Normative evaluation of tax policies: from households to individuals

We simulate a hypothetical family tax credit on a sample of French couples, using jointly a collective model of labor supply and a tax-benefit calculator. Work behaviors represent here a general concept of “effort,” and hence, individual productivities cannot be assimilated with wage rates. They are retrieved by inversion of the optimal household program under simple assumptions on household preferences and bargaining rules. The calibrated model is used to predict incentive effects of the reform and distributive impacts on individuals and households. The desirability of the reform depends on which of these two welfare units is used for normative evaluation.      

Estimating intrahousehold allocation in a collective model with household production

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the intra-family distribution of income and the individual demand for leisure and household production from Swedish cross-sectional household data. As a basis for the analysis, we use a collective model where each individual is characterized by his or her own utility function and divides total time between leisure, household production and market work. For the purpose of comparison, we also estimate a version that is consistent with a more traditional model of labor supply, the unitary model. Received: 14 April 2000/Accepted: 12 January 2001     

关于一元户籍制度改革的农民态度调查研究——以荆门市掇刀区为例

荆门市掇刀区是湖北省户籍制度改革的试点区之一。本文对荆门市掇刀区一元户籍改革中的农民态度及影响因素进行调查与分析,得出三个方面的结论:其一,农村居民普遍支持户籍制度改革;其二,影响农民态度的因素主要有政策因素、保障因素、经济因素和城市吸引因素;其三,农民最关心的是政策因素的影响,改革不是一蹴而就的,需要一个渐进式的发展过程。本文提出相关政策建议,以期深化一元户籍改革,推动城乡一体化建设。     

城市人口管理组织化:基于集体户口的认识

人口管理组织化将多元、异质的个体塑造成相对刚性、权利分层的社会身份差序格局。本文探讨集体户口在人口管理组织化中的意义建构及对户籍制度改革的反思。分析显示,集体户口的发展历程是一个集个体存在和权利安排于一体的组织化过程。单位制年代,集体户口依业缘对人口进行组织和管理,合成以单位为中心的\个人紧密依存单位的社会单元;单位制解体后,集体户口以整合无房人口为导向,实现不同类型社会自由人的组织重构。在开放、流动、多元的社会形态下,集体户口能否更好地保障和拓展落户人口的合法民生权益,在实现人口管理组织化的同时促进社会善治,将是户籍制度改革的重要议题。     

Household production in a collective model: some new results

Household models estimated on labour supplies alone generally assume non-market time to be pure leisure. Previous work on collective household decision-making is extended here by taking domestic work into account in the Chiappori et al. (J Polit Econ 110(1):37–72, 2002) model. Derivatives of the household “sharing rule” can then be estimated in a similar way. Using the 1998 French Time-Use Survey, we compare estimates of labour supply functions assuming first that non-market time is pure leisure and then taking household production into account. The results are similar but more robust when household production is included. Collective rationality is rejected when domestic work is omitted.     

当代中国青年爱情观的变迁——对建国以来流行爱情歌曲的抽样分析

本文通过对新中国成立50多年来的爱情歌曲进行抽样分析,总结出我国当代青年爱情观在两个不同阶段的特点。第一阶段,改革开放前的青年爱情观是集体主义爱情观,呈现单一性的特点;第二阶段,改革开放后的青年爱情观是个人主义爱情观,呈现多元性的特点。总体变迁特点是单一的集体主义爱情观向多元的个人主义爱情观转变,这个转变过程是我国社会结构发生变迁和西方文化影响的结果。     

Sectoral gender wage differentials and discrimination in the transitional Chinese economy

China's economic reform has affected various ownership sectors to different degree. A comparison of gender wage differentials and discrimination among individuals employed in the three sectors – state sector, the collective sector, and the private sector – provides information on the impact of economic reform. Two Chinese data sets from Shanghai and Jinan are used to examine the gender wage gap across the three sectors. It is found that privatization/marketization of the economy leads to larger wage differentials as human capital characteristics are more appropriately rewarded. Both data sets show that the relative share of discrimination in the overall gender wage differential declines substantially across ownership sectors from the state to the private. The increase in gender wage differential due to marketization is much larger than any increase in differential that may arise from more gender discrimination. Received: 5 November 1997/Accepted: 10 January 2000     

Pension reform and labor market incentives

This paper investigates how parametric reform in a pay-as-you-go pension system with a tax–benefit link affects retirement and work incentives of prime-age workers. We find that postponed retirement tends to harm incentives of prime-age workers in the presence of a tax–benefit link, thereby creating a policy trade-off in stimulating aggregate labor supply. We show how several popular reform scenarios are geared either towards young or old workers or, indeed, both groups under appropriate conditions. We characterize the excess burden of pension insurance and show how it depends on the supply elasticities of both decision margins and the effective tax rates.     

