Search results for "jel:J"
showing 10 items of 87 documents
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…
Employment protection : its effects on different skill groups and on the incentive to become skilled
2005
Summary Employment protection affects labour market outcomes and hence the incentive to acquire skills. Using a matching model with two education levels in which workers decide ex-ante on their skill formation, it is shown that employment protection can raise the fraction of skilled workers. This will be the case if workers obtain a sufficiently large fraction of the rent created by skill formation. Furthermore, it will be shown that high-skilled workers face shorter unemployment duration and lower dismissal probabilities.
Discrimination by microcredit officers: Theory and evidence on disability in Uganda
2015
This paper studies the relationship between a microfinance institution (MFI) and its loan officers when officers discriminate against a particular group of micro-entrepreneurs. Using survey data from Uganda, we provide evidence that loan officers are more biased than other employees against disabled micro-entrepreneurs. In line with the evidence, we build an agency model of a non-profit MFI and a biased loan officer in charge of granting loans. Since incentive schemes are costly and the MFI's budget is limited, the MFI faces a trade-off between combating discrimination and granting loans. We show that the optimal incentive premium is a non-decreasing function of the MFI's budget. Moreover, …
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.
A microeconometric analysis of the springboard subsidiary: The case of Spanish firms
2015
Abstract This paper provides a microeconometric analysis of the distinctive characteristics of springboard subsidiaries that have a positive impact on the subsidiaries’ performance. Based on panel data estimations for subsidiaries of European multinational companies with a presence in Spain, the authors found that if the subsidiary is located in the springboard country, then the performance improvement (increase in profit margin) of the subsidiary is about 49 percentage points. When the Spanish subsidiary is considered a springboard subsidiary, its performance is 7.7 percentage points higher than the performance of other subsidiaries that are not springboard subsidiaries. If the subsidiary …
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…
The economic impact of migration: productivity analysis for Spain and the UK
2012
Over the past 20 years labour has become increasingly mobile and whilst employment and earnings effects in host countries have been extensively analysed, the implications for firm and industry performance have received far less attention. This paper explores the direct economic consequences of immigration on host nations’ productivity performance at a sectoral level in two very different European countries, Spain and the UK. Whilst the UK has traditionally seen substantial immigration, for Spain the phenomenon is much more recent. Our findings from a growth accounting analysis show that migration has made a negative contribution to labour productivity growth in Spain and a negative but negl…
Foreign Taleovers and Wages: Theory and Evidence from Hungary
2005
This study discriminates FDI technology spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, our model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from moving to local competitors. Hence, the national wage bill is unaffected by foreign takeovers. In contrast to learning, technology spillover effects occur whenever a worker with MNE experience contributes more to local firms’ than to MNEs’ productivity. In this case, experienced MNE workers are hired by local firms and the host country obtains a welfare gain. We investigate empirically wages, productivity, and worker turnove…
Financing Unemployment Benefits: Dismissal versus Employment Taxes
2006
This paper investigates the effects of using dismissal taxes to finance unemployment benefits. We compare dismissal and employment taxes in a model with search frictions. Employment taxes give rise to externalities because firms do not take into account the effects their dismissal decisions have on others. By introducing dismissal taxes to finance unemployment insurance, these externalities can partly be internalized. Taking into account the budget of the unemployment insurance, employment taxes can be reduced by more than necessary to offset the adverse effect of dismissal taxes on the firm value. The introduction of dismissal taxes leads to higher job creation and lower unemployment, in c…