derived from relative price changes. The paper considers two sources of trading gains: the terms of trade and the real exchange rate. For OECD countries, the terms of trade is the more important price ratio, making a contribution to real income growth that is, on average, an order of magnitude larger than the real exchange rate. Over long time periods, the most important source of real income growth is changes in production. Over shorter time horizons, however, the trading gain can make noteworthy contributions. Changes in aggregates, like real private consumption or the relative economic performance of nations, are shown to be particularly dependent on the trading gain during the large swings in resource prices that occurred after 2002.
Keywords:	Economic accounts, Gross domestic product, Productivity accounts

Is Informality Bad? Evidence from Brazil, Mexico and South Africa

Date:	2010-01
By:	Bargain, Olivier (University College Dublin) Kwenda, Prudence (University College Dublin)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4711&r=lam
The informal sector plays an important role in the functioning of labor markets in emerging economies. To characterize better this highly heterogeneous sector, we conduct a distributional analysis of the earnings gap between informal and formal employment in Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, distinguishing between dependent and independent workers. For each country, we use rich panel data to estimate fixed effects quantile regressions to control for (time-invariant) unobserved heterogeneity. The dual nature of the informal sector emerges from our results. In the high-tier segment, self-employed workers receive a significant earnings premium that may compensate the benefits obtained in formal jobs. In the lower end of the earnings distribution, both informal wage earners and independent (own account) workers face significant earnings penalties vis-à-vis the formal sector. Yet the dual structure is not balanced in the same way in all three countries. Most of the self-employment carries a premium in Mexico. In contrast, the upper-tier segment is marginal in South Africa, and informal workers, both dependent and independent, form a largely penalized group. More consistent with the competitive view, earnings differentials are small at all levels in Brazil.
Keywords:	quantile regression, earnings differential, informal sector, salary work, self-employed, fixed effects model
JEL:	J21

Falling Kidnapping Rates and the Expansion of Mobile Phones in Colombia

Date:	2009-11-09
By:	Santiago Montenegro Álvaro Pedraza
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:006652&r=lam
This paper tries to explain why kidnapping has fallen so dramatically in Colombia during the period 2000-2008. The widely held belief is that the falling kidnapping rates can basically be explained as a consequence of the success of President Alvaro Uribe´s democratic security policy. Without providing conclusive alternative explanations, some academic papers have expressed doubts about Uribe’s security policy being the main cause of this phenomenon. While we consider the democratic security policy as constituting a necessary condition behind Colombia’s falling kidnapping rates, we argue in this paper that a complementary condition underlying this phenomenon has been the significant increase during this period in the speed and quality of communications between potential victims and public security forces. In this sense, the expansion of the mobile phone industry in Colombia implies that there has been a substantial reduction in information asymmetries between kidnappers and targeted citizens. This has led to a higher level of deterrence as well as to higher costs for perpetrating this type of crime. This has resulted in a virtuous circle: improved security allows higher investments in telecommunications around the country, which in turn lead to faster communications between citizens and security forces, which consequently leads to greater security. We introduce a Becker-Ehrlich type supply and demand model for kidnappings. Using regional and departmental data on kidnapping, the police and mobile phones, we show that mobile phone network expansion has expanded the effective coverage of public protection; this, in turn, has led to a spectacular reduction in kidnapping rates.

Collective Action forWatershed Management: Field Experiments in Colombia and Kenya

Date:	2009-11-15
By:	Juan Camilo Cárdenas Luz Ángela Rodríguez Nancy Johnson
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000089:006649&r=lam
The dilemma of collective action around water use and management involves solving both the problems of provision and appropriation. Cooperation in the provision can be affected by the rival nature of the appropriation and the asymmetries in the access. We report two field experiments conducted in Colombia and Kenya. The Irrigation Game was used to explore the provision and appropriation decisions under asymmetric or sequential appropriation, complemented with a Voluntary Contribution Mechanism experiment which looks at provision decisions under symmetric appropriation. The overall results were consistent with the patterns of previous studies: the zero contribution hypotheses is rejected whereas the most effective institution to increase cooperation was face-to-face communication, and above external regulations, although we find that communication works much more effectively in Colombia. We also find that the asymmetric appropriation did reduce cooperation, though the magnitude of the social loss and the effectiveness of alternative institutional options varied across sites.

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

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NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-13

2010-02-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	University of the Republic
Issue date:	2010-02-13
Papers:	12

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Pro-Poor Tax Reforms, with an Application to Mexico
Jean-Yves Duclos; Paul Makdissi; Abdelkrim Araar
Testing for Mobility Dominance
Yélé Maweki Batana; Jean-Yves Duclos
Property Rights, Standards of Living, and Economic Growth: Western Canadian Cree
Ann Carlos; Frank Lewis
Family Job Search, Wage Bargaining, and Optimal Unemployment Insurance
Ek, Susanne; Holmlund, Bertil
Inequality Aversion and Risk Attitudes
Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada; Ramos, Xavi
Objective Confirmation of Subjective Measures of Human Well-being: Evidence from the USA
Oswald, Andrew J.; Wu, Stephen
Youth Unemployment: Déjà Vu?
Bell, David N.F.; Blanchflower, David G.
Youth Employment in Europe: Institutions and Social Capital Explain Better than Mainstream Economics
Contini, Bruno
Screening, Competition, and Job Design: Economic Origins of Good Jobs
Bartling, Björn; Fehr, Ernst; Schmidt, Klaus M.
Divorced Fathers' Proximity and Children's Long Run Outcomes: Evidence from Norwegian Registry Data
Kalil, Ariel; Mogstad, Magne; Rege, Mari; Votruba, Mark
Mental Health and Working Conditions in European Countries
Cottini, Elena; Lucifora, Claudio
Wage Inequality and the Changing Organization of Work
Dennis Görlich; Dennis Snower

Contents.

Pro-Poor Tax Reforms, with an Application to Mexico

Date:	2010
By:	Jean-Yves Duclos Paul Makdissi Abdelkrim Araar
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1001&r=ltv
This paper proposes a methodology for testing for whether tax reforms are pro-poor. This is done by extending stochastic dominance techniques to help identify tax reforms that will necessarily be deemed absolutely or relatively pro-poor by a wide spectrum of poverty analysts. The statistical properties of the various estimators are also derived in order to make the method implementable using survey data. The methodology is used to assess the pro-poorness of possible reforms to Mexico’s indirect tax system. This leads to the identification of several possible pro-poor tax reforms in that country. It also shows how the pro-poorness of a tax reform depends on one’s conception of poverty as well as on the revenue and efficiency impact of the reform.
Keywords:	Stochastic dominance, pro-poor changes, tax reforms, Mexico
JEL:	D12

Testing for Mobility Dominance

Date:	2010
By:	Yélé Maweki Batana Jean-Yves Duclos
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:lacicr:1002&r=ltv
This paper proposes tests for stochastic dominance in mobility based on the empirical likelihood ratio. Two views of mobility are considered, either based on measures of absolute mobility or on transition matrices. First-order and second-order dominance conditions in mobility are first derived, followed by the derivation of statistical inferences techniques to test a null hypothesis of non dominance against an alternative of mobility dominance. An empirical analysis, based on the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), is performed by comparing four income mobility periods ranging from 1970 to 1990.
Keywords:	Mobility, Stochastic dominance, Transition matrices, Empirical Likelihood ratio, Bootstrap tests
JEL:	C10

Property Rights, Standards of Living, and Economic Growth: Western Canadian Cree

Date:	2010-01
By:	Ann Carlos (University of Colorado, Boulder) Frank Lewis (Queen's University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qed:wpaper:1232&r=ltv
The Great Divergence in standards of living for populations around the world occurred in the late 18th century. Prior to that date evidence suggests that real wages of most Europeans, many living in China and India were similar. Some a little higher and some a little lower but with a low dispersion. By the middle of the 19th century, a divergence had occurred with western Europe pulling away from other groups. Little is known about the standards of living of the aboriginal peoples of North America many of whom were primarily hunter/gatherer’s at the end of the 18th century. Based on comparisons of expenditure, we show that the standard of living of aboriginal people in 1740 was similar to that of wage workers in London. However, within the next century, there would be a great divergence. This paper explores the ways in which hunter-gatherer lifeways and the concomitant property rights structures reduced the likelihood that native economy could experience modern rates of economic growth. Native society and property rights structures which provided a relatively high standard of living in the mid eighteenth century and for part of the nineteenth was unable to provide avenues for further development.
Keywords:	native americans, living standards, property rights
JEL:	N51

Family Job Search, Wage Bargaining, and Optimal Unemployment Insurance

Date:	2010-01
By:	Ek, Susanne (Uppsala University) Holmlund, Bertil (Uppsala University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4701&r=ltv
The paper develops an equilibrium search and matching model where two-person families as well as singles participate in the labor market. We show that equilibrium entails wage dispersion among equally productive risk-averse workers. Marital status as well as spousal labor market status matter for wage outcomes. In general, employed members of two-person families receive higher wages than employed singles. The model is applied to a welfare analysis of alternative unemployment insurance systems, recognizing the role of spousal employment as a partial substitute for public insurance. The optimal system involves benefit differentiation based on marital status as well as spousal labor market status. Optimal differentiation yields small welfare gains but gives rise to large wage differentials.
Keywords:	job search, wage bargaining, wage differentials, unemployment, unemployment insurance
JEL:	J31

Inequality Aversion and Risk Attitudes

Date:	2010-01
By:	Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada (IAE Barcelona (CSIC)) Ramos, Xavi (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4703&r=ltv
Using self reported measures of life satisfaction and risk attitudes, we empirically test whether there is a relationship between individuals inequality and risk aversion. The empirical analysis uses the German SOEP household panel for the years 1997 to 2007 to conclude that the negative effect of inequality measured by the sample gini coefficient by year and federal state is larger for those individuals who report to be less willing to take risks. Nevertheless, the empirical results suggest that even though inequality and risk aversion are related, they are not the same thing. The paper shows that the relationship between risk attitudes and inequality aversion survives the inclusion of individual characteristics (i.e. income, education, and gender) that may be correlated with both risk attitudes and inequality aversion.
Keywords:	happiness, inequality aversion, risk attitudes, well-being
JEL:	D3

Objective Confirmation of Subjective Measures of Human Well-being: Evidence from the USA

Date:	2010-01
By:	Oswald, Andrew J. (University of Warwick) Wu, Stephen (Hamilton College)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4695&r=ltv
A huge research literature, across the behavioral and social sciences, uses information on individuals' subjective well-being. These are responses to questions – asked by survey interviewers or medical personnel – such as "how happy do you feel on a scale from 1 to 4?" Yet there is little scientific evidence that such data are meaningful. This study examines a 2005-2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System random sample of 1.3 million United States citizens. Life-satisfaction in each U.S. state is measured. Across America, people's answers trace out the same pattern of quality of life as previously estimated, using solely non-subjective data, in a literature from economics (so-called 'compensating differentials' neoclassical theory due originally to Adam Smith). There is a state-by-state match (r = 0.6, p <>
Keywords:	compensating differentials, well-being, happiness, spatial equilibrium
JEL:	I31

Youth Unemployment: Déjà Vu?

Date:	2010-01
By:	Bell, David N.F. (University of Stirling) Blanchflower, David G. (Dartmouth College)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4705&r=ltv
This paper reviews current issues in youth labour markets in developed countries. It argues that young people aged 16-25 have been particularly hard hit during the current recession. Using the USA and UK as cast studies, it analyses both causes and effects of youth unemployment using micro-data. It argues that there is convincing evidence that the young are particularly susceptible to the negative effects of spells of unemployment well after their initial experience of worklessness. Because the current youth cohort is relatively large, the longer-term outlook for youth unemployment is quite good, but there is a strong case for policy intervention now to address the difficulties that the current cohort is having in finding access to work.
Keywords:	youth unemployment, scarring, ethnic crime, health, life satisfaction, wages, ALMP
JEL:	J01

Youth Employment in Europe: Institutions and Social Capital Explain Better than Mainstream Economics

Date:	2010-01
By:	Contini, Bruno (LABORatorio R. Revelli)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4718&r=ltv
Why did employment growth – high in the last decade – take place at the expense of young workers in the countries of Central and Southern Europe? This is the question addressed in this paper. Youth unemployment has approached or exceeded 20% despite a variety of factors, common to most EU countries. According to neo-classical economics all would be expected to exert a positive impact on its evolution: population ageing and the demographic decline, low labor cost of young workers, flexibility of working arrangements, higher educational attainment, low unionization of young workers, early retirement practices of workers 50+. But neither seems to provide a convincing explanation. Historically based institutions and political tradition, cultural values, social capital – factors that go beyond the standard explanation of economic theory – provide a more satisfying interpretation.
Keywords:	youth employment, unemployment, social capital, institutions
JEL:	J0

Screening, Competition, and Job Design: Economic Origins of Good Jobs

Date:	2010-01
By:	Bartling, Björn (University of Zurich) Fehr, Ernst (University of Zurich) Schmidt, Klaus M. (University of Munich)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4710&r=ltv
In recent decades, many firms offered more discretion to their employees, often increasing the productivity of effort but also leaving more opportunities for shirking. These "high-performance work systems" are difficult to understand in terms of standard moral hazard models. We show experimentally that complementarities between high effort discretion, rent-sharing, screening opportunities, and competition are important driving forces behind these new forms of work organization. We document in particular the endogenous emergence of two fundamentally distinct types of employment strategies. Employers either implement a control strategy, which consists of low effort discretion and little or no rent-sharing, or they implement a trust strategy, which stipulates high effort discretion and substantial rent-sharing. If employers cannot screen employees, the control strategy prevails, while the possibility of screening renders the trust strategy profitable. The introduction of competition substantially fosters the trust strategy, reduces market segmentation, and leads to large welfare gains for both employers and employees.
Keywords:	job design, high-performance work systems, screening, reputation, competition, trust, control, social preferences, complementarities
JEL:	C91

