Labor market issues will play the major role at the Second GLO – Renmin University of China Conference in Beijing on 7-8 December 2019. Keynote speakers of the event are GLO FellowsShi Li of Zhejiang University and Xi Chen of Yale University. This continues the very successful tradition started with the first conference. See program and event pictures of the 2018 event. The program is now out (LINK), see also below. Conference organizers are GLO Fellows Corrado Giulietti and Jun Han.GLO Director Matloob Piracha will give one of the many contributed papers. GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann will attend and address the conference. The event is part of the GLO China Research Cluster, which is lead by Corrado Giulietti, who is also a GLO Research Director. Place: North Hall, Century Hall, RUC.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds for The Netherlands that retirement of partnered men positively affects mental health of both themselves and their partners, while single men experience a drop in mental health.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We study the retirement effects on mental health using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design based on the eligibility age to the state pension in the Netherlands. We find that the mental effects are heterogeneous by gender and marital status. Retirement of partnered men positively affects mental health of both themselves and their partners. Single men retiring experience a drop in mental health. Female retirement has hardly any effect on their own mental health or the mental health of their partners. Part of the effects seem to be driven by loneliness after retirement.
An article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicsreveals that former residents of the German Democratic Republic have a smaller present bias than former residents of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 349–387 GLO Discussion PaperNo. 306, 2019.
GLO FellowMarkus Pannenberg
Author Abstract: We use the separation and later reunification of Germany after World War II to show that a political regime shapes time preferences of its residents. Using two identification strategies, we find that former residents of the German Democratic Republic exhibit a significantly less pronounced present bias when compared with former residents of the Federal Republic of Germany, whereas measures of patience are statistically indistinguishable. Interpreting the years spent under the regime as a proxy for treatment intensity yields consistent results. Moreover, we present evidence showing that present bias predicts choices in the domains of health, finance, and education, thereby illustrating lasting repercussions of a regime’s influence on time preferences.
An article published in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicsfinds that assortative mating in education has become stronger in the United States, which has contributed to the observed rise in inequality.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 307–347
Author Abstract: In this paper, we describe mating patterns in the USA from 1964 to 2017 and measure the impact of changes in marital preferences on between-household income inequality. We rely on the recent literature on the econometrics of matching models to estimate complementarity parameters of the household production function. Our structural approach allows us to measure sorting along multiple dimensions and to effectively disentangle changes in marital preferences and in demographics, addressing concerns that affect results from existing literature. We answer the following questions: Has assortativeness increased over time? Along which dimensions? To what extent can the shifts in marital preferences explain inequality trends? We find that, after controlling for other observables, assortative mating in education has become stronger. Moreover, if mating patterns had not changed since 1971, the 2017 Gini coefficient between married households would be 6% lower. We conclude that about 25% of the increase in between-household inequality is due to changes in marital preferences. Increased assortativeness in education positively contributes to the rise in inequality, but only modestly.
Despite a measured strong cross-sectional relationship between income and health, a new article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicsfinds no necessary connection between changes in income inequality and changes in health inequality.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 197–231
GLO FellowHannes Schwandt
Author Abstract: We develop a method for comparing levels and trends in inequality in mortality in the United States and France between 1990 and 2010 in a similar framework. The comparison shows that while income inequality has increased in both the United States and France, inequality in mortality in France remained remarkably low and stable. In the United States, inequality in mortality increased for older groups (especially women) while it decreased for children and young adults. These patterns highlight the fact that despite the strong cross-sectional relationship between income and health, there is no necessary connection between changes in income inequality and changes in health inequality.
The number of deaths from the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to fall. This is particularly true in Africa with a striking example in South Africa, where new infections and deaths have both been reduced by 40 percent since 2010. However, the problem is still worrisome in the South of the USA and in Eastern Europe. (See the three figures below.)
The Journal of Population Economics has published a number of economic research articles on the disease and the societal consequences. The 2019 Kuznets Prize of the Journal was devoted to a recent article:
Posted inNews, Research|Comments Off on Promoting Awareness: December 1, 2019 is World HIV/AIDS Day. Economic Research on the Consequences of the Disease.
A new article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicssuggests that migrant social networks in host cities mitigate adverse mental health challenges of Chinese rural-urban migrant workers.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 155–195 GLO Discussion PaperNo. 370, 2019.
GLO FellowsXin Meng & Sen Xue
Author Abstract: Over the past two decades, more than 160 million Chinese rural workers have migrated to cities to work. They are separated from their familiar rural networks to work in an unfamiliar, and often hostile, environment. Many of them thus face significant mental health challenges. This paper is the first to investigate the extent to which migrant social networks in host cities can mitigate these adverse mental health effects. Using unique longitudinal survey data from Rural-to-Urban Migration in China (RUMiC), we find that network size matters significantly for migrant workers. Our preferred instrumental variable estimates suggest that a one standard deviation increase in migrant city networks, on average, reduces the measure of mental health problems by 0.47 to 0.66 of a standard deviation. Similar effects are found among the less educated, those working longer hours, and those without access to social insurance. The main channel of the network effect is through boosting migrants’ confidence and reducing their anxiety.
A new article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicssuggests that intergenerational altruism explains between 24% and 42% of the African American Great Migration.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 115–154
GLO FellowJohn Gardner
Author Abstract: It is widely believed that many migrations are undertaken at least in part for the benefit of future generations. To provide evidence on the effect of intergenerational altruism on migration, I estimate a dynamic residential location choice model of the African American Great Migration in which individuals take the welfare of future generations into account when deciding to remain in the Southern USA or migrate to the North. I measure the influence of altruism on the migration decision as the implied difference between the migration probabilities of altruistic individuals and myopic ones who consider only current-generation utility when making their location decisions. My preferred estimates suggest that intergenerational altruism explains between 24 and 42% of the Northward migration that took place during the period that I study, depending on the generation.
A new article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economicssuggests that foreign aid may reduce asylum inflows from poor countries in the short run, but inflows from less poor economies show a positive but weak relation with aid. Aid is not an effective instrument to avoid migration flows.
Journal of Population Economics 33 (2020), 79–114 GLO Discussion PaperNo. 378, 2019.
GLO FellowMarina Murat
Author Abstract: This paper measures the links between aid from 14 rich to 113 developing economies and bilateral asylum applications during the years 1993 to 2013. Results show that asylum applications are related to aid in a U-shaped fashion with respect to the level of development of origin countries, although only the downward segment proves to be robust to all specifications. Asylum inflows from poor countries are significantly and negatively associated with aid in the short run, with mixed evidence of more lasting effects, while inflows from less poor economies show a positive but non-robust relationship to aid. Moreover, aid leads to negative cross-donor spillovers. Applications linearly decrease with humanitarian aid. Voluntary immigration is not related to aid. Overall, the reduction in asylum inflows is stronger when aid disbursements are conditional on economic, institutional and political improvements in the recipient economy.
Are new immigrants causing persistent voting effects? The lead article in the January 2020 issue of the Journal of Population Economics suggests that the voting effects are short-term only.
Read more in:
Read for free the Lead Article of issue 1 (2020) of the Journal of Population Economics :
Author Abstract: In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the causal effect of immigrant presence on anti-immigrant votes is a short-run effect. For this purpose, we consider a distributed lag model and adapt the standard instrumental variable approach proposed by Altonji and Card (1991) to a dynamic framework. The evidence from our case study, votes for the UK Independent Party (Ukip) in recent European elections, supports our hypothesis. Furthermore, we find that this effect is robust to differences across areas in terms of population density and socioeconomic characteristics, and it is only partly explained by integration issues.
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