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作者:Fan, C. Simon; Stark, Oded
作者单位:University of Bonn; Lingnan University; University of Klagenfurt; University of Vienna; University of Warsaw; Warsaw School of Economics
摘要:Upon introducing heterogeneity and dynamics into a model of the demand for children, a problem of optimal population is defined and analyzed. It is shown that from the perspective of social welfare, better-educated individuals produce too few children while less-educated individuals produce too many children and all individuals invest too little in the education of their children. The impact of several policy tools geared at addressing the population problem is investigated, in particular how ...
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作者:Bernal, Raquel
作者单位:Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
摘要:This article develops and estimates a dynamic model of employment and child care decisions of women after childbirth to evaluate the effects of these choices on children's cognitive ability. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate it. Results indicate that the effects of maternal employment and child care on children's ability are negative and sizable. Having a mother that works full-time and uses child care during one year is associated with a reduction in abili...
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作者:Mills, David C., Jr.
作者单位:Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
摘要:This article evaluates the efficiency of a requirement that private issuers redeem inside money on demand at par in a random-matching model of money where the issuers of inside money are imperfectly monitored. I find that for sufficiently imperfect monitoring, a par redemption requirement leads to lower social welfare than if private money were redeemed at a discount. A central message of the article is that if inside money and outside money are not perfect. substitutes, a par redemption requi...
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作者:Karayalcin, Cem
作者单位:State University System of Florida; Florida International University
摘要:The great divergence between 'Europe and the rest of the world occurred relatively recently. What enabled Europe, with all its laggards, to dominate the previously successful Eastern economies? This article emphasizes one important mechanism, highlighting the contrast between the European states system and Eastern empires. Political competition for a mobile tax base in a states system forces rulers to provide relatively more secure property rights. By effectively limiting the exit options of t...
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作者:Blau, David M.; Gilleskie, Donna B.
作者单位:University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:Using data from the Health and Retirement Survey, we estimate preference and expectations parameters of a structural model of the employment and medical care decisions of older men in order to evaluate the role of health insurance. The budget constraint incorporates detailed cost-sharing characteristics of private health insurance and Medicare as well as rules and requirements associated with Social Security and private pensions. Simulations imply that changes in health insurance, including ac...
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作者:Roff, Jennifer
作者单位:City University of New York (CUNY) System; Queens College NY (CUNY)
摘要:This article models the child support and welfare decisions of never-married parents on welfare as a Stackelberg game. The mother chooses whether to exit welfare, report paternity, and to obtain a formal child support order. If a child support order is obtained, the father chooses whether to comply with the order. Simulation results from the structural parameters indicate that increasing the child support disregard increases paternal compliance slightly and affects maternal paternity reporting...
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作者:Besfamille, Martin; Lockwood, Ben
作者单位:University of Warwick; Universidad Torcuato Di Tella
摘要:This article analyses hard and soft budget constraints in a federation, where there is a moral hazard problem between the central and the regional governments. Regional governments can avoid a bailout from the center by exerting costly effort. In this setting, a hard budget constraint is not always optimal because it can provide excessive incentives for high effort, and thus discourage investment that is socially efficient. Thus, a hard budget constraint can imply the opposite kind of ineffici...
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作者:Vandenbroucke, Guillaume
作者单位:University of Southern California
摘要:The U.S. economic development in the 19th century was characterized by the westward movement of population and the accumulation of productive land in the West. This article presents a model of migration and land improvement to identify the quantitatively important forces driving these phenomena. The conclusion is that the decrease in transportation costs induced the westward migration, whereas population growth was responsible for the investment in productive land.
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作者:Gradstein, Mark
作者单位:Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; IZA Institute Labor Economics
摘要:This article's point of departure is that low-quality institutions, concentration of political power and material wealth, and underdevelopment are persistent over time. Its analytical model views an equal distribution of political power as a commitment device to enhance institutional quality, thereby promoting growth. The politically powerful coalition contemplates relinquishing of its power through democratization, weighing this advantageous consequence against the limit on own appropriative ...
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作者:Castro, Rui; Coen-Pirani, Daniele
作者单位:Universite de Montreal; Carnegie Mellon University
摘要:We document and discuss a dramatic change in the cyclical behavior of aggregate skilled hours since the mid-1980s. Using CPS data for 1979:1-2003:4, we find that the volatility of skilled hours relative to the volatility of GDP has nearly tripled since 1984. In contrast, the cyclical properties of unskilled hours have remained essentially unchanged. We evaluate whether a simple supply/demand model for skilled and unskilled labor with capital-skill complementarity in production can help explain...