Divorced Fathers' Proximity and Children's Long Run Outcomes: Evidence from Norwegian Registry Data

Date:	2010-01
By:	Kalil, Ariel (University of Chicago) Mogstad, Magne (Statistics Norway) Rege, Mari (University of Stavanger) Votruba, Mark (Case Western Reserve University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4715&r=ltv
This study examines the link between divorced nonresident fathers' proximity and children's long-run outcomes using high-quality data from Norwegian population registers. We follow (from birth to young adulthood) 15,992 children born into married households in Norway in the years 1975-1979 whose parents divorce during his or her childhood. We observe the proximity of the child to his or her father in each year following the divorce and link proximity to children's educational and economic outcomes in young adulthood, controlling for a wide range of observable characteristics of the parents and the child. Our results show that closer proximity to the father following a divorce has, on average, a modest negative association with offspring's young-adult outcomes. The negative associations are stronger among children of highly-educated fathers. Complementary Norwegian survey data show that highly-educated fathers report more post-divorce conflict with their ex-wives as well as more contact with their children (measured in terms of the number of nights that the child spends at the fathers' house). Consequently, the father's relocation to a more distant location following the divorce may shelter the child from disruptions in the structure of the child's life as they split time between households and/or from post-divorce interparental conflict.
Keywords:	fathers' proximity, divorce, child development, long-run outcomes, relocation
JEL:	J12

Mental Health and Working Conditions in European Countries

Date:	2010-01
By:	Cottini, Elena (University of Milan) Lucifora, Claudio (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4717&r=ltv
Increased pressure for labour market flexibility and increasing demand over workers' performance have fostered the idea that working conditions, in most European countries, have progressively deteriorated with adverse effects on psychological well being and mental health. This paper investigates the links between contractual arrangements, working conditions and mental health using time-series cross-section data for 15 European countries. We use different waves of the European Working Conditions Survey (1995, 2000, 2005) to document recent patterns in mental health at the workplace and to assess how these are related to various job attributes. We find substantial heterogeneity in mental health incidence at the workplace both across workers, as well as between countries. Given population heterogeneity in responses to mental health questions, we implement a methodology for differential reporting in ordered response models which allows for threshold shifts. We show that a set of workplace attributes, such as: working in shifts, performing complex and intensive tasks and having restricted job autonomy lead to a higher probability of reporting mental health problems. We also provide evidence of a positive causal effect of adverse overall working conditions on mental health distress. We show that labour market institutions, and health and safety regulations can explain a significant part of cross-country differences.
Keywords:	working conditions, mental health, health and safety regulation, labour market institutions
JEL:	C25

Wage Inequality and the Changing Organization of Work

Date:	2010-01
By:	Dennis Görlich Dennis Snower
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kie:kieliw:1588&r=ltv
This paper sheds light on how changes in the organization of work lead to wage inequality. We present a theoretical model in which workers with a wider span of competence (higher level of multitasking) earn a wage premium. Since abilities and opportunities to expand the span of competence are distributed unequally among workers across and within education groups, our theory explains (1) rising wage inequality between groups, (2) rising wage inequality within groups, and (3) the polarization of work and the decoupling of the income distribution. Using a rich German data set covering a 20-year period from 1986 to 2006, we provide empirical support for our model
Keywords:	wage inequality, multitasking, tasks, organizational change
JEL:	J31

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Edición Especial: Productos de investigación del dECON 2009

2010-02-18T05:07:00.000-08:00

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Boletín dECON - Febrero 2010 - Edición Especial: Productos de investigación del dECON 2009

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Boletín Edición Especial / Febrero 2010

Edición Especial: Productos de investigación del dECON 2009

Índice

· Artículos en revistas arbitradas (22)

· Artículos en Libros (10)

· Documentos de trabajo (32)

· Presentaciones en Congresos (37)

- Accinelli, E.; London S.; Punzo, L.; Carrera E.: “Complementariedades, Dinámicas, Eficiencia y Equilibrio de Nash en un modelo de firmas y trabajadores" EconoQuantum, Vol. 6 /1. pp: (2009).

- Accinelli, E; Suárez P.: “Regionalismo y cooperación económica en América del Norte" Estudios Económicos, Vol XXV (N.S.), No. 51, Julio-Diciembre del año 2009.

- Accinelli, E.; Suárez, P.: “América Latina en el marco del siglo XXI: avances y retrocesos." Expresión Económica, No. 22, pp. 31-48, enero-junio 2009 ISSN 1870-5960,

- Alvarez, Ignacio; Natalia da Silva; Alvaro Forteza; Ianina Rossi: “El retiro de los trabajadores uruguayos y la seguridad social”, Revista de Economía, BCU (en prensa).

- Amarante, Verónica; Bucheli, Marisa: “La negociación salarial colectiva: las rondas 2005 y 2006”. Relaciones Laborales, Nº 19, Montevideo, abril-julio 2009, pgs. 96-123.

- Azar, Karina; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo: Moral fiscal en el Cono Sur. Desarrollo y Sociedad. Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Aceptado para publicación.

- Balsa, Ana; Ferres, Daniel; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: Inequidades socioeconómicas en el uso de servicios sanitarios del adulto mayor montevideano. Estudios Económicos, vol. 24, número 1, enero-junio, El Colegio de México.

- Borraz, Fernando; González, Nicolás: Impact of the Uruguayan Conditional Cash Transfer Programme Revise and resubmit. Cuadernos de Economía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Aceptado para publicación.

- Borraz, Fernando; González, Nicolás: PANES: Focalización e Impacto Well-Being and Social Policy. Aceptado para publicación

- Brañas, Pablo; Zaclicever, Dayna; Rossi, Máximo: Individual's religiosity enhances trust: Latin American evidence for the puzzle, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking (JMC&B) Vol. 41, issue 2-3, marzo-abril, Ohio State University.

- Cid, Alejandro; Ferrés, Daniel & Rossi, Maximo: Subjetive well-being among the elderly in the sourthen cone: health, income and family. Egitania sciencia, Número 5. Politécnico da Guarda, Portugal (http://www.ipg.pt/revistaipg).

- Forteza, Alvaro: The Portability of Pension Rights: General Principles and the Caribbean Case, Development Policy Review, 2010, 28 (2): 237-255.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gersntenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Maximo: Religión y religiosidad en Uruguay. Cuadernos del Claeh, Aceptado para publicación.

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi; Máximo; Smith, Tom: The perception of corruption. International Journal of Public Opinion Research. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming.

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo: Perception of corruption in Uruguay. Revista de Economía y Administración, Universidad de Concepción, Chile. Aceptado para publicación.

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo; Smith, Tom: “The perception of corruption in a cross-country perspective: why are some individuals more perceptive than others?”. Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics. Universidad de San Pablo, Brasil. Aceptado para publicación.

- Pagano, Juan Pablo; Rossi, Maximo; Triunfo, Patricia: Obesidad e Hipertensión en el adulto mayor del Uruguay. Desarrollo y Sociedad, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. Aceptado para publicación.

- Pagano, Juan Pablo; Rijo, Natalia; Rossi, Maximo: Fecundidad y oferta laboral femenina en Uruguay. Un enfoque económico. Población y salud en Mesoamérica. Revista electrónica semestral ISSN 1659-0201. Centro Centroamericano de Población. Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica.

- Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Medical behavior: an application to cesarean section delivery in Uruguay", International Journal of Health Care Finance and Economics. (2009) 9:333-345. Springer Netherlands.

- Vaillant, Marcel: “Novas oportunidades para economias pequenas e remotas: o Uruguai como exportador de serviços”, No 100, Revista Brasileira e Comercio Exterior FUNCEX, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, julio-setiembre.

- Vaillant, Marcel; Moncarz, Pedro: “Who wins in South-South Trade Agreements?, New evidence for MERCOSUR”, forthcoming in the next issue of Journal of Applied Economics, Buenos Aires Argentina.

- Vaillant, Marcel; Ferreira, Natalia: “Evolución del espacio de productos exportados ¿Está Uruguay en el lugar equivocado?”, aceptado para su publicación en el próximo número de la Revista de Economía del BCU, Montevideo, Uruguay

Artículos en Libros

- Accinelli, Elvio: “Introducción a la optimización no lineal." Aportaciones Matemáticas, serie Textos de la Sociedad Matemática Mexicana: No. 34: (2009) 196 páginas ISBN 978-968-36-3591- 4. Editorial Reverte.

- Accinelli, Elvio: “Dynamic Complementarity, E±ciency and Nash Equilibria in the Populations of Firms and Workers". Dynamics, games and Sicence in honour of Mauricio Peixoto and David

Rand. The book appears as a Proceeding of the Conference DYNA2008, Braga, Portugal. (To appear)

- Accinelli, Elvio; E. Carrera and G. Brida : “Imitative Behavior in a Two Population Model" . To appear in Annals of Dynamic Games, vol. XI.

- Accinelli, Elvio: “La teoría de los juegos evolutivos, naturaleza y racionalidad" Libro: Temas de teoría económica y su método pp. 287-304. Compilador Dr. Juan Jos Jardn Urrieta. Ed. Thomson Civitas en Espana. (2009) en imprenta. ISBN es 84-470-2295-8.

- Borraz, Fernando: “Essays on Education, Globalization and Inequality”. LAP Lambert Academic Publishing. ISBN 978-3-8383-1196-8

- Borraz, Fernando; Ferrés, Daniel; Rossi, Maximo: “Assessment of the Distributive Impact of Trade Reforms in Uruguay”. Libro: Theory and Evidence on Growth, Trade and Economic Development: with Special Reference to Latin America. Editor: Gerardo Angeles Castro. Editorial: Routledge. Forthcoming

- Forteza, Alvaro; Marisa Bucheli; Ianina Rossi; Máximo Rossi: Crecimiento, desigualdad e instituciones, en: Miguel Serna (Ed), Pobreza, desigualdad y políticas sociales: una agenda en debate, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales, UDELAR (en prensa).

- Forteza, A.; Lucchetti, L.; Pallares-Miralles, M.: “Measuring the Coverage Gap”. In: R. Holzmann; D. Robalino and N. Takayama (eds), “Closing the Coverage Gap. The Role of Social Pensions and Other Retirement Income Transfers”, The World Bank. ISBN 978-0-8213-7914-4

- Rossi, Ianina; Máximo Rossi: "Religiosity: A comparison between Latin Europe and Latin America” En: The International Social Survey Program 1984 – 2009. Charting the Globe. Editores: Max Haller (University of Graz, Austria), Roger Jowell (City University, London) y Tom W. Smith (NORC, University of Chicago). Editorial: Routledge, member of the Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN: 978-0-415-49192-1 Link:http://www.routledge.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?curTab=CONTRIBUTORS&id=&parent_id=&sku=&isbn=9780415491921&pc=

- Soruco, Ximena; Piani, Giorgina; Rossi, Máximo: "What emigration leaves behind: the situation of emigrants and their families in Ecuador" en Discrimination in Latin America. Inter-American Development Bank - LADF Series World Bank. ISBN: 978-0-8213-7837-3

Documentos de trabajo

1. N. Melgar, G. Piani & M. Rossi: Are there differences between perception of corruption at public and private sector? A multi-country analysis

2. N. Melgar: ¿Qué aspectos motivan las opiniones de los ciudadanos de la Unión Europea acerca de la inmigración y el libre-comercio? ¿Ideología, intereses personales y/ o características nacionales?

3. R.T. Jewell, N. Melgar, D.J. Molina & M. Rossi: Attitudes toward immigrants: a cross-country perspective

4. Z. Ferre, M. Gerstenblüth, M. Rossi & P. Triunfo: Decisión sobre iniciación sexual: el caso de adolescentes uruguayas

5. M. Gerstenblüth, Z. Ferre, M. Rossi & P. Triunfo: Impacto de la maternidad adolescente en los logros educativos

6. J.P. Pagano, V. Pérez, M. Rossi & D. Vairo: ¿Los hombres son mejores líderes políticos que las mujeres?: un estudio comparado sobre los valores de género en Uruguay y Chile

7. M. Bucheli, C. González & C. Olivieri: Flujos económicos entre edades: Uruguay 2006

8. N. Melgar, J. Milgram & M. Rossi: The role of macroeconomic performance in individual’s attitudes towards protectionism

9. N. Melgar & M. Rossi: Perception of corruption in Uruguay: the effects of the sector of employment, life-course adjustments and education

10. N. Melgar & M. Rossi: Permissiveness toward illegal actions in Uruguay Are Belief in God, income and education relevant?

11. G. Bittencourt & N. Reig Lorenzi: La industria de biocombustibles en Uruguay: situación actual y perspectivas

12. G. Bittencourt & N. Reig Lorenzi: Diagnóstico de crecimiento para Uruguay desde una perspectiva regional

13. A. Doneschi, V. Novas & C. Velázquez: Los ingresos de los universitarios: ¿qué carreras pagan más?

14. A. Doneschi, V. Novas & C. Velázquez: Financiamiento de la Universidad de la República: otro Fondo de Solidaridad

15. A. Balsa, M. Rossi & P. Triunfo: Horizontal Inequity in Access to Health Care in Four South American Cities

16. P. Brañas-Garza, J.C. Cárdenas & M. Rossi: Gender, education and reciprocal generosity: Evidence from 1,500 experiment subjects

17. R. Patrón: Can more education be bad? Some simple analytics on financing education

18. R. Patrón: Trade liberalization in a Heckscher–Ohlin model: Does public skill formation change the conventional results?

19. N. Melgar & M. Rossi: A cross-country analysis of the risk factors for depression at the micro and macro level

20. N. Melgar, G. Piani, M. Rossi & A.Taroco: Tolerancia: mapa de las reservas mundiales Un estudio comparado desde la opinión pública

21. G. Carracelas, C. Casacuberta & M. Vaillant: Productividad total de factores: Desempeño sectorial heterogéneo

22. A. Lalanne, M. Olarreaga & M. Vaillant: Globalización: viejos obstáculos, nuevas especializaciones y nuevas reglas

23. I. Álvarez, N. da Silva, A. Forteza & I. Rossi: ¿Qué incentivos al retiro genera la seguridad social? El caso uruguayo.

