Assessing Multiplier Effects in the Russian Economy: Input-Output Approach

The article presents the calculation of multiplier effects in the modern economy of Russia. The output multipliers by different sectors of the economy have been estimated using a method based on a static input–output model. The article has analyzed the limitations and possibilities of applying a method of calculating the multiplier effects.     

Effects of Family,Friends, and Relative Prices on Fruit and Vegetable Consumption by African Americans

We investigate the effects of parents, best friends, and relative prices on fruit and vegetable consumption by African American youths using behavioral data from the Family and Community Health Study and area‐specific food prices from the Quarterly Food‐at‐Home Price Database. We construct a simultaneous equation ordered probit model that accounts for social interactions in fruit and vegetable consumption and specific aspects of the available food intake data. We estimate statistically significant endogenous consumption effects between a youth and a parent. Lower relative prices tend to increase intakes, particularly in the case of vegetables; however, the statistical significance of these effects is marginal. The results indicate the existence of social multipliers in fruit and vegetable consumption in African American families. The presence of these multipliers supports the design of youth‐parent–based interventions to increase fruit and vegetable intake by African Americans. Additionally, intake also may be increased through relative price reductions.     

The effect of inheritance receipt on individual labor supply: Evidence from Japanese microdata

This paper examines the effects of wealth on individual labor supply by considering inheritance receipts as an exogenous change in household wealth. Using Japanese microdata consisting of individuals aged 26–51, we find that (i) while men’s probability of working does not respond to inheritance receipt, women’s probability of working decreases; and (ii) in the case of most respondents the receipt of an inheritance seems to be unanticipated. We also test the unitary household model using information on respondents’ spouses. The results indicate that who received an inheritance influences the labor supply decision of each household member, meaning that we find no support for the unitary model.     

Decomposing local fiscal multipliers: Evidence from Japan

Recent studies on fiscal policy use cross-sectional data and estimate local fiscal multipliers along with spillovers. This paper estimates local fiscal multipliers with spillovers using Japanese prefectural data comparable with the national accounts. We estimate the local fiscal multiplier on output to be 1.7 at the regional level. We decompose the regional fiscal multiplier into the prefectural fiscal multiplier and the region-wide effect. Converting the latter component into the spillover, we find that the spillover is positive and small in size. We also decompose the regional fiscal multiplier on output into multipliers on the expenditure components. Our estimates suggest that there are crowding-in effects of government spending on consumption and investment. Moreover, we find that the regional fiscal multiplier on absorption exceeds 2.0 and that the spillover to absorption is considerable in contrast to the spillover to output.     

The influence of policy on the roles of agriculture in South Africa

This article provides a framework for the analysis of the relationship between different macroeconomic, sector and commodity policies and the multiplier effects of agriculture. It starts with a listing of the macroeconomic, sector and commodity policies that have been included in the analysis. These should be considered in conjunction with the likely roles of agriculture along each of the dimensions of the social, poverty and cultural roles of agriculture. These policies and roles should be conceptualised as the vertical and horizontal axes respectively of a ‘policy role’ matrix. The ‘cells’ of this matrix – the policy role interactions – are discussed with respect to the immediate macroeconomic, agricultural, economic, institutional and social impact of the policy change on the agricultural sector at farm, regional, national and multinational levels, and thereafter on the role of agriculture in terms of each of the dimensions identified above.     

Cash Transfer Programs with Income Multipliers: PROCAMPO in Mexico

Cash transfer programs create multiplier effects when recipients put the money they receive to work to generate further incomes. When this is the case, the ultimate income effects are multiples of the amounts transferred. We analyze the PROCAMPO program in Mexico that was introduced to compensate farmers for the anticipated negative effect of NAFTA on the prices of basic crops. The transfer rules and the timing of the panel data collected allow unique control of biases in this impact analysis. We find that the multiplier among ejido sector recipients is in the range 1.5–2.6. Multipliers are higher for households with medium and large farms, low numbers of adults in the household, nonindigenous backgrounds, and located in the Center and Gulf regions. High multipliers reflect income opportunities that had remained unrealized due to liquidity constraints that are relaxed by the transfers. Opportunities come from the asset endowments that these households received through the land reform, particularly irrigated land, and they are enhanced by access to technical assistance.     

