Search results for "jel:I"
showing 10 items of 48 documents
Heritability of Lifetime Income
2013
Using 15 years of data on Finnish twins, we find that 24% (54%) of the variance of women’s (men’s) lifetime income is due to genetic factors and that the contribution of the shared environment is negligible. We link these figures to policy by showing that controlling for education reduces the variance share of genetics by 5-8 percentage points; by demonstrating that income uncertainty has a genetic component half the size of its variance share in lifetime income; and by exploring how the genetic heritability of lifetime income is related to the macroeconomic environment, as measured by GDP growth and the Gini-coefficient of income inequality.
Long-term health effects on the next generation of Ramadan fasting during pregnancy
2011
Each year, many pregnant women fast from dawn to sunset during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Medical theory suggests that this may have negative long-term health effects on their offspring. Building upon the work of Almond and Mazumder (2008), and using Indonesian crosssectional data, I show that people who were exposed to Ramadan fasting during their mother's pregnancy have a poorer general health and are sick more often than people who were not exposed. This effect is especially pronounced among older people, who, when exposed, also report health problems more often that are indicative of coronary heart problems and type 2 diabetes. The exposed are a bit smaller in body size and weig…
Testing For Asymmetric Information In Insurance Markets With Unobservable Types
2008
In two important recent papers, Finkelstein and McGarry [25] and Finkelstein and Poterba [28] propose a new test for asymmetric information in insurance markets that considers explicitly unobserved heterogeneity in insurance demand. In this paper we propose an alternative implementation of the Finkelstein-McGarry-Poterba test based on the identification of unobservable types by use of finite mixture models. The actual implementation of our test follows some recent advances on marginal modelling as applied to latent class analysis; formal testing procedures for the null of asymmetric information and for the hypothesis that private information is indeed multidimensional can be performed by im…
Microcredit for Self-Employed Disabled Persons in Developing Countries
2005
Microcredit has become a popular instrument to promote economic empowerment among poor entrepreneurs, and is increasingly being recommended to improve economic rehabilitation among persons with disabilities. However, the majority of the advocates of microcredit for persons with disabilities seem not to be informed on the involved “rules of the game”. At the same time the microfinance community lacks information on disability issues. In this report we aim on closing the gap in knowledge and culture between the disability- and the microfinance communities. We apply resource based theory to analyze when microcredit for disabled persons is an appropriate tool and when it is not. We argue that a…
The effect of polytechnic reform on migration
2011
This paper examines the effect of the polytechnic reform on geographical mobility. A polytechnic, higher education reform took place in Finland in the 1990s. It gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics and also brought higher education to regions that did not have a university before. This expansion of higher education provides exogenous variation in the regional supply of higher education. The reform raised the mobility of high school graduates across local labour markets in the years after they had completed their secondary studies, which indicated increased mobility between high school and post-secondary education. We estimate that the reform enhanced the annual…
Same work, lower grade? Student ethnicity and teachers’ subjective assessments
2010
Previous research shows that ethnic minority students perform poorer in school when they are taught by ethnic majority teachers. Why this is the case was unclear. This paper focuses on one important potential explanation: I examine whether ethnic majority teachers grade minority and majority students differently for the same work. Using an experiment, I rule out the existence of such a direct grading bias. I do find indirect evidence for alternative explanations: teachers report lower expectations and unfavorable attitudes that both likely affect their behavior towards minority students, potentially inducing them to perform below their ability level. Effects of having majority teachers on m…
Maternal Life Satisfaction and Child Outcomes: Are They Related?
2011
This paper investigates the association between maternal life satisfaction and the developmental functioning of two- to three-year-old children as well as the socio-emotional behavior of five- to six-year-old children. We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), which allows us to control for a rich set of child and parental characteristics and to use the mother’s life satisfaction before the birth of her child as an instrument to eliminate potential reverse causality. The results indicate that the more satisfied the mother, the better her child’s verbal skills and the lower his or her socio-emotional problems. The relation is more pronounced for boys than for girls. The …
Heterogeneidad en el impacto de la política de becas en la escolaridad secundaria postobligatoria en España: un análisis por subgrupos poblacionales
2013
El presente trabajo analiza el impacto de las becas sobre la probabilidad de finalizar con éxito el nivel secundario postobligatorio en España en el caso de diferentes subgrupos poblacionales. Se aplica un diseño cuasiexperimental (Propensity score matching) a partir de la Encuesta de Condiciones de Vida (ECV-2006). Los resultados confirman la existencia de efectos diferenciales positivos (con relación al impacto medio) de la política educativa en el caso de las mujeres y de los alumnos provenientes de hogares desfavorecidos, demostrando la existencia de heterogeneidad en el impacto de la política analizada.
Adam Smith and the family
2008
This paper examines Adam Smith’s vision of family life and the role of the family in society as it stems from the Theory of Moral Sentiments. We first discuss textual evidences of Smith’s vision of gender differences and of the relationships between the sexes. Then we turn to TMS’s analysis of marriage and family life, exploring the importance of sentiments in strengthening family bonds and in fostering individuals’ moral education. Then we enlarge our perspective, considering Smith’s view on the role of the family within society, especially as market and non market relationships are concerned. Finally, we focus on Smith’s vision of the possible threats which life in Commercial societies ma…
Biomarkers and Long-Term Labour Market Outcomes: The Case of Creatine
2014
I evaluate the impact of the UK Working Time Regulations 1998, which introduced mandatory paid holiday entitlement. The regulation gave (nearly) all workers the right to a minimum of 4 weeks of paid holiday per a year. With constant weekly pay this change amounts effectively to an increase in the real hourly wage of about 8.5% for someone going from 0 to 4 weeks paid holiday per year, which should lead to adjustments in employment. For employees I use complementary log-log regression to account for right-censoring of employment spells. I find no increase in the hazard to exit employment within a year after treatment. Adjustments in wages cannot explain this result as they are increasing for…