Estimates of Spatial Prices in India and Their Sensitivity to Alternative Estimation Methods and Choice of Commodities

This paper provides Indian evidence on sub-national PPPs that point to considerable spatial price heterogeneity within the country, based on Indian National Sample Survey (NSS) data. The prices of various commodities have been generated from the household specific unit values obtained from the information on expenditures and quantities from the NSS unit records. This paper shows that the CPD model, proposed in the cross country context, can be adapted to the household context to estimate spatial prices in the intra country context. The proposed CPD based model is shown to be formally equivalent to certain well known fixed weight price indices under certain parametric configurations. The empirical contribution includes a systematic comparison between the spatial price indices from alternative models, namely the CPD and utility based models, and the result that the utility based methods point to a much greater extent of spatial price heterogeneity than is suggested by the CPD type models. The results also record the sensitivity of the spatial price indices to the choice of commodities in the utility based approach. The pairwise comparison of estimates suggests that commodity selection may be more important than model selection in its impact on the spatial price estimates, though the latter is important as well. The study provides estimates of rural–urban differentials in spatial price indices that suggest some interesting differences between the constituent states. The results make a strong case for further research on the topic of sub-national PPPs in the context of large heterogeneous countries.     

Regional Price Parities and Real Regional Income for the United States

The success and expansion of the International Comparison Program (ICP) has led to an increase in interest and effort on the estimation of sub-national price levels and purchasing power parities (PPPs). The ICP highlighted a difficulty that large countries such as Brazil, Russia, India and China face during the price-collection phase, namely how to obtain average prices when there are large disparities in many types of expenditure categories, such as housing prices between rural and urban settings. The fact that such disparities were in evidence led to more research on within-country PPPs, or regional price parities (RPPs). The difference between a RPP and the PPPs is simply that the former are in the same currency, while PPPs are usually converted to a reference country or currency by the exchange rate, such as the United States Dollar or the Euro. This paper describes the methodology used to estimate the RPPs within the United States, and shows their effect on measures of income adjusted to constant dollars, termed real regional incomes.     

The effect of women’s participation in the labour market on the postponement of first childbirth: a comparison of Italy and Hungary

This paper analyses the effect of increasing female participation in the labour market on the transition to first childbirth. Regional perspectives are considered to help us understand how postponement behaviour is changing over time and at different paces in each region. The analysis is based on the first wave of the Generations and Gender Survey of Italy and Hungary. We use a multilevel event history random intercept model to examine the effect of individuals’ positions in the labour market on the transition to motherhood, controlling for differences in macrolevel factors related to regional backgrounds in the two countries. The regional data for Italy came from the Italian National Statistical Institute, and for Hungary from our imputation developed from the time series available at the national and the regional levels (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, KSH). The postponement of first childbirth is strongly linked to the increasing involvement of women in paid work, but with opposite effects in the two countries. Even if we control for changes in women’s levels of education over time and for shifts in women’s aspirations and levels of attainment in the labour market, we find that being employed remains a risk factor for the postponement of the first birth among Italian women, and a strong protective factor among Hungarian women. At the contextual level, the variables that take into account the regional socio-economic changes provides evidence of important effects on individual behaviour among Italian women, and of only minor effects among Hungarian women. All of the regional breakdowns in both Italy and Hungary show that the postponement of motherhood goes hand-in-hand with the acceptance of deep cultural and socio-economic changes.     

Estimates of Household Consumption Expenditure at Provincial Level in Italy by Using Small Area Estimation Methods: “Real” Comparisons Using Purchasing Power Parities

Household consumption expenditure represents a crucial measure to be used for assessing individuals’ material living conditions and well-being. Indeed, the analysis of household conditions can provide policy makers with a clear picture of the economic and social situation of the area in which they are operating. However, official sample surveys which are generally used for this purpose, such as the Household Budget Survey in Italy carried out by the National Institute of Statistics, do not allow for reliable disaggregated estimates thus hindering appropriate and effective planning and evaluation of political interventions at local level. By referring to the 2012 Italian Household Budget Survey, this paper aims at obtaining reliable provincial estimates of household consumption expenditure in Italy. We use Small Area Estimation methods and we adjust the estimates for spatial differences in price levels by computing and using sub-national Purchasing Power Parities, thus obtaining “real” estimates of consumption expenditure to be used for intra-national comparisons.     