Co-Morbidity and Other Complexities Affecting Black Women’s Health

This paper presents some of the major health concerns that affect black women, and examines how various individual health problems co-exist and coincide to create complex health concerns for women. It posits the idea that to effectively address a Black woman’s health, her mental, emotional, social, economic and even spiritual health must be considered as well as her physical condition. The paper focuses largely on the information from individual health-related research presentations at “The Invisible Woman” conference held at Bennett College in March 18–19, 2011 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At this event, scholars presented new research on HIV, obesity and mental health—three areas of critical concern for African–American women—examining ways in which these conditions affect Black women. The paper also addresses the role of health care access and policy in addressing these and other health concerns among women and within the black community. The review of the literature highlights the importance of examining health—perhaps especially Black women’s health—from social, cultural, behavioral, environmental and economic perspectives. It also points out the continued need for research that includes women and people of color.     

居民收入和部门产出变化的研究——基于中国社会核算矩阵的乘数分析应用

基于1997年和2002年中国社会核算矩阵（social accountingmatrix），利用乘数分析的方法．分析了转移分配和外生冲击对不同收入群体的影响。同时也研究了部门产出的变化，并将这种变化的原因分解为乘数变化和政策者所控制的外生影响。比较两期的乘数分析结果，我们得出居民收入水平在不断提高的同时，贫富差距在扩大；同时资源采掘业和能源供应业部门产出增长迅速．暗示中国经济还处于“粗放”式增长模式。     

Peer effects and school dropout in rural China

This paper attempts to identify neighborhood peer effects on children's dropout decision in rural China using the China Health and Nutrition Survey data (CHNS). Identifying peer effect is complicated by several endogenity problems including “self-selection” problem, “reflective” problem and uncontrolled “correlated effect”. By taking advantage of the special feature of “Hukou” system and “son preference” phenomenon in rural China, the endogenity issues are quite reasonably addressed. More specifically, we discover a new and valid instrumental variable for peer's dropout rate: peers' firstborn boy rate. Intuitively, the more the firstborn boy peers, the lower the peers' dropout rate because of son preference and the lower one's own dropout probability due to peer effect. It is found that as peers' dropout rates increase by one percentage point, the child dropout rate would increase by 0.393 to 0.504 percentage points, the corresponding social multiplier effects of peer dropout are from 1.647 to 2.016. It is also found that elder kids and females are more susceptible to peer pressure in dropout decisions. Many other interesting findings are documented.     

The local economic impact of construction projects in a small and relatively self-contained economy: The case of Lancaster University

Whilst the local multiplier impacts of the annual operation of universities has been the subject of intensive research, the economic impacts of capital construction projects have been almost completely ignored. This paper presents the results of detailed analysis of capital projects at Lancaster University in 1993-The reasons for the radically different annual operation and construction multipliers estimated in the Lancaster study are examined. Despite the smaller size of construction multipliers it is argued that it is a serious mistake to estimate local construction multipliers by making simplifying assumptions on the size of the key parameters in the multiplier equations.     

Women's opportunities in Swedish society

Abstract

Research in economic history has been accompanied by rapidly developing research in social history. Demographic history, the family and social change, together with popular movements, have been taken up as objects of study. The three Swedish studies discussed here arise from projects in these fields. The studies of Sten Carlsson and Kerstin Moberg form part of projects in the Department of History at the University of Uppsala on ‘the family in demographic and social change in Sweden after 1800’ and on ‘functions of the class society: popular movements’. Gunhild Kyle's study is part of a project in the Department of History at the University of Gothenburg on ‘women in industrial society’.     

Role of Individual Social Capital in Wage Determination: Evidence from China

The present study examines the role of individual‐level social capital in workers’ wage determination in a Nash‐bargaining wage model using Chinese micro‐level data. The study finds a significant contribution of individual‐specific social capital to the wage level. In particular, larger individual social networks and workers’ positive attitudes toward social capital significantly increase the wage level. Moreover, the effect of social capital on the wage level is much larger for men than for women. The results indicate that construction of individual social capital could increase workers’ wages. However, efforts are needed to reduce the unequal contributions of social capital between men and women.     

Great recession,exports crunch,and China's fiscal stimulus in a global zero lower bound environment

This paper develops an open economy model and replicates the exports crunch occurred in China during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. We show that in a global zero lower bond (ZLB) environment, fiscal stimulus significantly mitigates the negative effects of exports crunch during the Great Recession. In a global ZLB environment, fiscal stimulus produces more or less the same multiplier as during normal times, which are both greater than one. The state-owned enterprises’ production channel produces a spill-over effect on the private-owned enterprises’ production and amplifies the multiplier effects of fiscal stimulus. Implementation delay enhances the multiplier effects of fiscal stimulus. Compared to normal times, the welfare gain associated with fiscal stimulus in a global ZLB environment increases significantly, whereby implementation delay slightly weakens this welfare enhancement.     

