UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND CULTURAL TRANSMISSION: THEORY AND APPLICATION TO EUROPEAN UNEMPLOYMENT

This paper emphasizes the two‐way causality between the provision of unemployment insurance and the cultural transmission of civicness. The returns to being uncivic are increasing in the generosity of unemployment insurance; but this generosity is decreasing in the number of uncivic individuals. In this context, I determine the evolution of preferences across generations and show that cultural heterogeneity is sustained over the long‐run. The dynamics of cultural transmission can generate a long lag between the introduction of unemployment insurance and an increase in people's willingness to live off government‐provided benefits. Hence, it offers an explanation to the ‘European unemployment puzzle’ due to the coexistence of generous unemployment insurance and low unemployment in the 1950s and 1960s.     

Child mortality and fertility decline: Does the Barro-Becker model fit the facts?

I compare the predictions of three variants of the altruistic parent model of Barro and Becker for the relationship between child mortality and fertility. In the baseline model fertility choice is continuous, and there is no uncertainty over the number of surviving children. The baseline model is contrasted to an extension with discrete fertility choice and stochastic mortality and a setup with sequential fertility choice. The quantitative predictions of the models are remarkably similar. While in each model the total fertility rate falls as child mortality declines, the number of surviving children increases. The results suggest that factors other than declining infant and child mortality are responsible for the large decline in net reproduction rates observed in industrialized countries over the last century. Financial support by the National Science Foundation (grant SES-0217051) and the UCLA Academic Senate is gratefully acknowledged. I thank Sebnem Kalemli-Oczan, Rodrigo Soares, and two anonymous referees for comments that helped to substantially improve the paper. Olesya Baker and Ilya Berger provided excellent research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Geography, demography, and early development

This paper explores the role of geography in early development. It presents a model where the odds of survival are higher in geographically favorable regions. In such regions, higher life expectancy prompts parents to devote more of their resources to old-age consumption and enables them to invest relatively more in the quantity and quality of their offspring. Investment in education, together with population growth, helps geographically-favorable economies to attain high levels of a more educated population that is necessary for sustained economic growth. The empirical evidence is generally supportive of the view that geographic attributes influenced regional population levels in Europe and its colonial offshoots around 1500 A.D. and that they affected population levels and educational attainment in low-income countries of the 1990s. For useful comments and suggestions I thank the editor, two anonymous referees, Daron Acemoglu, Ann Carlos, Phil Graves, Naci Mocan, Oded Stark, seminar participants at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Colorado at Denver, and the 2002 Royal Economic Society Annual Conference. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my advisor Herschel Grossman who passed away in October 2004 after leaving his mark on many of us in the profession. The standard disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Z80DEBUG软件在PC系列微机上的设计实现

在硬软件资源较丰富的 PC 系列机上,逐渐健全 Z80程序的开发环境受到 Z80使用者的普遍关注。本文介绍了在 PC 机上开发的 Z80程序调试工具——Z80DEBUG 软件,并论述了总体目标设计,程序实现技术以及应用实例。     

Dynamic factor models

Summary Factor models can cope with many variables without running into scarce degrees of freedom problems often faced in a regression-based analysis. In this article we review recent work on dynamic factor models that have become popular in macroeconomic policy analysis and forecasting. By means of an empirical application we demonstrate that these models turn out to be usefu in investigating macroeconomic problems.     

A Comment on Ali Tas˛ıran's `Wage and income effects on the timing and spacing of births in Sweden and in the United States'

This note reviews and evaluates Taşıran's (1995) claim that estimated female wage effects on Swedish fertility dynamics reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) are not robust to the use of microwage data. The results reported here indicate that once individual wage measures have been purged of measurement error, estimated female wage effects are not sensitive to the introduction of microwages. The results reported by Heckman and Walker (1990) persist even with the use of microwage data. Received: 8 March 1996/Accepted: 4 December 2001 I thank Tom MaCurdy, Eric French and two anonymous referees for useful comments. This research was supported by NICHD grants HD-19226 and HD-28685. The usual disclaimer applies. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.     

Meta-analysis of the impact of age structure on fertility

The paper uses a meta-analysis to comparatively evaluate the literature addressing the aggregate relationship between a populations age structure and fertility, as hypothesized by Richard Easterlin. The analysis is based on 334 estimated effects retrieved from 19 studies. The results suggest that several factors undermine the empirical support of the Easterlinian age structure/fertility link. These include the neglect of income, the use of relative cohort size to characterize the age structure, mis-specifications of the relevant age-cohorts, as well as the functional form and estimation technique. The results also suggest that the sample of published estimates possibly suffers from two types of publication bias, an under-representation of insignificant effects for small samples, and bias towards supportive effects in the earlier years followed by a bias towards negative effects as the literature matured.All correspondence to: Brigitte Waldorf. The authors appreciate the insightful comments and suggestions from two anonymous reviewers. The research also benefited from discussions with participants of the International Colloquium on Meta-analysis in Economics, Free University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, December 2002. Finally, we would like to thank David Brown, Meagan Cahill, Angela Donelson, Calvin Farris, and Melaney Seacat from the University of Arizona for their research assistance. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

Systems engineering: A problem-solving approach to improving program performance

Evaluation methodologies have generally emphasized the measurement and assessment of program merit, as reflected by the achievement of program objectives. Less attention has been devoted to analyzing and explaining the reasons for deficient performance and, more importantly, what needs to be modified to improve performance. While evaluators do identify performance problems, the identified problems are not always analyzed. Consequently, the information reported to decision makers may be incomplete, inconclusive, and of limited utility in the decision-making process. This article describes an evaluation methodology based on problem solving techniques which can be effective and efficient in defining and analyzing problems which impair program performance. The model can be applied in evaluations where the purpose is to provide decision makers with information and recommendations to improve program performance and provide an alternative to those evaluation models which emphasize the assessment of program merit. The model also provides a potentially unique cost/benefit methodology for estimating the potential worth of improving program performance (i.e., solving the problem).     

Managerial Delegation under Alternative Unionization Structures

This paper studies the effects of managerial delegation in a duopoly game under alternative unionization structures. Introducing managerial delegation in a framework with centralized unionization leads to incentives for sales, lower profits and higher consumer surplus as well as overall welfare. In contrast, delegating output decisions to managers in the presence of decentralized unionization produces opposite results unless unions are strongly employment‐oriented. Moreover, managerial delegation makes unionization structure neutral in relation to consumer surplus and overall efficiency. Finally, the timing of moves in the three‐stage game proves to be important for obtaining the above qualitative results under decentralized unionization.     

International and National R&D Networks in Unionized Oligopoly

We study the endogenous formation of R&D networks between two domestic and one foreign firms in a unionized oligopoly. We find that the equilibrium networks are sensitive to the extent of knowledge spillovers between networked firms. If spillovers are sufficiently low, the complete network will arise in equilibrium; however, if spillovers are sufficiently high, the foreign partial network that includes a domestic and a foreign firm will arise. Moreover, for intermediate spillovers, no equilibrium network emerges. These results have implications for aggregate outcomes: equilibrium networks are not necessarily optimal in terms of aggregate effective R&D and aggregate firm profits.