24. I. Álvarez, N. da Silva, A. Forteza & I. Rossi: El retiro de los trabajadores uruguayos y la seguridad social

25. M. Gerstenblüth & M. Rossi: ¿Son más felices las personas saludables? La evidencia de Chile y Uruguay

26. Z. Ferre, M. Gerstenblüth & M. Rossi: Religión y Religiosidad en Uruguay

27. G. Bittencourt, G. Carracelas, A. Doneschi & N. Reig Lorenzi: Tendencias Recientes de la Inversión Extranjera Directa en Uruguay

28. M. Bucheli & W. Cabella: Fathers and children: alimony and contact after marriage breakdown (Uruguay)

29. J.P. Pagano, N. Rijo & M. Rossi: Fecundidad y Oferta Laboral femenina en el Uruguay: Un Enfoque Económico

30. L. da Costa Ferré: Diagonal Cumulation of Rules of Origin in South America

31. A. Forteza & G. Ourens: How much do Latin American pension programs promise to pay back?

32. Estrades & I. Terra: International Commodity Prices, Trade and Poverty in Uruguay

Presentaciones en Congresos

- Balsa, Ana; Ferres, Daniel; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Inequidades socioeconómicas en el uso de servicios sanitarios del adulto mayor montevideano”. Primer Congreso Nacional de Economía de la Salud, 23 y 24 de abril, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Bittencourt, Gustavo; Carracelas, Gastón; Doneschi, Andrea; Reig Lorenzi, Nicolás: “Tendencias Recientes de la Inversión Extranjera Directa en Uruguay”. XXIV Jornadas de Economía del BCU, 5 y 6 de octubre de 2009, y VIII Jornadas Anuales de Investigación Científica de la FCS-UDELAR, 8 y 9 de setiembre de 2009.

- Borraz, Fernando: “Wage inequality: empirical evidence for Uruguay” Jornadas de Economía del BCU. 6 de octubre.

- Borraz, Fernando: LACEA, Buenos Aires. 3 de octubre. “Assessment of the Distributive Impact of National and External Trade Reforms in Brazil”

- Borraz, Fernando: LA ECONOMIA POLITICA DE LA INSERCION INTERNACIONAL DEL URUGUAY

Woodrow Internacional Center for Scholars, Montevideo, 14 de setiembre.”La apertura económica en Uruguay: efectos distributivos y sectoriales”

- Borraz, Fernando: “Tecnologías de la información y comunicación y la brecha salarial según género en Uruguay” Americas Communication Research Network Conference, ciudad de Mexico. 4 de Septiembre

- Borraz, Fernando: “Assessment of the Distributive Impact of National and External Trade Reforms in Brazil” Research Committee Development Economics. Universidad de Frankfurt. Alemania. 28 de junio.
- Borraz, Fernando: “Wage inequality: empirical evidence for Uruguay” Network on Inequality and Poverty, Montevideo. 5 de junio.
- Borraz, Fernando: “Haciendo Operativas las Evaluaciones de Impacto de Programas Sociales” CISS, Coneval, Universidad Iberoamericana, PNUD, ciudad de Mexico. 13 de febrero. “PANES: Focalización e Impacto”
- Bucheli, Marisa; González, Cecilia; Olivieri, Cecilia. “Transferencias públicas a niños y adultos mayores en Urugay”. Conferencia Regional “Transferencias Intergeneracionales, Envejecimiento y Protección Social en América Latina”, 20 y 21 de octubre de 2009, Santiago de Chile.

- Bucheli, Marisa; González, Cecilia; Olivieri, Cecilia: “Public transfers to elder and children in Uruguay”, presentado en XXVI Conferencia Internacional de la IUSSP- Poster session Nº4, 27 setiembre a 2 octubre de 2009, Marrakech, Marruecos y en 9th Arnoldshain Seminar, 5 a 9 de octubre de 2009, Montevideo-Punta del Este, Uruguay.

- Bucheli, Marisa; Cabella, Wanda: “Fathers and children: alimony and contacts alter marriage breakdown (Uruguay)”. XXVI IUSSP International Population Conference, Marrakech, Marruecos.

- Bucheli, Marisa; González, Cecilia; Olivieri, Cecilia: “El sistema de cuentas de transferencias” presentado en el Seminario: “Transferencias intergeneracionales, envejecimiento de la población y protección social”, 21 de mayo de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Doneschi, Andrea; Novas, Victoria; Velázquez, Cecilia: “Financiamiento de la UdelaR: otro Fondo de Solidaridad”. XVII Jornadas de Jóvenes Investigadores, de la Asociación de Universidades del Grupo Montevideo (AUGM), Concordia, Entre Ríos, Argentina, 27, 28 y 29 de octubre de 2009.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Decisión sobre iniciación sexual: el caso de adolescentes uruguayas”. Primer Congreso Nacional de Economía de la Salud, 23 y 24 de abril de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Embarazo adolescente y logros educativos”. Primer Congreso Nacional de Economía de la Salud, 23 y 24 de abril de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo: "Corporate Social Responsibility in Uruguay. What enterprises do and what people think about it”. Primer evento regional para Latinoamérica y España sobre Responsabilidad Social Empresarial, 19 de noviembre de 2009, Medellín, Colombia.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo y Triunfo, Patricia: "Impacto de la maternidad adolescente en los logros educativos”. NIP. Capítulo Uruguay. 4 y 5 de junio. Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo y Triunfo, Patricia: "Impacto de la maternidad adolescente en los logros educativos”. XXIV Jornadas de Economía de la Salud. 16-19 de junio. Málaga, España.

- Ferre, Zuleika; Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo y Triunfo, Patricia: "Decisión sobre iniciación sexual: el caso de adolescentes uruguayas”. XXIV Jornadas de Economía de la Salud. 16-19 de junio. Málaga, España.

- Forteza Álvaro; Rossi, Ianina; Sanroman, Graciela; Apella, Ignacio; Fajnzylber, Eduardo; Grushka, Carlos; Apella, Ignacio; Fajnzylber, Eduardo; "Work histories and pension entitlements in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay". LACEA, 1-3 de octubre, y BID y Banco Mundial, Washington DC, Setiembre.

- Forteza, Álvaro; Rossi, Ianina: “The contribution of government transfer programs to inequality. A net benefit approach”. Third Meeting of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality (ECINEQ), 21-23 de julio. Link: http://www.ecineq.org/ecineq_ba/general.htm

- Forteza, Álvaro; Rossi, Ianina: “The contribution of government transfer programs to inequality. A net benefit approach”. Reunión anual de la red sobre desigualdad y pobreza de América Latina y el Caribe (NIP), capítulo de Uruguay: “Economía de la desigualdad y la pobreza” (4 y 5 de junio de 2009).

- Forteza, Alvaro y Guzmán Ourens: “How Much Do Latin American Pension Programs Promise to Pay Back?”, XXIV Jornadas de Economía del BCU, 5 y 6 de octubre de 2009 y seminarios en el Banco Mundial, Washington DC, y las universidades de Córdoba, Argentina, y Gotemburgo, Suecia.

- Forteza, Alvaro y Ianina Rossi: “Role and Costs of Retirement Income Transfers in NDCs with Sparse Contribution Densities”. Conferencia: Non-Financial Defined Contribution (NDC) Systems: Progress and New Frontiers in a Changing Pension World. Joint Swedish Social Insurance Agency - World Bank Conference, Stockholm, Sweden. Dec 2-4, 2009.

- Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Felicidad y salud: una aproximación al bienestar en el Río de la Plata”. Primer Congreso Nacional de Economía de la Salud, 23 y 24 de abril de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Gerstenblüth, Mariana; Rossi, Máximo; Triunfo, Patricia: "Impacto de la maternidad adolescente en los logros educativos”. Primer Congreso Nacional de Economía de la Salud, 23 y 24 de abril de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo; Smith, Tom: "Perception of corruption. What are the relevant personal characteristics that shape it?” Equity Policy Dialogue: Corruption, Critical Perspectives from the South, 1 al 3 de octubre, Dakar, Senegal.

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo: "Permissiveness toward illegal actions in Uruguay. Are Belief in God, income and education relevant?” VIII Jornadas Anuales de Investigación Científica de la FCS-UDELAR, 8 y 9 de setiembre de 2009, Montevideo, Uruguay

- Melgar, Natalia; Rossi, Máximo; Smith, Tom: "Individual Attitudes Towards Others, Misanthropy Analysis in a Cross-Country Perspective”. Third Conference of the European Survey Research Association, 29 de junio al 3 de julio de 2009, Varsovia, Polonia.

- Sanroman, Graciela: “Estimating heterogeneous costs of participation in the risky asset markets”. North American Summer Meeting of the Econometric Society at Boston University, Boston, Junio 2009

- Vaillant, Marcel: El artículo “Regionalism as industrial policy in Developing countries the case of mercosur” Pedro Moncarz, Marcelo Olarreaga, Marcel Vaillant se presentó en varios seminarios académicos a nivel nacional e internacional:

· The Political Economy of Trade Policy in the BRICS Department of International Development (World Bank)The Murphy Institute and Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy (March, New Orleans);

· Fourth UNCTAD Virtual Institute Meeting Joint research project on regional integration and cooperation in Latin America (Geneva, May);

· Jornadas de Economía del Banco Central de Uruguay, Octubre Montevideo. Presentó Pedro Moncarz.

· IX Arnoldshain Seminar October, Montevideo and Punta del Este). Presentó Pedro Moncarz.

· Workshop on Regional Integration and Cooperation in Latin America, Diciembre, Montevideo.

- Vaillant, Marcel: VII Annual Conference of the Euro-Latin Study Network on Integration and Trade (ELSNIT) Trade and Regional Disparities. October 23-26, Kiel; Alemania. Invitado a participar como comentarista del trabajo “Taxation, Infrastructure and endogenous trade cost in new economic geographic” by Stefan Gruber and Luigi Marattin. Organizado por el IBD y el Kiel Institute de Alemania.

- Vaillant, Marcel: “MERCOSUR: ZLC, Política Comercial Común, Servicios y Materias Complementarias”, sección nacional del Parlamento MERCOSUR de Paraguay, 16 de junio, Asunción. Actividad organizada por EPICA y la Fundación Ebert.

- Vaillant, Marcel: “Integración física e integración Comercial en el marco del Curso sobre Infraestructura para la Integración”, IIRSA BID-INTAL, Setiembre, Buenos Aires.

- Vaillant, Marcel: “Uruguay y el MERCOSUR: ¿lecciones aprendidas? Binomio inversión y acceso para una economía pequeña” Seminario “LA ECONOMÍA POLÍTICA DE LA INSERCIÓN INTERNACIONAL DE URUGUAY”, Woodrow Wilson Center-CURI, 14 de Setiembre, Hotel Cala Di Volpe, Montevideo, Uruguay.

- Vaillant, Marcel: presentación ponencia en el Ministerio de Hacienda de Paraguay MERCOSUR “Profundización de la Unión Aduanera y sus implicancias para Paraguay”, 15 de diciembre Asunción.

Boletín Edición Especial

Febrero 2010

Coordinador: Máximo Rossi

Edición: Máximo Rossi y Camila Gutiérrez

Departamento de Economía (dECON)

Facultad de Ciencias Sociales- Universidad de la República

Constituyente 1502 Montevideo, Uruguay

Tel. 410-6449 www.decon.edu.uy

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-05

2010-02-09T08:23:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	University of the Republic
Issue date:	2010-02-05
Papers:	2

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Global Wage Inequality and the International Flow of Migrants
Mark R. Rosenzweig
Medicare Part D and the Financial Protection of the Elderly
Gary V. Engelhardt; Jonathan Gruber

Contents.

Global Wage Inequality and the International Flow of Migrants

Date:	2010-01
By:	Mark R. Rosenzweig (Economic Growth Center, Yale University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egc:wpaper:983&r=ltv
A framework for understanding the determinants in the variation in the pricing of skills across countries and the model underlying the Mincer specification of wages that is used widely to estimate the relationship between schooling and wages are described. A method for identifying skill prices and for testing the Mincer model, using wages and the human capital attributes of workers located around the world, is discussed. A global wage equation that nests the Mincer specification is estimated that provides skill price estimates for 140 countries. The estimates reject the Mincer model. The skill price estimates indicate that variation in skill prices dominates the cross-country variation in schooling levels or rates of return to schooling in accounting for the global inequality in the earnings of workers worldwide. Variation in skill prices and GDP across countries has opposite and significant effects on the number and quality of migrants to the United States.
Keywords:	wage, skill price, international migration, inequality
JEL:	J31

Medicare Part D and the Financial Protection of the Elderly

Date:	2009-10
By:	Gary V. Engelhardt Jonathan Gruber
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crr:crrwps:wp2009-24&r=ltv
We examine the impact of the expansion of public prescription prescription-drug insurance coverage from Medicare Part D has had on the elderly and find evidence of substantial crowd-out. Using detailed data from the 2002-6 waves of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), we estimate that the extension of Part D benefits resulted in 75% crowd-out of prescription drug insurance coverage and 33%-50% crowd-out of prescription drug expenditures of those 65 and older. Part D is associated with relatively small reductions in out-of-pocket spending. This suggests that the welfare gain from protecting the elderly from out-of-pocket spending risk through Part D has been small.

