The pattern of birth spacing during Taiwan's demographic transition

This paper considers the impact of an extended family structure on the fertility behavior of married women in Taiwan. A sequential duration model is applied to identify the differences in fertility behavior during the early and latter stages of a woman's reproductive period. Heterogeneity adjustments which correct the respondent-specific characteristics are also implemented. It is found that living with the husband's parents has an impact on the wife's fertility only at the early stage of her childbearing period, and that the subjective son preferences together with the objective fact of no son in the previous 2 births do force a wife to expedite her third birth. These results are robust across different cohorts during the demographic transition and under different specifications of hazard functions. We thank an anonymous referee for his or her valuable comments and suggestions. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

The determinants of fertility in rural Peru: Program effects in the early years of the national family planning program

Using data from the 1991 Peru Demographic Health Survey, a linked Situation Analysis, and a unique region-level data set, this paper examines the determinants of fertility in rural Peru before and after the 1985 enactment of its National Policy on Population. The empirical framework combines a model of the timing and spacing of conceptions with a model of the timing of the placement of family planning services in communities in order to control for non-random placement of services. Results show the program helped reduce fertility post 1985. The magnitude of the effects is quantified with simulations. All correspondence to David Guilkey.We thank the editor and two referees for detailed comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Funding support for this project was provided by the MEASURE Evaluation Project under a Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Carolina Population Center (Number HRN-A-00-97-0018-00). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not the sponsoring agency. Responsible editor: Junsen Zhang.     

One or two parents? Half or step siblings? The effect of family structure on young children's achievement

Do children who live with both biological parents fare better than children in other types of family structures? Does the presence of step or half-siblings affect child well-being? This study examines the effect of family structure on young children's achievement addressing two sources of potential bias: (1) misclassification of blended families and (2) the omission of within-family and individual time-invariant unobserved characteristics. The results show that family structure, when defined using traditional classifications, has little effect on young children's achievement test scores. When the definition of family type is expanded, living in a blended family and living in some types of single mother families, appears to have a small, unfavorable relationship with children's achievement.     

Economic growth and stagnation with endogenous health and fertility

This article offers a theory of economic growth, stagnation, and demo-economic transition that originates from external effects of child-bearing, health expenditure, and education under endogenous mortality. Facing a hierarchy of needs, parents always consume and want to have a family. Child quality, measured as a two-dimensional vector of child health and schooling, becomes only affordable when uncontrollable mortality is sufficiently low. Child quality expenditure initiates an economic take-off and convergence towards perpetual growth while its absence may cause convergence towards an equilibrium of economic stagnation and high fertility. This way, the article provides an explanation for diverging growth rates from a cross-country perspective.I would like to thank Noël Bonneuil, Piero Manfredi, Nikolaus Siegfried, Richard Tol, and two anonymous referees for useful comments. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

Undeclared work: A dark side of social trust?

A Eurobarometer survey from 2007 reports that most undeclared work in the EU 27 takes place in the three most high-trusting and non-corrupt countries—Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This is somewhat surprising since social trust is normally associated with economic outcomes that are beneficial to society. The aim of this paper is to test whether undeclared work is a dark side of social trust. Since the Eurobarometer data may contain inaccurate self-reports on undeclared work and social trust may affect the willingness to provide truthful answers, we use more appropriate data in our test. Specifically, we use data from one single country (Danish Values Studies, 1999/2008) and undeclared work morale as an indicator of actual undeclared work—where undeclared work morale is the degree to which a person thinks undeclared work is wrong. We find a significant negative relationship between social trust and undeclared work morale after adjusting for a number of important controls. Thus, the evidence is in line with the bivariate picture of the Eurobarometer survey and suggests a dark side of social trust. We provide some initial explanations.     

Unemployment Insurance and Entrepreneurship

Based on administrative registers from Norway, we examine how unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) affect the transition rates from unemployment to regular employment and entrepreneurship, as well as subsequent earnings levels. We find that both the employment and entrepreneurship hazards rise sharply in response to UI sanctions and UI exhaustion. On average, transitions to entrepreneurship are more profitable than transitions to regular employment. While employment transitions are highly pro‐cyclical, entrepreneurship transitions are weakly counter‐cyclical. ALMPs targeted at entrepreneurship are rare in Norway, but the few start‐up subsidies that are provided are successful in terms of generating paid work.     

十三月对甲骨文排谱的重要性

本文主要指出"十三月"一词的记载对于不载周祭的宾组卜辞在排谱时的重要性,包括排谱时可利用月数的差数来计算是否当放入一个十三月,以及对于那些可能插入十二月及一月间的十三月事件利用微细断代法来判断其是否可排入同一年内。     

反思“封贡体系”:10至13世纪东亚国际体系的一个侧面

关于古代东亚国际体系理论的研究,学界已取得丰硕的成果。然而学界的研究多集中在“汉唐东亚”与“明清东亚”,根据汉唐时期或明清时期的东亚国际体系所提炼出的要素对于10至13世纪的东亚解释力不足。虽然学界关于10至13世纪东亚各政权间具体问题的探讨,为宏观探讨同时期东亚国际体系奠定坚实基础,但仍未步入理论层面。制度化的封贡体系的形成时间正是在11世纪初,即辽朝中期。缺乏对10至13世纪的东亚国际体系的整体把握,无法正确、深刻地理解东亚是怎样由“汉唐东亚”步入“明清东亚”,进而也就无法正确认知当代东亚国际问题的历史症结所在。     

Testing the Validity of the Sibling Sex Ratio Instrument

We test the validity of the sibling sex ratio instrument suggested by Angrist and Evans using the methods proposed by Kitagawa and Huber and Mellace. The sex ratio of the first two siblings is arguably randomly assigned and influences the probability of having a third child, which makes it a candidate instrument for fertility when estimating the effect of fertility on female labor supply. However, identification hinges on the random assignment of the instrument, an instrumental exclusion restriction, and the monotonicity of fertility in the instrument. We find that the instrumental variable tests of Kitagawa and Huber and Mellace do not point to a violation of these assumptions in the Angrist and Evans data (which can, however, not be ruled out even asymptotically as the tests cannot detect all possible violations).     

THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION: TESTING THE WEBER HYPOTHESIS IN THE GERMAN LANDS

Following Max Weber, many theories have hypothesized that Protestantism should have favored economic development. With its religious heterogeneity, the Holy Roman Empire presents an ideal testing ground for this hypothesis. Using population figures of 272 cities in the years 1300–1900, I find no effects of Protestantism on economic growth. The finding is precisely estimated, robust to the inclusion of various controls, and does not depend on data selection or small sample size. Denominational differences in fertility behavior and literacy are unlikely to be major confounding factors. Protestantism has no effect when interacted with other likely determinants of economic development. Instrumental variables estimates, considering the potential endogeneity of religious choice, are similar to the OLS results.