Income and Well-being Across European Provinces

The majority of studies investigate the effect of income on life satisfaction at either individual or country level. This study contributes with analysis at the (sub-national) province level across West European countries. I use a unique dataset Eurobarometer 44.2 Bis that is representative of province populations in a multilevel model. Provinces are defined according to The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics at second level (NUTS II). Living conditions measured by regional income increase life satisfaction beyond personal income and national income. There is larger life satisfaction inequality between the rich and the poor in poor provinces than in rich provinces. Personal income matters more for life satisfaction in poor provinces than in rich provinces.     

Buffon's needle and the estimation of migration distances

"A procedure is suggested for estimating migration distances from data on the proportion of migrants crossing regional boundaries. The method makes use of Buffon's needle, a problem in geometrical probability from the eighteenth century....The procedure is described for various scenarios that differ in their assumptions about region shape, the spatial distribution of population, and the distribution of migration distances. An application to migration distances in the United States is given, and additional attention is given to the estimation of intraregional migration distances." (SUMMARY IN FRE)     

Which are the Factors Influencing Innovation Performances? Evidence from Italian Cohesion Policy

Our paper aims at evaluating the role that the local administrations play on Italian regional innovation performance, by using a revised version of Regional Innovation Scoreboard. Carrying out a panel data analysis and a logistic regression, the analysis is based on a combined approach towards institutions, involving socio-political aspects, considered by the institutional quality index, and the capability of regional administrators of expending Structural and Cohesion Funds, by a quantitative index. Firstly, a panel data analysis helped us to highlight the role of institutions and which sectoral themes of EU investments affected the most regional innovative performances in the time span 2007-2015. Secondly, the logistic regression captures which investment is more likely to affect innovation performances within Italian Regions. The results underline that major effect on innovation performance derive from the combined effect of high quality institutions and efficient public expenditure.

     

Reconciling Forecasts of Infant Mortality Rates at National and Sub-National Levels: Grouped Time-Series Methods

Mortality rates are often disaggregated by different attributes, such as sex, state, education, religion, or ethnicity. Forecasting mortality rates at the national and sub-national levels plays an important role in making social policies associated with the national and sub-national levels. However, base forecasts at the sub-national levels may not add up to the forecasts at the national level. To address this issue, we consider the problem of reconciling mortality rate forecasts from the viewpoint of grouped time-series forecasting methods (Hyndman et al. in, Comput Stat Data Anal 55(9):2579–2589, 2011). A bottom-up method and an optimal combination method are applied to produce point forecasts of infant mortality rates that are aggregated appropriately across the different levels of a hierarchy. We extend these two methods by considering the reconciliation of interval forecasts through a bootstrap procedure. Using the regional infant mortality rates in Australia, we investigate the one-step-ahead to 20-step-ahead point and interval forecast accuracies among the independent and these two grouped time-series forecasting methods. The proposed methods are shown to be useful for reconciling point and interval forecasts of demographic rates at the national and sub-national levels, and would be beneficial for government policy decisions regarding the allocations of current and future resources at both the national and sub-national levels.     

Comparing Hospitals and Health Prices and Volumes Across Countries: A New Approach

Health services are among the most comparison-resistant services in international comparisons such as the Eurostat–OECD Purchasing Power Parities (PPP) program and the ICP. Traditionally, PPPs for health services are estimated on the basis of input methods, e.g. by comparing salaries of doctors and nurses. This mainly reflects the difficulties inherent in measuring the output of services produced by nonmarket producers. Since 2007, OECD and Eurostat have undertaken work, with their Member States, to develop explicit output-based measures of prices and volumes of hospital services directed at comparisons across countries. The approach is based on collecting quasi-prices for a basket of comparable and representative medical and surgical hospital services. Eurostat and OECD used the new approach for the first time in their PPP calculations that entered the 2011 ICP benchmark round. The paper describes the output-based approach, the way it was developed and tested to assess its feasibility, and the results based on the latest data collection.     