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

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NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-05

2010-02-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	University of the Republic
Issue date:	2010-02-05
Papers:	5

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Do reductions of standard hours affect employment transitions? : Evidence from Chile
Sánchez, Rafael
The determinants of wealth and gender inequity in cognitive skills in Latin America
Macdonald, Kevin; Barrera, Felipe; Guaqueta, Juliana; Patrinos, Harry Anthony; Porta, Emilio
Determinants of exports diversifications around the world: 1962 - 2000
Manuel Agosin; Roberto Álvarez; Claudio Bravo-Ortega; Esteban Puentes
Estimación de Series de Salarios Regionales en Chile
Jorge Dresdner; Carlos Sanhueza
Do Countries with Lax Environmental Regulations Have a Comparative Advantage in Polluting Industries?.
Miguel Angel Quiroga; Martin Persson; Thomas Sterner

Contents.

Do reductions of standard hours affect employment transitions? : Evidence from Chile

Date:	2010
By:	Sánchez, Rafael (University of Warwick)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:925&r=lam
This study exploits the reduction of weekly working hours from 48 to 45 occured in Chile in January 2005. We use this pure and exogenous policy change to identify the employment effects of such a policy. Our main contribution is that we overcome the problems of previous studies such as : selection between hours and employment, lack of identification strategy due to the joint implementation of policies and lack of crucial variables (like hourly wages and usual hours). Our results suggest no significant effects of a reduction of standard hours on employment transitions and a significant effect on hourly wages (i.e. wage compensation). These results are robust to several specifiations.

The determinants of wealth and gender inequity in cognitive skills in Latin America

Date:	2010-01-01
By:	Macdonald, Kevin Barrera, Felipe Guaqueta, Juliana Patrinos, Harry Anthony Porta, Emilio
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5189&r=lam
Wealth and gender inequity in the accumulation of cognitive skills is measured as the association between subject competency and wealth and gender using the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment. Wealth inequity is found to occur not through disparate household characteristics but rather through disparate school characteristics; little evidence is found of an association between wealth and competency within schools. Weak evidence is found of wealth mitigating gender differences through school characteristics. These findings suggest that wealth inequity in the accumulation of cognitive skills is almost exclusively associated with disparate school characteristics and that disparate school characteristics may play a role in accentuating gender inequity.
Keywords:	Tertiary Education,Education For All,Disability,Primary Education,Secondary Education

Determinants of exports diversifications around the world: 1962 - 2000

Date:	2010-01
By:	Manuel Agosin Roberto Álvarez Claudio Bravo-Ortega Esteban Puentes
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udc:wpaper:wp309&r=lam
Using a large dataset of countries during the last forty years, this paper analyzes the main determinants of export diversification. We explore the role of several factors and we use three different indicators of export diversification. We find robust evidence across specifications and indicators that trade openness induces higher specialization and does not favor export diversification. In contrast, financial development helps countries to diversify their exports. Looking at the effects of exchange rates, our results suggest a negative effect of real exchange rate overvaluation, but not significant effects of exchange rate volatility. We also find evidence that capital accumulation contributes positively to diversity exports and that increasing remoteness tend to reduce export diversification. We explore also the role of terms of trade shocks. Some of our results suggest that there is an interesting interaction between this variable and human capital. We find that improvements in terms of trade tend to concentrate exports, but this effect is lower for those countries with higher levels of human capital. This evidence suggests that countries with higher education can take advantage of positive terms of trade shocks to increase export diversification.
Keywords:	Export diversification, reforms, exchange rate
JEL:	F10

Estimación de Series de Salarios Regionales en Chile

Date:	2009
By:	Jorge Dresdner (Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Concepción.) Carlos Sanhueza (Programa Magister en Economía de Recursos Naturales y del Medio Ambiente. Universidad de Concepción)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnc:wpaper:07-2009&r=lam
En este artículo se presentan series corregidas de salarios mensuales con periodicidad trimestral para trece regiones en Chile en el período Diciembre 1994 - Diciembre 2004. La información se origina de la Superintendencia de Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones, pero ha sido corregida por sesgos de truncación y censuramiento. El análisis comparativo entre series corregidas y sin corregir indica que éstas tienen un comportamiento diferenciado desde el punto de vista estadístico, y que las series sin corregir no constituyen un buen predictor de las corregidas. Por ello, para el análisis de salarios regionales es conveniente utilizar las series corregidas.
Keywords:	Salarios regionales, Estimación, Truncamiento, Censura.

Do Countries with Lax Environmental Regulations Have a Comparative Advantage in Polluting Industries?.

Date:	2009
By:	Miguel Angel Quiroga (Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Concepción) Martin Persson (Department of Energy and Environment Chalmers University of Technology Sweden) Thomas Sterner (Department of Economics, Göteborg University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnc:wpaper:03-2009&r=lam
We study whether lax environmental regulations induce comparative advantages, causing the least-regulated countries to specialize in polluting industries. We seek to improve three areas in the empirical literature based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek’s factor content of trade, more specifically in Tobey’s (1990) approach: the measurement of environmental endowments, the possible endogeneity due to an omitted variable that has not been considered, and the influence of the industrial level of aggregation. For the econometrical analysis, we use a cross-section of 71 countries to examine the net exports in the most polluting industries in the year 2000. As a result, we find that industrial aggregation matters and we find some evidence in favor of the pollution-haven effect.
Keywords:	trade, comparative advantage, pollution haven, environmental endowment,environmental regulation, Porter hypothesis, factor content, aggregation bias, nonhomothetic preferences.

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

NEP: New Economics Papers Resource Economics 2010-02-05

2010-02-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers Resource Economics 2010-02-05

By maximorossi

NEP: New Economics Papers
Resource Economics

Edited by: Maximo Rossi
Universidad de la Republica
Issue date: 2010-02-05
Papers: 1
Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.
In this issue we have:

Do Countries with Lax Environmental Regulations Have a Comparative Advantage in Polluting Industries?
Miguel Angel Quiroga; Martin Persson; Thomas Sterner
Contents.

Do Countries with Lax Environmental Regulations Have a Comparative Advantage in Polluting Industries?
Date: 2009
By: Miguel Angel Quiroga (Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Concepción)
Martin Persson (Department of Energy and Environment Chalmers University of Technology Sweden)
Thomas Sterner (Department of Economics, Göteborg University)

URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cnc:wpaper:03-2009&r=res

We study whether lax environmental regulations induce comparative advantages, causing the least-regulated countries to specialize in polluting industries. We seek to improve three areas in the empirical literature based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek’s factor content of trade, more specifically in Tobey’s (1990) approach: the measurement of environmental endowments, the possible endogeneity due to an omitted variable that has not been considered, and the influence of the industrial level of aggregation. For the econometrical analysis, we use a cross-section of 71 countries to examine the net exports in the most polluting industries in the year 2000. As a result, we find that industrial aggregation matters and we find some evidence in favor of the pollution-haven effect.
Keywords: trade, comparative advantage, pollution haven, environmental endowment,environmental regulation, Porter hypothesis, factor content, aggregation bias, nonhomothetic preferences.

This nep–res issue is ©2010 by Maximo Rossi. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, it must include this copyright notice. It may not be sold, or placed in something else for sale.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America

2010-01-25T13:50:00.001-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	Universidad de la República
Issue date:	2010-01-23
Papers:	3

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Latin American Immigration in the United States: Is There Wage Assimilation Across the Wage Distribution?
Catalina Franco Buitrago
Evolución de la informalidad laboral en Colombia: determinantes macro y efectos locales
Gustavo Adolfo García
Developing countries, dispute settlement, and the advisory centre on WTO law
Bown, Chad P.; McCulloch, Rachel

Contents.

Date:	2010-01-18
By:	Catalina Franco Buitrago
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000118:006447&r=lam
Immigration has been one of the main driving forces that have contributed to shape the United States as it is today. The current wave of immigration started in 1965 and has different characteristics to the previous inflows of immigrants1. In particular, the 1965 Immigration Act had an impact in shifting the national origin of U.S. immigrants mostly to Latin Americans and Asians, widening therefore the gap between natives and immigrants in terms of language and culture (Card, 2005). Since immigration from Latin America has constituted between 40 and 50 percent of total immigration in the current wave, and given that Latin Americans are relatively less skilled than U.S. natives and other immigrants, it is worth studying the wage differentials that potentially exist between natives and Latin American immigrants.

Date:	2010-01-18
By:	Gustavo Adolfo García
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:col:000118:006449&r=lam
En este trabajo se estudian los determinantes macroeconómicos de la informalidad laboral en Colombia. Teniendo en cuenta varias definiciones de informalidad, se encuentra que este fenómeno tiene una relación inversa con el nivel de educación de la población ocupada y el grado de desarrollo industrial de las ciudades. También se observa que un sector público muy grande genera un efecto positivo sobre la informalidad, lo cual indica que existen posibles ineficiencias estatales o cargas institucionales que afectan la decisión de formalizarse. Así mismo se evidencia que existe un importante efecto local en la informalidad asociado con la estructura productiva e integración comercial, que dependen de la ubicación geográfica de las ciudades.

Date:	2010-01-01
By:	Bown, Chad P. McCulloch, Rachel
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5168&r=lam
Critical appraisals of the current and potential benefits from developing country engagement in the World Trade Organization (WTO) focus mainly on the Doha Round of negotiations. This paper examines developing country participation in the WTO dispute settlement system to enforce foreign market access rights already negotiated in earlier multilateral rounds. The dispute data from 1995 through 2008 reveal three notable trends: developing countries’ sustained rate of self-enforcement actions despite declining use of the Dispute Settlement Understanding (DSU) by developed countries, developing countries’ increased use of the DSU to self-enforce their access to the markets of developing as well as developed country markets, and the prevalence of disputes targeting highly observable causes of lost foreign market access, such as antidumping, countervailing duties, and safeguards. The paper also examines potential impacts of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL) into the WTO system in 2001. A close look at the data reveals evidence on at least three channels through which the ACWL may be enhancing developing countries’ability to self-enforce foreign market access: increased initiation of sole-complainant cases, more extensive pursuit of the DSU legal process for any given case, and initiation of disputes over smaller values of lost trade.
Keywords:	Debt Markets,World Trade Organization,Trade Law,Emerging Markets,Country Strategy&Performance

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

2010-01-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

January 25, 2010 by maximorossi

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

Edited by:	Maximo Rossi
	University of the Republic
Issue date:	2010-01-23
Papers:	14

Note: Access to full contents may be restricted.
NEP is sponsored by SUNY Oswego.

In this issue we have:

Health Care Expenditure and Income in the OECD Reconsidered: Evidence from Panel Data
Badi H. Baltagi; Francesco Moscone
Obesity and Happiness
Marina-Selini Katsaiti
Determinants of Health Disparities in Italian Regions
Luisa Franzini; Margherita Giannoni
Income Support Systems, Labor Market Policies and Labor Supply: The German Experience
Caliendo, Marco
Policies to Create and Destroy Human Capital in Europe
Heckman, James J.; Jacobs, Bas
Cultural Integration in Germany
Constant, Amelie F.; Nottmeyer, Olga; Zimmermann, Klaus F.
Years of Schooling, Human Capital and the Body Mass Index of European Females
Brunello, Giorgio; Fabbri, Daniele; Fort, Margherita
Welfare Rankings From Multivariate Data, A Non-Parametric Approach
Gordon Anderson; Ian Crawford; Andrew Leicester
Making Inferences About Rich Country – Poor Country Convergence: The Polarization Trapezoid and Overlap measures.
Gordon Anderson; Teng Wah Leo; Oliver Linton
Self-delusion in the pursuit of happiness
Dag Einar Sommervoll
“In every rank, or great or small, ’Tis industry supports us all”: Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, and their wages, in transition
Andrén, Daniela
The Effect of Protestantism on Education before the Industrialization: Evidence from 1816 Prussia
Becker, Sascha O.; Woessmann, Ludger
On the relation between income inequality and happiness: Do fairness perceptions matter?
Bjørnskov, Christian; Dreher, Axel; Fischer, Justina A. V.; Schnellenbach, Jan
Inequality in health outcomes in India: the role of caste and religion
Borooah, Vani /K

Contents.

Health Care Expenditure and Income in the OECD Reconsidered: Evidence from Panel Data

Date:	2010-01
By:	Badi H. Baltagi (Center for Policy Research, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244-1020) Francesco Moscone
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:max:cprwps:120&r=ltv
This paper reconsiders the long-run economic relationship between health care expenditure and income using a panel of 20 OECD countries observed over the period 1971-2004. In particular, the paper studies the non-stationarity and cointegration properties between health care spending and income. This is done in a panel data context controlling for both cross-section dependence and unobserved heterogeneity. Cross-section dependence is modelled through a common factor model and through spatial dependence. Heterogeneity is handled through fixed effects in a panel homogeneous model and through a panel heterogeneous model. Our findings suggest that health care is a necessity rather than a luxury, with an elasticity much smaller than that estimated in previous studies.
Keywords:	Health expenditure, income elasticity, cross section dependence, heterogeneous panels, factor models
JEL:	C31

Obesity and Happiness

Date:	2009-10
By:	Marina-Selini Katsaiti (University of Connecticut and University of Athens)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2009-44&r=ltv
This paper provides insight on the relationship between obesity and happiness. Using the latest available cross sectional data from Germany (GSOEP 2006), UK (BHPS 2005), and Australia (HILDA 2007). We examine whether there is evidence on the impact of overweight on subjective well being. The Hausman test is employed in the univariate and multivariate specifications chosen and reveals evidence for the presence of endogeneity in the German and the Australian data. Instrumental variable analysis is performed under the presence of endogeneity whereas for the UK we run OLS regressions. Results indicate that in all three countries obesity has a negative and significant effect on the subjective well being of individuals. For Germany, using a differences-in-differences methodology, I find that non-overweight/non-obese individuals are on average 0.5 units happier than their overweight/obese counterparts. My findings also have important implications for the effect of other socio-demographic, economic and individual characteristics on well being.
Keywords:	Happiness, Obesity, Instrumental Variable Analysis, Subjective Well Being
JEL:	D60

