Neighbors in Time: Development and Use of Some Values for Intergenerational Justice from the Jewish and Christian Religious Traditions

The overlapping understandings of Jewish and Christian traditions (the Traditions), both influencing and reincorporating Western culture from the Greeks to the present, underpin many of the ethical constructs of present society, in ways both obvious and subtle. The concept of justice is central to the ethical outlooks of both religious traditions. This article systematically develops values related to justice from within the Traditions and extends them to the question of intergenerational equity as proposed precepts for assessment and action. Many of the results seem familiar because they are deeply embedded in our culture. They are assertions that transcend time-the value of human life; an obligation to support the necessary interests of others, especially the powerless; the concepts of brotherhood, the common good, and stewardship of resources; and the transmission of knowledge, resources, and values through the vehicles of families and communities. Other ideas from within the Traditions, such as giving beyond the requirements of equity and the connection of human life with God whose abilities are unbounded by time, continue to draw people beyond the limits of culture. These outlooks are organized into 17 statements or proposals constitutive of this view of justice. These summary statements are used as the basis for comparing a system of principles proposed by a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration for intergenerational decision making with the views represented by the Traditions. This broaches a broader question of fairness in resource distribution. The article concludes with reference to some developed resources of the Traditions from which further insight can be drawn, and another illustration related to resource allocation. It is hoped that the article helps stimulate wider analysis of the values on which our decisions are made.     

Changes in the taxation of private pensions: Macroeconomic and welfare effects

This paper provides an applied general equilibrium analysis of several alternative taxation regimes applying to private pensions. The analysis focuses on the implications of this and other pension tax regimes for intergenerational equity, national living standards, labour supply, saving and social welfare. The method of analysis is simulation of an open economy overlapping generations CGE model. The model is calibrated to Australia and is used to examine the decision, announced by the Australian Government in its 2006 Budget, to exempt from tax all superannuation (the Australian term for superannuation) benefits received by recipients over 60 years of age.     

Intergenerational Mobility in East Asian Countries: A Comparative Study of Japan, Korea and China

Abstract:  There have been fewer cross-national comparative works on social mobility in East Asian countries than in Western countries. The present study aims to explore the similarities and differences of intergenerational social mobility in three East Asian countries and to examine whether the Featherman–Jones–Hauser (FJH) hypothesis would fit well into the mobility tables for Japan, Korea, and China. Log-linear and log-multiplicative models are applied to the mobility tables of respondents' occupations according to the father's occupation in the three countries. The analysis of relative rates of mobility did not completely support the FJH hypothesis in a strict sense, even though it reasonably accounts for the total association of origin and destination in the three countries. My analysis demonstrates that a level of social fluidity has been higher in Korea and China than in Japan. Focusing on how relative mobility patterns differ between the three countries, intergenerational mobility in Korea is characterized by lower rates of class inheritance compared to Japan, while there seems to be a similarity between the patterns of social fluidity in Japan and Korea, even though they are to a certain extent deviant from Erikson and Goldthorpe's core model. In contrast to Korea, class inheritance rates in China are almost as large as in Japan. However, the mobility pattern between classes appears to differ substantially between the post-socialist and two capitalist countries. In particular, both downward and upward mobility between the white collar bloc and the unskilled manual position are more pervasive in China than in Japan and Korea. These results imply that sociologists interested in cross-national comparison of the social mobility between the East Asian countries should pay attention to both political institutions and the local labor market situatuion which can substantially affect social mobility.     

人口老龄化与代际财政不平等——基于代际账户核算法的模拟分析

本文采用代际账户核算方法,模拟测算了中国“现存代”和“未来代”的净税收负担值,探讨人口老龄化与代际财政不平等的关系。结果显示：如果保持当前财税制度和社会保障体制不变,未来代的净税收负担要明显高于现存代,中国存在较为严重的代际财政不平等问题,而且未来人口老龄化的进程越快,代际财政不平等程度就越高;但是,老龄化与代际财政不平等的关系还取决于劳动生产率和折现率的变化,折现率越低以及劳动生产率的增长率越高,将会缓解老龄化对代际财政不平等的冲击。据此本文认为,应逐步放开生育政策、延长退休年龄、提高劳动生产率,以改善老龄化背景下的代际财政失衡状况。     

Estimation of Models With Multiple-Valued Explanatory Variables

ABSTRACT

We study estimation and inference when there are multiple values (“matches”) for the explanatory variables and only one of the matches is the correct one. This problem arises often when two datasets are linked together on the basis of information that does not uniquely identify regressor values. We offer a set of two intuitive conditions that ensure consistent inference using the average of the possible matches in a linear framework. The first condition is the exogeneity of the false match with respect to the regression error. The second condition is a notion of exchangeability between the true and false matches. Conditioning on the observed data, the probability that each match is correct is completely unrestricted. We perform a Monte Carlo study to investigate the estimator’s finite-sample performance relative to others proposed in the literature. Finally, we provide an empirical example revisiting a main area of application: the measurement of intergenerational elasticities in income. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.