First Exits from the Swedish Labor Market Due to Disability

Nowadays, with an increasingly aging population, an increasing proportion of the population on disability benefits, and an implicitly lower level of economic output and foregone tax revenue, disability has become a major public policy issue in many countries. Estimating both single risk and competing risks models on a Swedish longitudinal database, this study analyzes the risk of exit from the labor market due to disability at a certain age, conditional on having remained in the labor force until that age. The explanatory variables did not have identical coefficients across destination types. For example, the estimated single risk model shows that a higher level of education decreased the hazard of exiting the labor market with a disability pension, while the estimated competing risks model suggests that a higher level of education increased the hazard of exiting with a partial disability pension, but it decreased the hazard of exiting with a full disability pension.

Facts and Theories of the Italian Labour Market (1970-1985): A Time Series Analysis of Wages,Employment and Prices

ABSTRACT: ln this paper an attempt is made to determine whether observed patterns of intertemporal variability in a number of Italian labour market characteristics are consistent with the predictions forthcoming from three prominent models of aggregate labour market behaviour. The behavioral models included in the analysis are: a) intertemporal substitution labour supply, b) staggered wage contracts, and c) intertemporal labour demand with adjustment costs. The empirical results provide relatively more support for the validity of the adjustment cost model.     

Health and Well–Being in the Young Old and Oldest Old

Most individuals experience a decline in health status during old age. Paradoxically, there are proposals that older adults nevertheless maintain a positive sense of well–being, an indicator of successful aging. Data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE: Baltes & Mayer, 1999), a locally representative sample of men and women aged 70 to 100+ ( N = 516, M = 85 years), suggest that cumulative health–related chronic life strains set a constraint on the potential of oldest old individuals to experience the positive side of life. The young old in BASE reported significantly higher positive SWB than did the oldest old. Chronic illness and functional impairments (e.g., vision, hearing, mobility, strength) limit well–being especially in very old age.     

Child-Care Choices by Working Mothers: The Case of Italy

In spite of relatively generous public subsidies and a reputation for high quality, only a very limited proportion of Italian families use public child-care and a large proportion use informal care. In this paper, we attempt to explore the determinants of the use of child-care among dual workers families. Given the limitations of data available we match two different data sets: the Bank of Italy (SHIW) and ISTAT Multiscopo. We find evidence that the availability of public child-care affects in an important way its demand. We also find that increases in costs of public child-care reduce the use of public as well as private indicating a shift to informal child-care. The presence of a grandmother who lives near and is in good health is an important explanation of the choice especially in presence of very small children. An understanding of the importance of these factors is relevant in the evaluation of child-care policies. This is particularly important in Italy, where the majority of families with children have only one child and children would benefit also from the socialization aspects of the child-care system. We would like to thank Christopher Flinn, Massimiliano Bratti, and Maria Concetta Chiuri for helpful comments, Donald Rubin for useful hints on the matching procedure, and participants at the ESPE meeting in New York 2003, the EALE meeting in Lisbon 2004. This research was partially supported by the EC Grant and the Compagnia di San Paolo.     

A measure of interrater absolute agreement for ordinal categorical data

Statistical Methods & Applications - A measure of interrater absolute agreement for ordinal scales is proposed capitalizing on the dispersion index for ordinal variables proposed by Giuseppe...     

Prevalence and Correlates of Gambling Problems Among a Nationally Representative Sample of Brazilian Adolescents

The objectives of the study are: (a) to provide the first prevalence estimates of pathological gambling among Brazilian adolescents using an age-specific instrument in a nationally representative sample; (b) to investigate the extent to which adolescents participate in gambling activities in a developing country; and (c) to correlate different levels of gambling behavior with demographic variables. Multistage cluster sampling selected 3,007 individuals over 14 years of age from Brazilian household population. A total of 661 participants were between 14 and 17 years old. The Lie/Bet Questionnaire and the DSM-IV-MR-J were used for assessing problem and pathological gambling. 2.8% scored positive on the screening questionnaire, while 1.6% were classified as problem and pathological gamblers. Factors associated with problem and pathological gambling were male sex, not currently studying and considering religion as not important. Less than 4 months elapsed between the age of regular gambling involvement and the first gambling problem. Prevalence rates were quite similar from recent studies which used nationally representative samples. The association of problem and pathological gambling with male sex, school drop-out and low religiosity supports the Problem Behavior Theory. The fast progression to problem gambling adds evidence that adolescents may be more vulnerable to the effects of gambling.     

Semiparametric estimation in single index Poisson regression: a practical approach

In a single index Poisson regression model with unknown link function, the index parameter can be root- n consistently estimated by the method of pseudo maximum likelihood. In this paper, we study, by simulation arguments, the practical validity of the asymptotic behaviour of the pseudo maximum likelihood index estimator and of some associated cross-validation bandwidths. A robust practical rule for implementing the pseudo maximum likelihood estimation method is suggested, which uses the bootstrap for estimating the variance of the index estimator and a variant of bagging for numerically stabilizing its variance. Our method gives reasonable results even for moderate sized samples; thus, it can be used for doing statistical inference in practical situations. The procedure is illustrated through a real data example.     

Visitations and Transfers After Divorce

Recent research reveals that divorce negatively impacts children's welfare as a consequence of the reduction in monetary and time contributions of the non-custodial parent. After divorce, the variables that link the absent parent to the child are visitations, child support transfers, and direct expenditures the non-custodial parent makes on the child. In our framework parents constitute a bilateral exchange economy where the mother is endowed with control over visitations and the father has control over financial resources. We use data from National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 (5th follow up) to estimate the parameters of the model. We then use the estimates to simulate the effects of alternative endowment levels (such as joint custody) on the proportion of time spent with the non-custodial parent and the ex post parental income distribution. The results indicate that an endowment of equal time for both parents, reducing time under the mother's control implies a reduction in the child support transfers from the father, and, therefore, a loss in the mother's consumption levels. However, a more equally shared time with the children also increases the father's direct expenditures on the child, with the effect of allowing the mother to spend less on child goods and partially compensate her consumption loss.