Determinants of Health Disparities in Italian Regions

Date:	2009-10-20
By:	Luisa Franzini Margherita Giannoni
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pia:wpaper:70/2009&r=ltv
There is an extensive literature on regional disparities in health, but much of thisliterature focuses on the United States. Among European countries, Italy is the country whereregional health disparities contribute the most to socioeconomic health disparities. In this paper,we report on regional differences in self-reported poor health and explore possible determinantsat the individual and regional levels in Italy. We use data from the “Indagine Multiscopo sulle Famiglie”, a survey of aspects ofeveryday life in the Italian population, to estimate multilevel logistic regressions that model poorself-reported health as a function of individual and regional socioeconomic factors. Next we usethe causal step approach to test if living conditions, healthcare characteristics, social isolation,2and health behaviors at the regional level mediate the relationship between regionalsocioeconomic factors and self-rated health. We find that residents living in regions with more poverty, more unemployment, andmore income inequality are more likely to report poor health and that poor living conditions andprivate share of healthcare expenditures at the regional level are determinants of socioeconomicdisparities in self-rated health among Italian regions. The implications are that regional contexts matter and that regional policies in Italyhave the potential to reduce health disparities by implementing interventions aimed at improvingliving conditions and access to quality healthcare.
Keywords:	health inequality, Italy, self-reported health, regional health disparities
JEL:	I10

Income Support Systems, Labor Market Policies and Labor Supply: The German Experience

Date:	2009-12
By:	Caliendo, Marco (IZA)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4665&r=ltv
In view of the demographic trends, most EU countries face the problem of a declining work force in the future. Understanding the interaction between income support systems (such as unemployment benefits, social assistance, early retirement and pension systems) and total labor supply is of crucial importance to combat problems and ensure economic growth in the future. The German labor market has been plagued by high and persistent unemployment in the last two decades in combination with a relatively low labor force participation of women. This created a situation where labor market reforms were unavoidable. The speed and depth of the reforms are remarkable, mainly aimed at activating people by increasing their incentives to take up work. The aim of this paper is to give a brief overview of the German income support systems and labor market polices, their recent reforms and – where already possible – effects of these reforms. Overall, Germany seems to be on the right track. The recent reforms helped to tackle some labor market problems but also created high political unrest. It remains to be seen how future governments react to worsened economic conditions in light of these experiences.
Keywords:	unemployment, labor force participation, labor supply, benefit systems, public policy
JEL:	J26

Policies to Create and Destroy Human Capital in Europe

Date:	2009-12
By:	Heckman, James J. (University of Chicago) Jacobs, Bas (Erasmus University Rotterdam)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4680&r=ltv
Trends in skill bias and greater turbulence in modern labor markets put wages and employment prospects of unskilled workers under pressure. Weak incentives to utilize and maintain skills over the life-cycle become manifest with the ageing of the population. Reinvention of human capital policies is required to avoid increasing welfare state dependency among the unskilled and to reduce inefficiencies in human capital formation. Policy makers should acknowledge strong dynamic complementarities in skill formation. Investments in the human capital of children should expand relative to investment in older workers. There is no trade-off between equity and efficiency at early ages of human development but there is a substantial trade-off at later ages. Later remediation of skill deficits acquired in early years is often ineffective. Active labor market and training policies should therefore be reformulated. Skill formation is impaired when the returns to skill formation are low due to low skill use and insufficient skill maintenance later on in life. High marginal tax rates and generous benefit systems reduce labor force participation rates and hours worked and thereby lower the utilization rate of human capital. Tax-benefit systems should be reconsidered as they increasingly redistribute resources from outsiders to insiders in labor markets which is both distortionary and inequitable. Early retirement and pension schemes should be made actuarially fairer as they entail strong incentives to retire early and human capital is thus written off too quickly.
Keywords:	family policy, (non)cognitive skills, returns to education, inequality, dynamic complementarity, training, retirement, labor supply, human capital, skill formation, training policy, active labor market policy, tax, pension, benefit systems, welfare state
JEL:	H2

Cultural Integration in Germany

Date:	2009-12
By:	Constant, Amelie F. (DIW DC, George Washington University) Nottmeyer, Olga (DIW Berlin) Zimmermann, Klaus F. (IZA, DIW Berlin and Bonn University)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4675&r=ltv
This chapter investigates the integration processes of immigrants in Germany by comparing certain immigrant groups to natives differentiating by gender and immigrant generation. Indicators which are supposed to capture cultural integration of immigrants are differences in marital behavior as well as language abilities, ethnic identification and religious distribution. A special feature of the available data is information about overall life satisfaction, risk aversion and political interest. These indicators are also presented. All of these indicators are depicted in comparison between natives and immigrants differentiated by ethnic origin, gender and generation. This allows visualization of differences by ethnic groups and development over time. Statements about the cultural integration processes of immigrants are thus possible. Furthermore, economic integration in terms of female labor force participation is presented as an additional feature. Empirical findings suggest that differences among immigrants and between immigrants and Germans do exist and differ significantly by ethnic origin, gender and generation. But differences seem to diminish when we consider the second generations. This indicates greater adaptation to German norms and habits, and thus better cultural, socio-economic and political integration of second generation immigrants in Germany.
Keywords:	cultural integration, immigrants, Germany, ethnic origin, gender, generation
JEL:	F22

Years of Schooling, Human Capital and the Body Mass Index of European Females

Date:	2009-12
By:	Brunello, Giorgio (University of Padova) Fabbri, Daniele (University of Bologna) Fort, Margherita (University of Bologna)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4667&r=ltv
We use the compulsory school reforms implemented in European countries after the II World War to investigate the causal effect of education on the Body Mass Index (BMI) and the incidence of overweight and obesity among European females. Our IV estimates suggest that years of schooling have a protective effect on BMI. The size of the estimated effect is not negligible but smaller than the one found in comparable recent work for the US. We depart from the current empirical literature in three main directions. First, we use a multi-country approach. Second, we complement the standard analysis of the causal impact of years of schooling on BMI with one relying on a broader measure of education, i.e. individual standardized cognitive tests, and show that the current focus in the literature on years of schooling as the measure of education is not misplaced. Last, we evaluate whether the current focus on conditional mean effects should be integrated with an approach which allows for heterogeneous responses to changes in compulsory education. Although our evidence based on quantile regressions is mixed, there is some indication that the protective effect of schooling does not increase monotonically from the lower to the upper quantile of the distribution of BMI. Rather, the marginal effect is stronger among overweight (but not obese) females than among females with BMI above 30.
Keywords:	obesity, human capital, Europe
JEL:	I12

Welfare Rankings From Multivariate Data, A Non-Parametric Approach

Date:	2010-01-14
By:	Gordon Anderson Ian Crawford Andrew Leicester
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-386&r=ltv
Economic and Social Welfare is inherently multidimensional. However choosing a measure which combines several indicators is difficult and may have unintended and undesireable effects on the incentives for policymakers. We develope a nonparametric empirical method for deriving welfare rankings based on data envelopment which avoids the need to specify a weighting scheme. The results are valid for all possible social welfare functions which share certain cannonical properties. We apply this method to data on human development.
Keywords:	Welfare Rankings, Data Envelopment, Human development
JEL:	I3

Making Inferences About Rich Country – Poor Country Convergence: The Polarization Trapezoid and Overlap measures.

Date:	2010-01-14
By:	Gordon Anderson Teng Wah Leo Oliver Linton
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-387&r=ltv
Underlying the unresolved debate over whether the gap between rich and poor country GNP per capita has narrowed is a concern for wellbeing. The issue is really about the changing shapes of distributions of wellbeing indicators. As limiting cases con- vergence between rich and poor country groups can be brought about by countries within groups becoming less alike without any diminution of growth rate differentials between them or it can be brought about by reductions in these differentials without any diminution of within group identity. In essence the debate is about the extent to which rich and poor countries are polarizing, a subject first theoretically explored by Esteban and Ray (1994). The empirical issue is about whether separate groups can be identified in the overall distribution and whether they are tending toward common or distinct equilibria. This paper proposes two simple statistics for the problem, the Overlap measure and the Trapezoidal measure, changes in which reflect a combination of increasing (decreasing) subgroup location differences and decreasing (increasing) subgroup spreads which are the characteristics of polarization (convergence). The former statistic is of use when the sub-distributions are identified, while the latter can be used whether or not the subgroups are identified. These techniques are applied to the examination of convergence in GDP per capita between rich and poor nations when growth is viewed either as a wellbeing index or a technology index (i.e. the data are, or are not, population weighted). It turns out that such a distinction matters, viewed technologically there is divergence, viewed in a wellbeing sense there is convergence. As a collection of countries Africa is diverging from the rest of the world whatever the perspective of growth.
Keywords:	Convergence, Polarization, Trapezoid Measure, Overlap measure
JEL:	I3

Self-delusion in the pursuit of happiness

Date:	2010-01
By:	Dag Einar Sommervoll (Statistics Norway)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssb:dispap:604&r=ltv
The paper explores how repeated revisions of consumption plans increase long-run utility. If agents value present anticipations of future consumption, some revisions may be viewed as a benign form of self-delusion. We consider a minimal generalization of the Samuelson discounted utility model to allow for utility linked to next period consumption. Agents are assumed to vary with respect to their sophistication. Different environments likely to facilitate repeated revisions are also considered.
Keywords:	Intertemporalchoice;selfdelusion;timeinconsistency;naivete;self-con trol;discountedutilityfunctions;anticipation;memory
JEL:	A12

“In every rank, or great or small, ’Tis industry supports us all”: Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, and their wages, in transition

Date:	2010-01-15
By:	Andrén, Daniela (Department of Business, Economics, Statistics and Informatics)
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:oruesi:2010_001&r=ltv
Legally binding treaties or memorandums have been used over time to regulate the issue of national borders of many European countries. As a result, relatively large groups of people have become ethnic minorities in other countries. They may conserve their ethnic identities, and therefore their children may accumulate ethnic human capital (e.g., language, culture, and religion) in addition to the general human capital of the country. Therefore, they can get access to an appropriate occupation linked by tradition or other factors to their ethnic group. This paper uses estimates from a selection model with an endogenous switch among three broad types of occupational groups to analyze the composition of the wage gap between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians in Romania before and during the transition from a planned to a market economy. The results suggest that the institutional settings of the controlled economy allowed Romanians to work in occupations that gave them the best returns, while the changes during the transition years allowed ethnic Hungarians to work in occupations that gave them the best returns.
Keywords:	ethnic wage gap; occupation; selection model with an endogenous switch; wage gap decomposition
JEL:	J31

The Effect of Protestantism on Education before the Industrialization: Evidence from 1816 Prussia

Date:	2010-01
By:	Becker, Sascha O. Woessmann, Ludger
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:stl:stledp:2010-01&r=ltv
This paper uses recently discovered data on nearly 300 Prussian counties in 1816 to show that Protestantism led to more schools and higher school enrollment already before the industrialization. This evidence supports the human capital theory of Protestant economic history of Becker and Woessmann (2009), where Protestantism first led to better education, which in turn facilitated industrial development. It rules out that the existing end-of-19th-century evidence can be explained by a Weberian explanation, where a Protestant work ethic first led to industrialization which then increased the demand for education.
Keywords:	Pre-Industrialization; Protestantism; Education

On the relation between income inequality and happiness: Do fairness perceptions matter?

Date:	2010-01-15
By:	Bjørnskov, Christian Dreher, Axel Fischer, Justina A. V. Schnellenbach, Jan
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awi:wpaper:0495&r=ltv
In this paper, we revisit the association between happiness and inequality. We argue that the perceived fairness of the income generation process affects this association. Building on a two-period model of individual life-time utility maximization, we predict that persons with higher perceived fairness will experience higher levels of life-time utility and are less in favor of income redistribution. In societies with a high level of actual social mobility, income inequality is perceived more positively with increased expected fairness. The opposite is expected for countries with low actual social mobility, due to an increasing relevance of a disappointment effect resulting from unsuccessful individual investments. Using the World Values Survey data and a broad set of fairness measures, we find strong support for the negative (positive) association between fairness perceptions and the demand for more equal incomes (subjective well-being). We also find strong empirical support for the disappointment effect in low social mobility countries. In contrast, the results for high-mobility countries turn out to be ambiguous.
Keywords:	Happiness; life satisfaction; subjective well-being ; inequality; income distribution; redistribution; political ideology; justice; fairness
JEL:	I31

Inequality in health outcomes in India: the role of caste and religion

Date:	2010
By:	Borooah, Vani /K
URL:	http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:19832&r=ltv
The “social gradient to health” – whereby people belonging to groups higher up the social ladder had better health outcomes than those belonging to groups further down – is essentially a Western construct; there has been very little investigation into whether, in developing countries also, people’s state of health is dependent on their social status. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative strengths of economic and social status in determining the health status of persons in India. In other words, even after controlling for non-community factors, did the fact that Indians belonged to different social groups, encapsulating different degrees of social status, exercise a significant influence on the state of their health? The existence of a social group effect would suggest that there was a “social gradient” to health outcomes in India. Furthermore, there was the possibility that the “social gradient” existed with respect to some outcomes but not to others. In investigating this, the paper addresses, in the Indian context, an issue which les at the heart of social epidemiology: estimating the relative strengths of individual and social factors in determining health outcomes.
Keywords:	Health outcomes; Caste; Religion; India
JEL:	I12

General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org/. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <>.

La mirada de un aldeano: Carmelo_agosto_2008

2008-09-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

The perception of corruption

2008-08-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

The perception of corruption

Natalia Melgar (UdelaR), Máximo Rossi (UdelaR) and Tom W. Smith (Chicago University)

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the foundations of corruption perception. Even when we employ the concept of corruption in several areas and its connotations vary widely depending on societies and people, it is possibly to find some elements in common which are connected with the misuse of public office with the purpose of making private gains. This paper focuses on this wide concept of corruption. We use data from the module on Citizenship of the 2004 International Social Survey Program (ISSP). Ordered probit models were estimated in order to study the impact of independent variables on the perception of corruption. We conclude that there are significant socio-demographic variables: gender, marital status, religiosity, education and sector of employment, among others. Additionally, we find that country of residence matters and that there are similar results among countries with common characteristics.