当代中国户籍制度改革的探索

我国现行的户籍制度从诞生发展到今天 ,大致经历了三个阶段。这一户籍管理体制与现行的社会经济体制存在着许多不协调的方面 ,户籍改革是必要的也是可能的 ,而改革的基本思路集中在这几个方面 :1.逐步实行一元化户籍 ;2 .由现行的户口登记逐步过渡到人口登记 ;3.尽快在全国范围内实现对人员流动的开放管理 ;4.与经济体制改革配套     

The intra-firm gender wage gap: a new view on wage differentials based on linked employer–employee data

We provide a new view on the nature of the gender wage gap (GWG) by analyzing the wage differentials within establishments. Based on linked employer–employee data for Germany, we show that the GWGs vary tremendously across establishments, even if we assume that male and female employees have the same human capital characteristics within each establishment. This heterogeneity is linked to firm and institutional characteristics: For instance, firms with works council and those covered by collective wage agreements have smaller GWGs. Furthermore, we find some evidence that firms operating under strong product market competition behave in a more egalitarian way.     

Labor market institutions and demographic employment patterns

We study collective bargaining’s effect on relative employment for youth, women, and older individuals. Our model of collective wage setting predicts that unionization reduces employment more for groups with relatively elastic labor supply: youth, older individuals, and women. We test this implication using data from 17 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the 1960–1996 period. We find that time-varying indicators of unionization decrease the employment–population ratio of young and older individuals relative to the prime-aged, and of prime-aged women relative to prime-aged men, and unionization raises the unemployment rate of prime-aged women and, possibly, young men compared to prime-aged men.

The elasticity of labor demand and the minimum wage

We show that, contrary to widespread belief, low-pay workers do not generally prefer that the minimum wage rate be increased until the labor demand is unitary elastic. Rather, there exists a critical value of elasticity of labor demand so that increases in the minimum wage rate make low-pay workers better off for higher elasticities, but worse off for lower elasticities. This critical value decreases with unemployment benefits and increases with workers’ risk aversion. We also show that in some countries the benefits for long-term unemployed are so low that workers would probably prefer that the minimum wage rate be decreased. I thank the anonymous referees for helpful suggestions.     

Weighting and Aggregation in Composite Indicator Construction: a Multiplicative Optimization Approach

Composite indicators (CIs) have increasingly been accepted as a useful tool for benchmarking, performance comparisons, policy analysis and public communication in many different fields. Several recent studies show that as a data aggregation technique in CI construction the weighted product (WP) method has some desirable properties. However, a problem in the application of the WP method is the difficulty and subjectivity in determining the weights for sub-indicators. In this paper, we extend the WP method and propose a multiplicative optimization approach to constructing CIs. This approach requires no prior knowledge of the weights for sub-indicators. Instead, the weights are generated by solving a series of multiplicative data envelopment analysis type models that can be transformed into equivalent linear programs. Additional relevant information on the weights, if available, can be incorporated into the proposed models. We apply the proposed approach to the 2005 data of 27 economies in the Asia and the Pacific region in the United Nations’ Human Development Index study and present the results.     

中国农村养老保障的制度创新与农村人口发展

本文以城乡统筹社会保障改革的指导思想为指引,立足于中国农村人口转型的时代背景和发展趋势,结合国际农村社会保障最新发展趋势的分析,探讨中国农村养老保障制度的制度创新问题。文章认为当前农村应着眼于计生家庭、高龄人口及无子女家庭等重点人群,更加重视老年津贴、小额保险和特种储蓄等新兴政策工具,更好地实现社会养老保障同传统的家庭保障、村社集体互助组织等的有机结合。走出一条城乡之间相对独立而又良性互动的、有中国特色的养老保障之路。     

A collective model for female labour supply with non-participation and taxation

This paper presents a collective discrete-choice model for female labour supply. Preferences of females and the intra-household allocation process are both econometrically identified. The model incorporates non-participation and non-linear taxation. It is applied to Belgian micro-data and is used to evaluate two revenue-neutral versions of the 2001 Tax Reform Act. We find small positive behavioural responses to the reforms. The reforms are not unambiguously welfare-improving. Generally, the first revenue-neutral reform (the actual reform and a household lump-sum tax) is more beneficial to females in couples than the second (the actual reform and a proportional decrease of household disposable incomes).

