Earnings uncertainty,precautionary saving,and moonlighting in Russia

Using a panel of 3,522 Russian households over the period 1994-2000, this paper tests the precautionary saving hypothesis, according to which households save to self-insure against uncertainty. We proxy uncertainty with a measure of earnings variability based on the subjective probability of primary job loss of household heads, and find that this variable generally has a strong positive effect on saving, supporting the precautionary saving hypothesis. This effect is however reversed for those households whose head holds more than one job, highlighting the role of moonlighting as a self-insurance mechanism that can be used in alternative to precautionary saving to smooth consumption in the presence of fluctuating earnings. Our findings are robust to different measures of uncertainty and estimation procedures.The authors are indebted to an anonymous referee and the editor T. Paul Schultz for helpful comments and suggestions. B-Y Kim gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the British Economic and Social Research Council (grant no. R000222463). A. Guariglia acknowledges the financial support of the University of Kent Faculty Research Fund Grant. Responsible editor: T. Paul Schultz     

The heterogeneous effects of COVID-19 on labor market flows: evidence from administrative data

The Journal of Economic Inequality - We investigate the short-term effects of COVID-19 on labor market flows and how they are mediated by labor market policy. Using Italian administrative data on a...     

Determining the minimum duration of treatment in tuberculosis: An order restricted non-inferiority trial design

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the biggest killers among infectious diseases worldwide. Together with the identification of drugs that can provide benefits to patients, the challenge in TB is also the optimisation of the duration of these treatments. While conventional duration of treatment in TB is 6 months, there is evidence that shorter durations might be as effective but could be associated with fewer side effects and may be associated with better adherence. Based on a recent proposal of an adaptive order-restricted superiority design that employs the ordering assumptions within various duration of the same drug, we propose a non-inferiority (typically used in TB trials) adaptive design that effectively uses the order assumption. Together with the general construction of the hypothesis testing and expression for type I and type II errors, we focus on how the novel design was proposed for a TB trial concept. We consider a number of practical aspects such as choice of the design parameters, randomisation ratios, and timings of the interim analyses, and how these were discussed with the clinical team.     

Between transnational engagements and local integration of Chinese communities in Italy: An analysis of the role of migrant organisations

Chinese communities represent one of the largest migrant groups in Italy. Current scholarship overwhelmingly focuses on Chinese ethnic businesses and identity issues. This article addresses an important but under-researched topic: the role of migrant organisations in enhancing migrant transnationalism and/or local integration. We examine three predominant types of Chinese migrant organisations in Italy—civic, educational, religious—across multiple cities. We show that, at first sight, educational and religious organisations aim to serve the communities in maintaining transnational links with the Chinese-speaking world, while civic organisations directly promote interactions with the local society. However, deeper analyses reveal that all three types of organisations can play an active role in fostering both migrant transnationalism and local integration, to different degrees in different domains. We discuss policy implications and how potential synergetic collaborations between host society stakeholders and migrant organisations could be explored.     

Public Financing of Education and Research in a Model of Endogenous Growth

We propose a two factor endogenous growth model in which the government intervenes in the economy by financing research and/or education. We allow technology in public production to be different from technology in private production, so that public spending has a direct effect on the rental prices of factors. We characterize both the unique balanced growth path and the transitional dynamics of the model showing the steady state equilibrium to be a saddle point. We also show that while income taxation is distortive, in general, a Pareto optimal outcome can be reached by means of a consumption tax in the decentralized setting.