Key words: corruption, microeconomic behavior, comparative research, public opinion, ISSP

JEL Classification: D73, K42, O57

Introduction

We employ the concept of corruption in several areas and its connotations vary widely depending not only on societies but also on people. Corruption is interpreted as cultural phenomena. Although there are very different definitions, it is possible to find some elements in common which are connected with the misuse of public office with the purpose of making private gains. This paper focuses on this wide concept of corruption.

The data source is the module on Citizenship of the 2004 International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The survey asks respondents (approximately 1.000 per country) their opinions on a great variety of issues, including international trade, migration, corruption, politics or religion. In addition, it includes demographic and socio-economic data, such as: age, gender, education and others.

Ordered probit models were estimated in order to study the impact of these variables on corruption perception. We conclude that there are socio-demographic variables which are significant at determining corruption perception, variables such us: religion, age, the level of education, the sector of employment, among others. Additionally, in all cases the country of residence has a significant impact on corruption perception and we found some clear pattern of behavior taking into account

economics as well as political characteristics.

The structure of the paper is as follows. The first section is theoretical in nature, and draws on the definition of corruption. Section two is devoted to the existing and well-developed theory on the subject (causes of corruption). In section three we analyze corruption as multidimensional phenomena. Section four sketches the main features of the econometric methods applied in this analysis, the data source and the description of variables. The fifth section deals with results. Finally, the conclusions are presented in section six.

1. Corruption: concept and general view

We employ the concept of corruption in several areas and its connotations vary widely depending not only on societies but also on people. Corruption is interpreted as cultural phenomena. In effect, social rules may differ among cultures; while in one society an action could be accepted as normal in another one the same action could be a corrupt action.

The first problem of any comparative research on corruption is arriving at a definition which lends itself to cross-cultural and cross-national research. As we mentioned, this paper focuses on a wide concept of corruption: the misuse of public office with the purpose of making private gains; this definition incorporates the notions of wrongly getting an advantage, pecuniary or otherwise, in violation of official duty and the rights of others. Although all people have a definition of behavior labeled as corrupt, there might be cultural differences in the way "wrongfully" is defined by people. Consequently, there is need for a balance between the generalizations of this concept and the capability of explaining it in a specific historical context and culture in which it occurs.

In economic terms, there are several ways to define corruption. For example, Werlin (1973) characterizes corruption as the use of public office for private needs and Blackburn et al. (2004) consider public sector corruption as the illegal, or unauthorized, profiteering by officials who exploit their positions to make personal gains. To emphasize governmental corruption, Shleifer et al. (1993), define it as the sale of state assets by civil servants in order to make gains.

Pope (2000) asserts that corruption can take place where there is a combination of opportunity and inclination. He explains that corruption can be initiated from either side of the transaction: a bribe being offered to an official, or the official requesting an illicit payment. Those offering bribes may do so either because they want something they are not entitled to, and bribe the official to bend the rules, or because they believe that the official will not give them their entitlements without some

inducements being offered. On the other hand, officials may refuse to serve clients unless a bribe is paid. In this case, it is possible to differ between small bribes practiced by civil servants and the great corruption of high public officials involving large and hidden bribes in overseas bank accounts.

2. Corruption and the perception of corruption: its causes

In general terms, the perception of corruption has favored the growth of institutional instability and the persistent deterioration of the relationships among individuals, institutions and States. The loss of political legitimacy that many governments have experienced, the polarization of power and bureaucratic inefficiency are some of the political consequences of corruption. Moreover, the perception of economic corruption would have a devastating effect because it generates a “culture of distrust” towards some institutions.

In the following section, we examine previous studies in this field. In particular, we emphasize the micro foundations of corruption at individual and country level.

2.1. Objective aspects

According to Rose-Ackerman (2001), there are six categories that capture the most important incentives for corruption: 1) the bureaucracy may be charged with allocating a scarce benefit to many individuals and firms using legal criteria other than willingness to pay, 2) civil servants may have little incentive to do their jobs well, given their pay scales and the level of internal monitoring, 3) private firms and individuals seek to reduce the costs imposed on them by governments (taxes, customs duties and others regulations), 4) governments frequently transfer large financial benefits to private firms through procurement contracts, privatizations, and the award of concessions, 5) the judiciary has the power to impose costs and transfer resources between litigants and 6) elected politicians can accept illegal payoffs both to fund their campaigns and to enrich themselves.

Taking into account cost-benefits analysis, Cábelková (2001) studies the incentives to take corrupt actions and he holds that this problem is affected by individual perception about the level of corruption and the authority’s level of tolerance. This perception may affect both the demand and supply of corrupt actions.

From a microeconomic point of view, corruption could be seen as a price and the analysis focuses on modeling its functional form. In that sense, two academic approaches could be mentioned.

In the first approach, corruption is interpreted as a tax. The staring point is the premise that rules are asymmetric and costly. Therefore, people may find it profitable to bribe and corruption would be a consequence of the high cost of legality. The rules and the laws modify the decision making process because they have costs and benefits. The fulfillment of a rule supposes a benefit and a certain cost. The cost of the rule could be seen as the time and information needed to fulfill them and it is a function of the lost in time and the information; both elements are costly (Ghersi, 2006).

Therefore, if individuals need a lot of time or information to fulfill a rule, the probability of behaving in accordance with the law decreases. To bribe or not to bribe? The decision depends on the difference between the expected benefit and cost. The costs associated with a bribe are three-fold. First, the social cost. Second, the money cost of the bribe itself which could be seen as an opportunity cost. Finally, the penalties levied for violations. In the last case, the role of the government matters because the amount of the expected costs depends on individual’s perception about the intensity of the actions to avoid corruption (it depends on the enforcement, the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted, and the severity of the punishment if convicted).

Until now, we are analyzing corruption without ethical considerations, later on we will consider the subjective factors that influence the decision making process. When we ignore those subjective elements, the most relevant conclusion is that the cost of legality is inversely proportional to an individual’s income. A higher income makes easier the access to information. Consequently, rules and laws have asymmetric effects, which distort individual behavior (Ghersi, 2006).

Moreover, You et al. (2005) show that income inequality is a significant determinant of corruption. With the increased inequality, the rich, as a class or as interest group, can use lobbying, political contributions or bribery to influence law-implementing processes (bureaucratic corruption) and to buy favorable interpretations of the law (judicial corruption).

Therefore, corruption could be interpreted as a tax; people may pay an illegal and informal tax which allow them to avoid a rule, a penalty etc. Moreover, we could distinguish between a bribe to gain an unfair advantage and a bribe to get something that should have been given without the bribe. In line with this argument, Posner (1999) argues the blackmail and the bribe are similar since the blackmailer and the bribed official receive a payment in exchange for not applying the law. In

this case, the analysis consists of identifying to the bribe as an informal coercion that officials are capable of applying to citizens in exchange for a “favor”. This payment reflects the cost of the legality, which is positively correlated with the demand of bribes (Ghersi, 2006).

The second approach holds that corruption is insurance. Given an asymmetric and costly institutional context, people buy this insurance when they bribe a government employee to protect themselves against costly rules. A person is risk-neutral if utility changes are strictly proportional to changes in income. On the other hand, in the case of risk-averters (risk-lovers), changes in utility are less (more) than proportional (Svetozar, 1985). Therefore, people’s attitudes towards bribes

vary depending on their risk preferences; risk averters would be more likely to pay an insurance premium (a bribe) than risk-lovers.

Regarding democracy, some previous studies analyzed the link between corruption and political systems. In general, it was found that democratic systems tend to reduce corruption. For example, Montinola et al. (2002) find that political competition matters; one mechanism through which it reduces corruption is the re-election imperative, which lowers the demand for bribes. Political competition is posited to reduce corruption in two additional ways. First, the freedom of information

and association characteristic of democracies helps monitoring of public officials, thereby limiting their opportunities for corrupt behavior. Secondly, the possible turnover of power in democracies implies that politicians cannot always credibly promise that particular laws and regulations will continue in the future. This minimizes the size of bribes that rent-seekers are willing to pay.

Additionally, Rose-Ackerman (2001) focuses on honesty and trust as they affect the functioning of the democracies and markets. She argues that large democracies govern themselves through political representatives, bureaucrats, judges, etc and because elected representatives cannot be perfectly controlled by voters, the electorate must have some level of trust in those it elects. The more they can be trusted to fulfill their roles willingly, the fewer the resources needed to monitor and

discipline them, and the more discretion they can be given. In line with Montinola et al. (2002), Rose-Ackerman asserts that a competitive electoral process can give politicians an incentive to reveal the untrustworthy behavior of their opponents and to be trustworthy themselves.

As there are proofs regarding this relationship (Rose-Ackerman, 2001 and Montinola et al., 2002), we will focus on the satisfaction with the democratic system rather than the democracy itself.

2.2. Subjective aspects

Given the mentioned objective aspects, when the fulfillment of a rule implies high costs, decisions will vary among individuals depending on their values and moral views, which modify the perception of the expected costs and expected benefits. Ceteris Paribus, to bribe would not mean the same to people depending on their values. While a person could be against bribery regardless of the perceived level of corruption someone else views could depend on the existing level of corruption.

Moreover, the formation of individual perceptions about the level of corruption is affected by the access to information and the capability to analyze this information. Personal experience has a significant role; it depends on the interaction among the citizen and corrupt civil servants. Obviously, there are additional sources of information about corruption such as the media (radio, TV, written press) or information from relatives and friends.

Additionally, You et al. (2005) argue that income inequality also influences corruption perception and habituates norms about corruption in the following way: if inequality is high, “the rich are likely to believe that corruption is an acceptable way of preserving their societal position as this behavior goes unpunished and social networks of corruption expand” and people will more easily justify their corrupt activities as inequality increases”.

As Cábelková (2001) indicates, the perception of corruption may influence the level of corruption in two opposite ways. When people perceive that the level of corruption is high it is likely that: 1) citizens think that a bribe is needed and 2) government employees do not consider that a bribe is improper. Hereby, a bribe is thought to be necessary and it seems unlikely that this bribe would not be accepted. In turn, government employees could consider this activity as risk-free and with low probability of detection. Therefore, corruption increases. On the other hand, when the perception of corruption is high, the government may take greater actions in order to reduce corruption. Therefore, corruption could decrease.

3. Corruption as multicultural phenomena: some insights

According to Nelken et al. (1996) the understanding of corruption could be extended by using concepts of criminology and sociology. They hold that even if corrupt agreements are often in breach of the criminal law, we must still ask whether corruption is deviant or simply normal in some groups or some countries. But comparison should not be confined to seeking out what there is in common but also in understanding the many relevant differences in political and legal cultures.

Maingot (1994) states that that there are several fallacies regarding the concept of corruption. The most frequent of them stems from the tendency towards personalization: e.g., believing that one thoroughly corrupt individual is the cause of it all. At a more general level, personalization responds to a natural and widespread, prurient interest in what people do, rather than to abstract notions of how society functions. Regarding religious beliefs, the author argues that it is also a plausible

proposition that in Judeo-Christian societies, personalizing the problem of corruption responds to the propensity to see both redemption and punishment in individual, not systemic, terms.

Another fallacy to be avoided is that of odious moral comparisons of whole cultures. North Americans, for example, have long tended to view Latin America as inherently corrupt. From the 19th century onward, Latin Americans also judged the US capitalist culture as profoundly corrupt. Moreover, the author adds that there are two subsets of specific fallacies about remedial action which often flow from cultural generalizations. First, that one can impose one's moral codes cross-

culturally, i.e., the belief that one can teach other societies specific approaches to probity in public office. Second, a specific fallacy which is the opposite of the previous one: the notion that it is impossible to pass judgment about probity and corruption on other cultures.

Different cultures are perfectly capable of making the necessary "translation of codes" to form very similar judgments about corruption. It is this shared understanding that justifies attempts to formulate theories of corrupt behavior and the mechanisms for combating it.

Maingot (1994) classifies the theories that explain corrupt behavior at different levels. Firstly, those that are premised on cultural behavior: cultural explanations are very common in Latin America and tend to adhere to two well-established theories of criminal behavior, both emphasizing the socialization process. For example, the theory of cultural transmission maintains that offenders adhere to a unique value system which endorses, rather than condemns, the deviant behavior. This

would mean that Latin American officials are corrupt because there exists a bifurcated moral sense in which corrupt behavior, while in office, is not only not condemned but, on the contrary, is actually approved. The second theory is that of differential association: e.g., because of their intimate, smallgroup interaction and association with deviants, individuals engage in similar behavior. One often hears that because the big fish are "biting," one should naturally expect the smaller fry to "bite" also.

Secondly, there are theoretical schools which emphasize social conflict or social strain explanations. According to Maingot (1994), this approach tends to be popular among more radical interpreters of the Latin American and Caribbean reality. It is assumed that, due to the obstacles to legitimate social mobility presented by the steeply stratified nature of its social structures, there is a propensity to resort to deviant means in order to achieve socially approved goals.

Finally, there are theories which emphasize individual choice and focuses on the individual as a rational actor, one who makes utilitarian choices in a particular social and economic context. This theory focuses on the individual who, in contemplation of a corrupt act, is able to weigh rationally his moral scruples, fear of official sanctions and public disapproval on the one hand against the potential material gains and psychological gratifications provided by the act on the other.

Evidently, while the desire for gain might be strong, the legal and moral context is subject to change and, thus, is able to alter the outcome of the calculation. This approach combines rational actor theory with more economic theories. Therefore, it enables us to understand why so many officials still opt for honesty even in the face of powerful, almost all-encompassing, pressures towards deviance and corruption. In that sense, Maingot (1994) argues that elements such as moral sentiments and fear of public disapproval must carry a powerful counter weight.

