Well-Being Outcomes in Bolivia: Accounting for the Effects of Ethnicity and Regional Location

This study assesses well-being differences in Bolivia. We specifically investigate whether ethnicity and regional location explain differences in housing quality, material wealth, sanitation, and educational achievement in Bolivia. We use the 1994 and 1998 DHS surveys of 9114 and 12109 cases, respectively, to test the study hypotheses, which predict that indigenous ethnicity and highland location negatively affect well-being. Results show that in both surveys, indigenous households had lower levels of housing quality, material wealth, and sanitation as compared to non-indigenous households. Indigenous heads of household also showed lower levels of education as compared to non-indigenous heads of household. Households located in the highlands showed lower levels of housing quality and sanitation in both 1994 and 1998. Highland location was a significant predictor of material wealth in the 1998 model but not in the 1994 one. Highland location was not a significant predictor of education in either the 1994 or 1998 models. Rural–urban location had the largest influence on well-being.     

Does Civic Participation Promote Active Aging in Europe?

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The main objective of this research is to understand how civic participation influences the well-being of older people,...     

A cointegration analysis of crime,economic activity,and police performance in São Paulo city

The main objective of this paper is to investigate possible causes for the significant reduction observed in crime rates in São Paulo city. By applying a cointegration analysis, we observed long-run relationships between crime, economic activity, and police performance. The results indicate that the lethal crime rate is positively related to unemployment and negatively related to real wages and to the results of law-enforcement activities, specifically arrests and seizure of firearms. Moreover, the hypothesis that the Disarmament Statute led to a reduction in the lethal crime rate is not rejected.     

Testing the Validity of Aggregates

This article develops a new approach for testing aggregation restrictions in estimated production-function and cost-function models. Rather than using the well-known separability conditions for the existence of an aggregate, this approach focuses on testing whether a particular aggregate is valid and develops empirically testable necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of some known aggregation scheme. An empirical section examines the power of this test in the context of a simple production-function model.     

Forecasting time series with missing data using Holt's model

This paper deals with the prediction of time series with missing data using an alternative formulation for Holt's model with additive errors. This formulation simplifies both the calculus of maximum likelihood estimators of all the unknowns in the model and the calculus of point forecasts. In the presence of missing data, the EM algorithm is used to obtain maximum likelihood estimates and point forecasts. Based on this application we propose a leave-one-out algorithm for the data transformation selection problem which allows us to analyse Holt's model with multiplicative errors. Some numerical results show the performance of these procedures for obtaining robust forecasts.     

Taxes and Women in the Labour Force in a Southern European Country: The Case of Portugal

On looking at the female labour supply in Europe, it is immediately noticed that there is a large variation among countries. One possible explanation for this fact is that different countries have different tax policies, leading to variations in incentive and costs. This has been investigated in papers such as that of Gustafsson (1992a,b) for countries such as Germany and Sweden. The same exercise has been performed by the present authors for a low-income, southern European country, Portugal, which has one of the highest rates of female participation (out of line with neighbouring countries). Female labour supply does not seem to be very sensitive to fiscal policies, as those policies have only a small influence on the take-home wage. This result appears to be independent of the fact that the female labour supply shows a higher elasticity to wages than that which has been reported for other countries. The present authors also show that Portuguese women contribute a much larger proportion of family earnings than do their counterparts in Sweden and Germany, and that the Portuguese fiscal system is rather neutral. Further studies with data from other countries are needed in order to shed more light on the issue of tax harmonization.