State-level Welfare Policies and Nonmarital Subsequent Childbearing

Using discrete time event history analyses of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we examine the association between state-level welfare waiver policies implemented before the 1996 welfare reform legislation and the risk of a nonmarital subsequent birth. Our study makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by using a national-level sample of unmarried mothers who ever received welfare. This high-risk sample represents the women of most interest to policymakers, as it is the exact group to whom welfare reform is targeted—welfare mothers at risk of having nonmarital additional births. The state policies we study include: family cap, earnings disregard, work exemptions, work requirements, and sanctions. We conclude that, although reducing the number of nonmarital births is a key goal of welfare reform, state-established welfare waiver policies do not have any influence on women’s childbearing behaviors in this sample, net of women’s individual characteristics and state economic environments. Even the family cap policy, which was designed for the sole purpose of reducing additional births, has no significant association with nonmarital subsequent childbearing. Instead, personal characteristics, not public policies, are stronger determinants of women’s childbearing decisions. Age, race/ethnicity, marital status, number of previous children, education level, and welfare receipt are significantly associated with nonmarital subsequent births. Overall, this paper contributes to an expanding body of research that shows minimal effects of welfare waivers on fertility. Our work suggests that more targeted policies are necessary to be able to influence individual family formation behaviors.     

Work experience as a source of specification error in earnings models: implications for gender wage decompositions

This paper models the bias from using potential vs actual experience in log wage models. The nature of the problem is best viewed as specification error as opposed to classical errors-in-variables. We correct for the discrepancy between potential and actual work experience and create a predicted measure of work experience. We use the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and extend our findings to the Integrated Public Use Microdata Sample. Our results suggest that potential experience biases the effects of schooling and the rates of return to labor market experience. Using such a measure in earnings models underestimates the explained portion of the male–female wage gap. We are able to separately identify the decomposition biases associated with incorrect experience measures and biased parameter estimates.      

Aggregation pattern of individuals and the outcomes of competition within and between species: Differential equation models

Summary The influence of spatial distribution pattern on the outcomes of intra- and interspecific competition is studied theoretically. The models developed are the generalized logistic andVolterra equations, whereLloyd’s indices of intra- and interspecies mean crowding were incorporated with their assumed linear relationship to mean density in order to express the intensity of crowding which is really effective to the existing individuals. It is shown that while the increasing patchiness of distribution has a pronounced effect of promoting the intraspecific competition and lowering the equilibrium density for individual populations, it generally relaxes the interspecific competition, making it easy for different species sharing the same niche, which would otherwise be incompatible, to coexist stably. These models thus provide a simplest theoretical basis to explain why many insect populations in nature are kept relatively rare in number and why a number of allied species often coexist freely sharing the same resource, against the “competitive exclusion principle” deduced from the originalVolterra equations.     

A Translation and Validation Study of the Life Orientation Test Revised in the Greek Speaking Population of Nurses among Three Hospitals in Athens and Ioannina

The life orientation test-revised (LOT-R) (Scheier et al. in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 67:1063–1078, 1994) is a brief measure for assessing dispositional optimism. The aim of this study was to develop a Greek language version of the LOT-R and to assess the instrument’s psychometric properties. The LOT-R was translated and culturally adopted in Greek language, and the final version was administered, along with a questionnaire consisting socioeconomic characteristics and a single item measuring optimism, to 276 Greek speaking, hospital nurses (222 female, 54 male), aged 22–65 years (mean 37.8, SD 8.3). Results showed that the LOT-R has good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α = .71 and item total correlation coefficients from .27 to .73, a unitary structure, and stability over a 3-months period (r = .66). Moreover, the Greek version of the scale exhibited good convergent validity with single-item optimism scale (r = .73). Principal components analysis revealed a two-factor structure representing the constructs of optimism and pessimism. The Greek life orientation test revised appears to be a valid tool in assessing dispositional optimism in Greek speaking people and is expected to facilitate the examination of optimism in Greek speaking populations.     

An evaluation of the American Community Survey: results from the Oregon test site

The American Community Survey (ACS) is a Census Bureau product designed to provide accurate and timely demographic and economic indicators on an annual basis for both large and small geographic areas within the United States. Operational plans for Census 2010 call for ACS to replace the decennial census long form (Census LF), pending the results of evaluation studies. This plan represents a major change in that variables that traditionally have been collected on a “snapshot” basis once every 10 years would be collected on a “rolling” annual basis. Using a loss function analysis and other tools, this paper reports preliminary findings from a comparison of ACS and Census 2000 results in Multnomah County, Oregon, one of five national “local expert” test sites set up to compare ACS data collected at the time of Census 2000. The preliminary findings suggest that there are notable differences between some of the corresponding variables found in the ACS and Census LF that require more detailed examination. For example, the loss function analysis reveals notable differences for race and disability variables. In other comparisons of corresponding variables between ACS and Census 2000, differences are found within each of the four major areas of interest: (1) demographic characteristics, (2) social characteristics, (3) economic characteristics, and (4) housing characteristics, with housing characteristics showing the least similarity overall. These results also suggest that more detailed examinations are needed to understand differences between corresponding variables collected by ACS and the Census LF.