The Effect of Body Weight on Adolescent Academic Performance

A recent study by Cawley found consistent evidence of a negative relationship between body weight and wages for white women, even after controlling for fixed individual-level unobserved heterogeneity and reverse causality. Building on this work, I estimate the relationship between adolescent body weight and academic achievement to examine whether early human capital accumulation is adversely affected by obesity. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, I estimate ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and individual fixed effects models. The pattern of findings across models suggests consistent evidence of a significant negative relationship between body mass index and grade point average (GPA) for white females aged 14-17. Estimates reflect that a difference in weight of 50 to 60 pounds (approximately two standard deviations) is associated with an 8 to 10 percentile difference in standing in the GPA distribution. For nonwhite females and males, there is less convincing evidence of a causal link between body weight and academic performance after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity.     

Can older workers stay productive? The role of ICT skills and training

This paper quantitatively examines the effects of aging on labor productivity using individual worker data in Korea. We find that information and communications technology (ICT) skills and participation in job-related training can help older workers stay productive. The estimation results present that ICT skills, a measure incorporating an individual’s proficiency in ICT skills and their utilization in the workplace, has a positive effect on the wages of the older workers aged 50–64 with a high level of education or in a skill-intensive occupation. Job training also has a significant positive effect on the wages of older workers. These results imply that compared to younger workers, well-educated older workers can obtain greater productivity increase through ICT skill attainment and their adequate use, and job-training. The evidence suggests that a productivity decrease in line with the aging process can be mitigated by training aging workers to equip themselves with ICT skills.     

Local fiscal multipliers and population aging in Japan

This study examines how the effectiveness of fiscal policy depends on population aging. To this end, this study estimates the local fiscal multipliers in Japan. Results suggest that the estimated local fiscal multiplier on output is larger in non-aged areas than aged areas, and that the effects on the number of workers are not statistically significant in either area type. Additionally, the multipliers on private investment are only higher than one in non-aged prefectures. Results also indicate that the multiplier generated by an increase in government investment is larger than that in government consumption. These results indicate fewer slack resources in aged areas that can be mobilized in response to increased government spending.     

Gender Difference in Returns to Education Independent of Gender Wage Gap in Korea*

This study examined the difference between male and female groups’ return on investment (ROI) in education independent of the average gender wage gap. Women’s additional ROI in education was significant and positively estimated. Furthermore, the ROI in women’s education was consistently higher than that in men regardless of educational stage, except for graduate education. These gender differences were greater in the younger generation than in the older generation and have decreased significantly in the recent ten years in high school education. Although the additional ROI in women’s education was positive in the field of culture and arts, education’s effect on wage increases in professional occupations was less than in men, especially in the fields of law and medicine. In addition, we show that gender differences in ROI in education were countercyclical. A base effect, large wage declines for low‐educated women during recessions, could explain this phenomenon. However, coinciding with the existence of positive cash flow news in the stock market that promises good business performance, a significant wage increase among highly educated women was found.     

Migration,marriage and social mobility: Women in Sweden 1880–1900

We study the intergenerational social mobility of women by looking at how migration was associated with socioeconomic marriage mobility using complete-count census data for Sweden. The censuses 1880–1900 have been linked at the individual level, enabling us to follow almost 100,000 women from their parental home to their new marital household. Marriage market imbalances were not an important push factor for migration but we find a strong association between migration distance and marriage outcomes, both in terms of overall marriage probabilities and in terms of partner selection by SES. These results highlight the importance of migration for women's intergenerational social mobility during industrialization.     

Explaining the Swedish ‘housewife era’ of 1930–1970: joint utility maximisation or renewed patriarchy?

This study shows that the Swedish ‘housewife era’ roughly occurred in 1930–1970. During the 1950s, the ratio of women’s worked hours to men’s worked hours reached a low point. In the early 1970s, it rose to above 50%. We argue that models of joint utility maximisation, assuming equal gender power relations unrestrained by cultural and institutional settings, cannot alone explain this era. The two principal structural mechanisms behind the rise of the breadwinner household were the decline of the farm household and the increased proportion of married women. Both weakened the bargaining position of women. Three results in our study weaken the claims of the joint utility maximisation model. Firstly, marriage was much more important than motherhood in determining the probability of women’s labour force participation, although the age of the child is then not taken into account. Secondly, the labour force participation of married women was similar across different social strata outside of the farm and top income households, indicating a prevalent capitalist patriarchal structure. Thirdly, women’s leisure was valued less than men’s, demonstrating that the preferences of the husband were prioritised over those of the wife.