Estimating Cross Province and Municipal City Price Level Differences in China: Some Experiments and Results

The estimation of Sub-national purchasing power parities (PPPs) for countries where the regions and provinces have different level of development is fundamental for income, consumption, standard of living real term comparisons, as well as for measuring cross-region welfare inequality. This is even truer for large countries like China, where the above aggregates exhibit great variability among provinces. The aim of this paper is to compute the price level differences, measured by the PPPs, for 31 Chinese Provinces and Municipal Cities, based on a sample of 62 goods and services for the year 2014. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to do it since many years. After a short review of previous studies on China cross-province and municipal cities price level differences measurement and the illustration of methodology and data used, the results of our elaborations are presented and discussed. Taking Beijing as the base area, there is evidence that the PPP max/min ratio is 1.74, confirming the common belief that China cross-province and municipal cities price levels are significantly different.     

Purchasing Power Parities of Currencies and Real Expenditures from the International Comparison Program: Recent Results and Uses

The International Comparison Program (ICP) is a worldwide statistical initiative designed to estimate purchasing power parities (PPPs) that can be used as currency converters to compare the performance of countries around the world, thereby providing in-depth views of the distribution of resources worldwide. The 2011 round of the ICP was leveraged on the successful outcome of the 2005 round that included 146 countries, introducing various methodological improvements. The summary report and results from the 2011 round were released in April 2014 and provided PPPs, price levels indices, and expenditures in PPP terms for the GDP and major aggregates for 199 participating countries. More detailed results were released in June 2014 and a final comprehensive report in October 2014. The final report provided a more in-depth analysis of volume and per capita indices. The results stirred a strong debate among the user community because of their finding that the world has become more equal than previously thought. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the main results and findings of ICP 2011, its governance framework and partnership with the Eurostat-Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) PPP program, and the major methodological innovations that were implemented. The paper reviews the major uses of the PPPs generated by the ICP 2011 and the Eurostat-OECD PPP program, and concludes with thoughts about the future of the ICP.     

Regional Performance Trends in Providing Employment for Persons with Disabilities: Evidence from Italy

The aim of this work is to analyse the situation of persons with disabilities in the Italian labour market, with a view to providing guidelines to promote their inclusion both in the labour market and in society. For this purpose, we propose a two-step analysis focusing on Italian regions for the period 2006–2009. In the first phase, we use the Data Envelopment Analysis method to evaluate regional efficiency in providing employment for persons with disabilities. Cluster analysis is then applied to regional efficiency scores and economic policy variables in order to identify “policy clusters of regions”. Our results show that it is necessary both to focus on the residual work ability of persons with disabilities and to develop a social integration culture on the demand side of the labour market. Moreover, a structural reform of disability benefit systems is required in order to promote a culture of social inclusion.     

Buffon's needle and the estimation of migration distances

A procedure is suggested for estimating migration distances from data on the proportion of migrants crossing regional boundaries. The method makes use of Buffon's needle, a problem in geometrical probability from the eighteenth century that was originally used as an empirical means of estimating π. The procedure is described for various scenarios that differ in their assumptions about region shape, the spatial distribution of population, and the distribution of migration distances. An application to migration distances in the United States is given, and additional attention is given to the estimation of intraregional migration distances.     

On Italian Households’ Economic Inadequacy Using Quali-Quantitative Measures

Motivated by an interest in investigating factors associated with poverty risks in Italy, our study provides insight into the relationship between various socio-economic, demographic, and behavioural variables and a new measure of the economic inadequacy of households. We propose that a household is in a condition of economic inadequacy when it simultaneously has difficulty making ends meet and is in arrears with payments of commitments for more than 90 days. To analyse the determinants of economic inadequacy, we use cross-sectional microdata collected through a structured questionnaire from a 2012 survey of household income and wealth conducted by the Bank of Italy. The results of the analysis show that the probability of economic inadequacy for Italian households is higher when the household is located in regions in southern Italy, has a low equivalent income, registers a decrease in income compared with that of a normal year, has a low liquidity ratio, pays rent for the house of residence, is over-indebted, is indebted to friends and relatives, and has an unhappy and impatient household head. We also propose constructing a composite indicator at the regional level that combines the percentage of households in relative poverty, as measured by the Italian National Institute of Statistics, and the percentage of households that we identify as existing in a condition of economic inadequacy. The composite indicator allows us to take into account some aspects of household living conditions that are not included in the measure of relative poverty.     