Nelken et al. (1996) state that rather than regarding corruption and anti-corruption as independent phenomena, it is more useful to examine how corruption and concern about corruption grows and falls. They added that those engaged in corrupt agreements tend to overreach themselves and bring about the collapse of these exchanges: a) through ever increasing competition amongst those seeking clients, b) through the eventual fight back by those excluded and c) above all, once

investigations get started, because of the scramble –in the prisoner’s dilemma logic– to be the first to confess once they know or believe that trust in mutual silence has been broken. The authors found evidence that how anti-corruption campaigns form part of the cycle of corruption and its response itself varies by culture. They mention that the attack on corruption is seen by sociologist as an attempt to re-legitimate the rulers and/or specific political actors or criminal justice agencies.

But both corruption and anti-corruption can serve to undermine or extend the legitimacy of politicians, parties, and the State. Within criminology, the analysis of corruption is most closely associated with the study of state crime, white-collar and organized crime, and its regulation.

Therefore, there is much to be gained from examining corruption in a comparative perspective. The search for common factors has thrown up a number of causes of corruption. Even countries with similar legal and political arrangements can have intriguing differences in their definitions of where private interest interferes with public performance. There are important but less acknowledged differences amongst countries in their toleration of open political lobbying by businesspeople.

On the other hand, public opinion polls show an increasing perception of corruption and the media increasingly reports such stories, as they do those of the growth of fraud. But given low visibility of the behavior and modest enforcement, it is easy to produce an artificial “control wave” which may not correspond to any underlying behavioral change (Nelken et al., 1996).

4. Data source and methodology

4.1. The survey

As mentioned, the data source is the module on Citizenship of the 2004 International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The survey asks respondents their opinions on a great variety of issues, including international trade, migration, politics, taxes and corruption, as well as demographic and socioeconomic information, such as age, gender, education, religiosity and others.

The question used in the survey to identify respondent’s perception of corruption is:

Taking into account your experience,

how widespread do you think corruption is in the public service in your country?

4.2. Ordered probit models

The model aims at determining how different individual characteristics affect the formation of opinions towards corruption among government employees. In this respect, ordered probit models were estimated.

The dependent variable seeks to grasp citizen’s perception of corruption and it is defined as follow: Corruption = (Taking into account your experience, how widespread do you think corruption is in the public service in your country?) =

0 if respondent answers “hardly anyone”, 1 if respondent indicates “a small number”, 2 if respondent says “a moderate number”, 3 if respondent indicates “a lot of people” and 4 if respondent answers “almost everyone”. Countries abbreviations are in table 2 and the description of the variables is included in table 3.

The phenomenon to model is discrete, the unobserved or latent variable is y* (perception of corruption) which is related to the independent observed variables (xi).

5. Results

The model includes dummy variables representing individual characteristics and in order to capture fixed effects per country we include dummy variables reflecting country of residence. We found that gender is significant and the result indicates that women are more likely to perceive a higher level of corruption than men.

Secondly, it was found that the variables reflecting individual’s age are not significant; this result implies that there are no significant differences among youngest people, middle-aged people and the oldest group.

Thirdly, we found that marital status matters. While those people who are married or (live as married) tend to perceive a lower level of corruption than other people, the opposite is true for those who are divorced.

Moreover, as it was expected, the level of education has a relevant role in determining the perception of corruption. It was found that people who have completed at least secondary education are more likely to perceive a lower level of corruption. It is known that the perceived level of corruption could be very different from the actual level; therefore, this result could imply that access to information and the capability to process this information matter: more educated people have more information about the actual level of corruption and better capabilities to process the information and this fact influences on the formation of the perception of corruption.

Regarding religion and religiosity the model confirms our hypothesis. Firstly, there are no significant differences among religious groups (Roman Catholic, Protestant and others) and the same happens if we compare people who identifies with some religious group and atheists. On the other hand, the degree of religiosity (measured by weekly attendance to religious services) does influence the perception of corruption; it decreases the probability of perceiving a high level of

corruption.

Taking into account the place of residence, we found that there is no significant difference among people living in urban areas and others.

Concerning labor market, we found a significant difference among people who are self-employed and other people. Specifically, self-employed people tend to perceive a higher level of corruption. It might be possible that self-employed people are exposed to more incidents of corruption. The opposite is true in the case of people who work full-time; those people tend to perceive a lower level of corruption.

Additionally, the sector of employment is a determinant of corruption perception. Those who are working in a private enterprise are more likely to perceive a higher level of corruption than those who are employed in the public sector. On the other hand, it is worth noting that there is no significant difference among people who are unemployed and those who are employed. The same happens among: a) those who are retired and other people and b) those people who belong to a

union and other people.

Connected with democracy, we found that those who have a favorable opinion on democracy are more likely to perceive a lower level of corruption.

It is worth noting that all country dummies are significant. This result might mean that there are significant cultural and political differences that influence the perception of corruption. While most of them show a positive sign, there is a small group of countries that register a negative sign. We will explain this result differences later.

We calculate the marginal effects and their standard errors after estimation. Rather than reporting coefficients, tables 5.1 and 5.2 report the discrete change in the probability for each significant dummy variable. The marginal effects are nonlinear functions of the estimated parameters, so they cannot generally be inferred directly from the parameter estimates.

As could be seen in table 5.1, the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption, for the whole sample, is 5.63%. This table also reports the change in this probability when the dummies variables considered turn from 0 to 1.

Firstly, taking into account respondent’s gender we found that the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption increases 0.5 percent points (pp) when we consider a woman instead of a man.

Regarding marital status, if we take into account married people this probability decreases 0.4 pp. On the other hand, this probability increases 0.7 pp when we change to divorced people. Moreover, when we consider the third or fourth levels of education, the change in the probability is also relevant. It decreases 1.0 and 2.8 pp, respectively.

If the person attends to religious services once a week or more frequently, the decrease in the mentioned probability is 0.5 pp.

Additionally, the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption also increases if the person is working in a private enterprise (1.1 pp) or if the person is self-employed (1.6 pp). However, to work full time reduces this probability in 0.4 pp

Finally, we also find that the perception of the performance of democratic institutions have the most significant impact on corruption perception; when we change from someone who believes that the state of democracy in his/her country is not satisfactory to someone who has a favorable opinion, the probability reduces 7.0 pp. This is the biggest changes in the probability.

Table 5.2 summarizes the information about the change in the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption for each country variable.

The average change in the probability is 15.5 pp, Japan and Hungry register similar values (16.3 pp and 14.1 pp, respectively). The median is 12.8 pp, United States is close to this value, 11.5 pp. The biggest impacts were found in Latin American countries: Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico, the probability raises 57.3 pp, 46.3 pp and 44 pp, respectively. This result implies that Brazilians, Venezuelans and Mexicans tend to perceive a higher level of corruption than the rest of the sample.

Moreover, the table shows that all Latin American countries are situated in the first half of the table; the change is higher than the average. In this group of countries, Chile and Uruguay registered the smallest identical impact (18.3 pp).

Something similar happens in the case of Asia, with the exemption of Taiwan, all countries are found in the first half. In the case of Taiwan, the change in the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption is 8.8 pp.

On the contrary, in the case of EU the majority of countries are found in the second half of the table, with lower changes in the mentioned probability than both the average and the median changes.

Portugal is the exemption; it belongs to the EU and is found in the top half of the table. Similarly, Canada and United States, which belongs to America but with very different economic performance and cultural characteristics than Latin American countries, raise lower values (4.2 ppand 11.5 pp, respectively). Additionally, Anglo-settlement colonies (Canada, New Zealand and United States) fall in the bottom half as do the majority of rich countries.

As mentioned, our sample included 37 countries and only in eight cases the probability reduces: Switzerland (-0.9 pp), Norway (-1.4 pp), Netherlands (-1.6 pp), Cyprus (-1.9 pp), Great Britain (-2.1 pp), New Zealand (-2.3 pp), Finland (-3.5 pp) and Denmark (-3.7 pp). It is worth noting that all of those countries are rich and almost all of them belong to the EU. Analyzing political characteristics, we found another clear pattern of behavior. The former Socialist states of Eastern Europe are located in the first half of the table in the following order: Bulgaria (39.3 pp), Poland (38 pp), Russia (33.8 pp), Slovakia (33.2 pp), Slovenia (21 pp), Czech Republic (20.8 pp), Latvia (18.9 pp) and Hungary (14.1 pp). This result could be related to the past experiences of corruption at the governmental level than to present events.

Taking into account country size (measured by the population) we found that, in general, smaller countries are at the bottom of the table (Cyprus, Finland, Denmark, New Zealand and Norway).

Regarding others characteristics such as whether the country was a colony or official language, we do not found a clear pattern of behavior.

6. Conclusions

We found that some individual characteristics have a significant effect on the probability of perceiving the highest level of corruption: gender, marital status and the level of education. When partial effects were calculated, it was found that the probability increases when we consider a woman instead of a man and when we change from people who are not married to those who are. On the other hand, this probability increases when we change to divorced people. Finally, when we

consider the two highest levels of education, the change in the probability is, as expected,

significant and negative.

Regarding religion and religiosity we found that the degree of religiosity does influence the perception of corruption; it decreases the probability. On the contrary, there is no significant difference among religious groups and atheists and other people.

Additionally, it was found that some economic variables also matter. Those who are working in a private enterprise and those who are self-employed are more likely to perceive a higher level of corruption and the opposite was found for those who work full-time. On the contrary, to be unemployed, to belong to a union or to be retired were not significant.

With respect to democracy, it was found that those who have a favorable opinion on the way that democracy works in his/her country, are more likely to perceive a lower level of corruption.

Taking into account fixed effects, as expected, all country dummies were significant. Regarding countries ranking, we found that all Latin American countries showed changes which are higher than the average and the same is true for ex-Socialist states and the majority of East Asian countries.

The highest changes in the analyzed probability were found in Latin American countries: Brazil, Venezuela and Mexico (more than 40 pp) and others Latin American countries also rank in the top half (Uruguay and Chile).

Similarly, all eight of the ex-Socialist states are in the top half of the table. The model also shows that in the case of the former Socialist states of Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia) the change in the probability is bigger than the average. This result might be connected with past experiences of corruption at the governmental level than to present events.

Moreover, almost all East Asian countries are found in the first half of the table with the exception of Taiwan falling just bellow the top half. On the contrary, the majority of European countries showed lower changes than the average, only

Portugal is found in the top half of the table. We also found that all Anglo-settlement colonies (Canada, New Zealand and United States) fall in the bottom half as do the majority of rich countries.

Finally, only in eight countries we found a negative change, in general, they are small, rich and belong to the EU (Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland), Denmark shows the biggest reduction in the probability, -3.7 pp.

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American Sociological Review, vol. 70, 136-157.

And What About the Family Back Home? International Migration and Happiness

2008-08-04T04:44:00.000-07:00

And What About the Family Back Home? International Migration and Happiness

Fernando Borraz, Susan Pozo, Maximo Rossi

ABSTRACT

In this study we use data on subjective well being and migration in Cuenca, one of the

Ecuador's largest cities. We examine the impact of migration on the happiness of the

family left behind. We use the propensity score matching estimator to take into account

the endogeneity of migration. Our results indicate that migration reduces the happiness of

those left behind. We also find that the monetary inflows (remittances) that accompany

migration do not increase happiness levels among recipients. These results suggest that

the family left behind cannot be compensated, for the increase in unhappiness that it

sustains on account of the emigration of loved ones, with remittances from abroad.

JEL Codes: A12, F22, I31.

Keywords: Happiness, migration, remittances.

A. Introduction

International migration can be motivated by a number of factors. Some migrate in

order to escape dire poverty. Others go into exile in search of religious or political

freedoms. Some move to invest in education, others to join relatives abroad, and still

others in pursuit of adventure and new opportunities. While a great deal of research has

analyzed the short-run and long-run outcomes for those that move to new areas (e.g.

Borjas, 2002; Chiswick, 2002; Smith, 2003; Card, 2005) in this paper we turn out focus

to the family left behind. In particular we consider whether the international migration of

one or more family members serves to increase or decrease the level of "happiness" of

household members who remain in the home community.

There are a number of reasons for expecting that migration and its potential byproducts

will continue to touch ever increasing numbers of individuals in the world. First

of all, the incidence of international migration has been rising. In 1970, about 2.2 percent

of the world’s population lived in a country other than their country of birth. In contrast,

by 2000, the foreign born accounted for close to 3 percent of the world’s population

(International Organization for Migration 2005, p. 379). A second reason for expecting

rising impacts of migration is due to the observation that emigration impacts more than

those moving to another country. Barriers to migration often make it difficult for whole

families to migrate. Therefore the incidence of migration-impacted households can

change with public policy which ultimately accentuates family separations and

dislocations. Massey (2006) has noted that increased enforcement at the US/Mexico

border implemented to stem illegal immigration has had the unintended effect of

extending the stay of unauthorized immigrants who would normally periodically return

home. Longer stays by unauthorized immigrant are likely to lead to longer-lasting and

permanent family separations. A third reason for expecting migration to touch larger

portions of the world population stems from policy shifts in immigration legislation

toward preferences for skill labor migration at the expense of family reunification. If

legislation continues to be developed along these lines, it follows that a larger circle of

individuals will be affected by migration due to longer-run family separations. Finally,

continued rapid technological progress of the sort observed in the more recent decades is

likely to continue, further reducing transportation and communication costs, easing travel

and facilitating international migration (UNDP, 1999).

Given the expectation of greater family dislocations via migration, what are our

priors on the impact of migration on happiness? We hypothesize that migration reduces

happiness levels of the family left behind. The emigration of a household member is

likely to directly cause disruptions in the household since the absent household member

may have been contributing to the household via market or house work. Thus, in addition

to discomfort stemming from the absence of loved ones, household and monetary

responsibilities now need to be assumed by other family members. The reallocation of

household chores and market work is likely to be costly for the remaining family

members, reducing happiness levels.