A Hierarchical Model for Analysing Consumption Patterns in Italy Before and During the Great Recession

The paper aims to explore how the Great Recession of the twenty-first century has impacted on the consumption behaviour of Italian households. Following a hierarchical approach, the study investigates differences in consumption behaviour at both household and regional levels. Using micro data on Italian Household Expenditure for the years 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2012, multilevel and two-step regression models have been estimated. The analysis has been performed for four different consumption categories: food, housing, work-related and leisure. The analysis reveals that the economic crisis led to increasing income elasticity for each category of consumption, especially for food, the most essential basic good. The crisis also created more marked regional disparities in the average level of expenditure.     

An Indicator for the Measurement of Political Participation: The Case of Italy

In the modern globalized world, political participation is of paramount importance for balanced socio-economic growth and for human development. The Indagine Multiscopo sulle famiglie, a survey by Italian public institutions (ISTAT and CNEL), provides a wide range of data to evaluate specific aspects of Italian life. This work uses a set of data from the Indagine to analyse political participation in Italy at a regional level, by means of a composite indicator using parametric (Pena’s distance) and non-parametric (Mazziotta–Pareto Index) techniques. We have obtained a ranking that shows the level of political participation in different territorial contexts. The aim is to analyse the relation between Italian regions and the political behaviour of their communities: political discussions, participation in political meetings and marches, voluntary activity or donations to political parties and so on. The ranking is not correlated to voter turnout. We can assume that the politically engaged minority are unable to convince and involve the rest. At the same time, these small groups do not alter the general mistrust in parties and, generally speaking, in politics, which is spreading across Italy and also Europe.     

Geography of European Life Satisfaction

The vast majority of studies analyze life satisfaction at individual and/or country level. This study contributes with analysis of life satisfaction at the (sub-national) province level across multiple countries. The purpose of this study is to call attention to spatial aspects of life satisfaction. Literature does not discuss the fact that life satisfaction in one province may be related to life satisfaction in other provinces. This study shows that there are well-defined happiness clusters in Europe, but also some outliers.     

Immigration and prices: quasi-experimental evidence from Syrian refugees in Turkey

We exploit the regional variation in the unexpected (or forced) inflow of Syrian refugees as a natural experiment to estimate the impact of immigration on consumer prices in Turkey. Using a difference-in-differences strategy and a comprehensive data set on the regional prices of CPI items, we find that general level of consumer prices has declined by approximately 2.5 % due to immigration. Prices of goods and services have declined in similar magnitudes. We highlight that the channel through which the price declines take place is the informal labor market. Syrian refugees supply inexpensive informal labor and, thus, substitute the informal native workers especially in informal-labor intensive sectors. We document that prices in these sectors have fallen by around 4 %, while the prices in the formal labor-intensive sectors have almost remained unchanged. Increase in the supply of informal immigrant workers generates labor cost advantages and keeps prices lower in the informal labor-intensive sectors.     

Speculation on a Flexicurity Index for Disabled People: The Italian Case

The aim of this paper is to analyze a flexicurity index for disabled people by using Italian regional data. To this purpose, the empirical results are based on a composite index denoted as Mazziotta-Pareto Index. Our results show that Northern Italy regions show a higher flexicurity degree than Southern Italy ones. In addition, by estimating an augmented matching function, we verify that flexicurity increases the probability of finding employment for a disabled person. In particular, we test that the flexicurity indicator that gives more weight to the economic independence of disabled people represents the indicator that most favors the labour matching process.     

A Measure of Trust: The Italian Regional Divide in a Latent Class Approach

Social differences within countries may partly explain the lack of economic convergence and the persistence of regional disparities. The case of Italy is emblematic: economic gap between North and South remains at high levels with large differences in social capital and in trust. In this paper, we use the micro data from the ISTAT “Aspects of Daily Life” Survey to build a measure of “trust in others” and a measure of “trust in institutions” through a latent class model to attribute a trust score to the Italian households and the Italian regions and, in this way, to add elements of knowledge useful to policies. Our measures confirm a persistent territorial divide although the regional mapping appears more complex than the classical North–South partition. At last, a discussion on the household typology shows that the territorial gaps of trust persist even among households with similar socio-economic characteristics.