In this paper we also explore a second mechanism by which migration may

impact the household. Many immigrants remit money home. In fact, the raison d'etre

for migration in the first case is often couched in terms of obtaining opportunities to remit

money home. These monetary inflows, which many migrant households4 eventually

enjoy, may compensate in whole or in part for the losses felt on account of the absent

household member. In sum, we therefore seek to explore two questions. In the first we

ask whether migration decreases the level of happiness of the family back home. Next

we explore whether the monetary by-products (remittances) that often follow migration

increase the happiness levels of those households.

In order to examine the impact of migration on the happiness of the family left

behind we exploit information contained in the Discrimination and Economic Outcomes

Survey undertaken in Ecuador in 2006 under the auspices of the Inter-American

Development Bank.5 The survey contains information from 665 households: 480 in

Cuenca and 185 in San Fernando. In this paper we only include households residing in

Cuenca. Cuenca is the third largest city in Ecuador with nearly a half million inhabitants

while San Fernando is a very small town with approximately 3,000 inhabitants6. If the

household does claim a migrant member, limited information on that migration is

collected. Furthermore, information concerning the receipt of remittances is collected of

all households as is a question that assesses the "happiness" of the survey respondent.

B. Literature and Measurement Concerns

To what extent is it possible to discern "happiness" from surveys such as the one

in question? Di Tella and MacCulloch (2005) note that other social scientists including

psychologists have relied upon happiness data much like the data included in the

Discrimination and Economic Outcomes Survey that we are working with. They claim

that: “….well-being data pass what psychologists sometimes call validation exercises.

Pavot (1991), for example, finds that respondents who report that they are very happy

tend to smile more, an act that arguably is correlated with true internal happiness”.

Layard (2005) further rationalizes the use of happiness data by noting research in

neuroscience (Davidson, 2000) which have found that different regions in the brain are

associated with positive and negative affects. Thus when people describe their feelings

there is some biological basis and their claims are not purely subjective. Furthermore,

self-reported happiness is correlated with others' assessments of happiness. As such,

many argue that happiness can be measured and can be compared between individuals

and over time. In our case, respondents happiness are assessed by way of asking whether

they are "very satisfied," "fairly satisfied," "not satisfied," or "very unsatisfied" with their

life. With this information we construct a happiness dummy variable equal to "1" if the

house head is very satisfied or fairly satisfied with their life and "0" otherwise.

The literature on happiness suggests that a number of demographic, cultural and

economic factors play a role in individual's happiness. A review of the empirical

literature appears to concur with common expectations regarding the relationship

between personal variables and happiness. For example, separated individuals and

divorced individuals are found to be less happy (Clark and Oswald, 1994; Blanchard and

Oswald, 2000) and the degree of happiness is found to be "U-shaped" with respect to age

(Blanchflower and Oswald, 2000). Happiness decreases with age but eventually rises as

individuals get older. In contrast, education and happiness are found to be "inverse Ushaped.

More education increases happiness, but only up to a certain point. That is,

education can be "too much of a good thing," since beyond a certain point, additional

levels of education are found to contribute negatively to happiness levels (Hartlog et al.,

1997).

Other variables are found to have less obvious and sometimes even

counterintuitive impacts on happiness. For example, absolute income levels do not seem

to be important as determinants of happiness (Easterlin, 1974; Blanchflower and Oswald,

2000; Rayo and Becker, 2007). Relative income or wage standing, instead appear to

affect happiness levels (Frank, 1985; Easterlin, 2001, Miles et al., 2005). Interestingly,

self-employment is found to increase happiness for individuals in developed economies,

while having the opposite effect for individuals residing in developing economies

(Graham et al., 2001).

A number of other variables have been found to affect happiness, but with less

robust findings. For example, while it has been reported that women are happier than

men, the reported happiness among women is found to be declining over time. And while

religious denomination does not appear to impact happiness, religiosity, measured by

attendance at religious ceremonies, seems to be correlated with greater levels of

happiness (e.g. Blanchflower and Oswald 2000).

Our intent is to contribute to this literature by assessing the impact of migration

on happiness. To this end one might consider estimating a regression of the following

form:

Happiness for the head of household i (Hi) is presumed to depend on vectors of

household (Fi) and personal head of household (Pi) variables8. Following the literature

on happiness, the vector Fi includes absolute (or relative) per capita income and

household wealth. Personal (Pi) variables that are presumed to affect happiness are

gender, age and employment status. We would augment the standard happiness equation

to include one or a vector of migration related variables Mi, (whether there is a migrant in

the household j, whether the household j enjoys the receipt of remittances from abroad)

which may, in turn, have important impacts on happiness. Finally, εi is the unobserved

heterogeneity for the household i.

While (1) may seem a reasonable specification, it may not be appropriate if we

cannot justify that all right hand side variables in equation (1) are exogenous -- that there

is no correlation between the right hand side variables and the error term. This proves

problematic for the following reasons. Consider, for example, a very simple migration

variable -- a dummy variable assuming the value "1" for households that claim that one

of its members is a migrant and "0" otherwise. Correlation between the migration

dummy variable and the error term might very well exist on account of reverse causality.

While we are presuming that migration impacts happiness (e.g. family remaining behind

miss the migrant and their former contributions to the family and therefore are less

happy), it is also conceivable that happiness affects migration. For example, a very

unhappy household head may "drive family away" thereby prompting out-migration.

In addition to endogeneity originating from reverse causality, unobserved

heterogeneity may also play a role. Migrant households are not likely to be randomly

selected from the population, but we may not be able to observe and control for that

selection. For example, it may be that migrants tend to originate from households willing

to indulge in risk-taking behavior. But risk attitudes may also play a role in determining

happiness. If we cannot control for risk attitudes on the right hand side of (1) the

migration variable and error term will be correlated and our inferences regarding

migration and happiness will be biased.

Non-migration regressors in equation (1) may also suffer from endogeneity. One

obvious candidate is income. Positive work attitudes may very well be a factor in

determining income, but work attitudes are also likely to affect happiness. If we do not

observe and therefore control for work attitudes, this will be reflected in the error term

which will now be correlated with income, biasing the coefficient on income and

incorrectly assessing income's impact on happiness.

A common solution for endogeneity is to find instruments for the endogenous

variables in question. By finding variables that are correlated with the endogenous right

hand side variable yet not related to the dependent variable, we can purge the equation of

endogeneity and thereby obtain consistent estimates that reliably describe how the right

hand side variables affect happiness. In many cases, however, good instruments are

difficult to obtain. Furthermore, once we find good candidates, diagnostic tests of the

suitability of instruments are sometimes of questionable reliability, making it difficult to

justify their use. While we might venture to use instrumental variables to correct for one

endogenous regressor, we feel less confident about finding and justifying instruments for

all the regressors in equation (1) that are likely to be endogenous. For this reason we

seek an alternative technique to assess the impact of migration and migration related

variables on happiness.

D. Conclusions

In this paper we set out to study the impact of migration and remittances on the

happiness of the family left behind. We exploit the results of a survey conducted in

Cuenca, Ecuador in 2006 that collects information on both migration of family members

and on the receipt of remittances. In addition the survey asks a question about the level

of happiness experienced by the respondent, the household head. This allows us to check

for the impacts of migration and migration related variables on happiness.

As in any study of happiness, the primary challenge is to correct for endogeneity.

A large number of variables are likely to affect the "happiness" of individuals, but it is

also the case that happiness is likely to impact on many variables of interest. Given

selectivity in terms of who migrates, unobserved heterogeneity is also likely to

complicate the assessment of migration on happiness. Dealing with this endogeneity is

essential if we are to obtain credible and reliable results. In our case we choose to deal

with the endogeneity of happiness by using matching methods. To assess the impact of

migration on happiness we first estimated a propensity score for migration. These scores

were then used to find matched controls for those observations that were "treated" with

migration. We found that the matched controls were more happy than the treated. In

other words we were able to infer, in this case, that families with migrants are less happy.

Migration reduces the happiness of those left behind. In a second experiment we test to

see the impact of remittance recipiency on happiness. Are families who receive

remittances happier?

In conjunction, the two experiments suggest that remittances, the monetary

inflows that often accompany migration, cannot compensate for the absence of household

members through migration. This is interesting because it is often claimed that the raison

d'etra of international migration from developing to developed economies is the

acquisition of additional monetary resources from abroad for family back home to enjoy.

But it does not appear that these transfers can be used to raise the happiness levels of the

family left behind. As such one cannot compensate the family left behind for the absence

of loved ones with remittances from abroad.

Reflexiones de un aldeano

2008-07-24T04:47:00.000-07:00

Moralidad fiscal

MORAL FISCAL EN EL CONO SUR por Karina Azar, Mariana Gerstenblüth y Máximo Rossi RESUMEN En el presente trabajo se analiza el comportamiento individual frente al pago de impuestos, pero desde una óptica diferente a la comúnmente adoptada: la moral fiscal. Utilizando datos del Latinobarómetro (Latinobarómetro, 2005) para el Cono Sur, se estima la relación entre la moral fiscal, una serie de variables socioeconómicas que caracterizan al individuo y variables de percepción. Estimando modelos probit ordenados y mínimo cuadrado ordinarios, se encuentra en general una mayor moral fiscal para las personas más educadas, de mayor edad, casadas o en unión libre, con menor privación relativa, más orgullosas de su nacionalidad, satisfechas con la democracia, que confían en el presidente y las instituciones de su país. A su vez, se constatan diferencias según la nacionalidad, por ejemplo los contribuyentes chilenos poseen una moral fiscal significativamente mayor a la del resto. En el presente trabajo se analiza la motivación intrínseca de los individuos a pagar impuestos, esto es, su moral fiscal, en relación a una serie de características socioeconómicas y la percepción que los individuos tienen de su entorno, para los habitantes del cono sur latinoamericano, esto es, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. La moral fiscal (en adelante, MF), se entiende como la motivación intrínseca a pagar impuestos por parte de los individuos, y es tratada en la mayoría de los estudios como una “caja negra”, considerándola como parte residual en los análisis de evasión fiscal (Feld y Frey, 2002). Conclusiones En el presente trabajo se pretende captar la incidencia de ciertas características de los contribuyentes sobre su nivel de moral fiscal. El estudio de la tributación y el pago de los impuestos, es de larga data y varias han sido las perspectivas desde las cuales se ha analizado el tema; pero a pesar de ello, el fenómeno de la motivación intrínseca a pagar impuestos ha sido poco investigado a nivel académico. A menudo se señala que el cumplimiento tributario a nivel individual está fuertemente influenciado por los diferentes contextos y orígenes de las estructuras fiscales, a través de las normas sociales, la ética individual, el grado de satisfacción social y la percepción de la adecuación de las políticas públicas. Todos estos factores inciden en la forma en que el contribuyente percibe la información y en consecuencia, en las decisiones que toma. A nivel empírico frecuentemente se ha observado un mayor grado de cumplimiento tributario que el esperable de acuerdo al modelo tradicional de evasión, ya que el pago de impuestos es un acto que se lleva a cabo, no sólo debido a elementos externos de coacción por parte del Estado, sino también por motivaciones intrínsecas del individuo que contribuye al bienestar colectivo mediante su aporte pecuniario. En cuanto a la investigación empírica, dado que algunas de las variables explicativas pueden ser endógenas; esto es, estarían determinadas por algunas de las mismas fuerzas que influencian el problema bajo estudio, establecer relaciones causales entre diferentes variables socioeconómicas y de percepción y la moral fiscal en escenarios no experimentales, es dificultoso. La imposibilidad de contar con adecuados instrumentos que permitieran probar la existencia de endogeneidad, y en ese caso controlarla, lleva a que únicamente se puedan detectar correlaciones entre las diferentes variables y la variable dependiente. Los datos utilizados para el Cono Sur, provenientes de la Encuesta Latinobarómetro, permiten observar que un nivel más alto de moral fiscal se correlaciona positivamente con la edad, la educación, que el individuo esté casado o en unión libre, y que tenga una menor privación de bienes y servicios en el hogar. A su vez, se encuentra que las variables que representan el grado de orgullo nacional, la confianza en el presidente y la satisfacción con la democracia también inciden positivamente sobre la moral fiscal. De los resultados destaca el papel de la educación en la MF, lo cual tiene importantes derivaciones políticas. Se deberían implementar acciones no sólo que aumenten el conocimiento de los sistemas tributarios, sino que afecten, a través de la educación, la percepción de los individuos en relación al sistema tributario y el gobierno en general. La MF juega un rol fundamental en lo que a cumplimiento tributario se refiere, de lo que deben materializarse esfuerzos de forma de incrementarla entre los individuos.

2008-07-22T12:41:00.000-07:00

Galeria

2006-03-08T08:11:00.000-08:00

Pinturas 2006/2007

max.rossi

Liam Delaney: New Blog

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-03-06

NEP: New Economics PapersCentral and South America

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-03-06

NEP: New Economics PapersUnemployment, Inequality and Poverty

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-27

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-27

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-27

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-13

NEP: New Economics PapersCentral and South America

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-13

NEP: New Economics PapersUnemployment, Inequality and Poverty

In this issue we have:

Contents.

Edición Especial: Productos de investigación del dECON 2009

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty 2010-02-05

NEP: New Economics PapersUnemployment, Inequality and Poverty

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America 2010-02-05

NEP: New Economics PapersCentral and South America

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Resource Economics 2010-02-05

NEP: New Economics Papers Resource Economics 2010-02-05

NEP: New Economics Papers Central and South America

NEP: New Economics PapersCentral and South America

In this issue we have:

Contents.

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

NEP: New Economics Papers Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

NEP: New Economics PapersUnemployment, Inequality and Poverty

In this issue we have:

Contents.

La mirada de un aldeano: Carmelo_agosto_2008

The perception of corruption

And What About the Family Back Home? International Migration and Happiness

Reflexiones de un aldeano

Moralidad fiscal

Galeria

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

NEP: New Economics Papers
Central and South America

NEP: New Economics Papers
Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty