Empirical determinants of physician incomes — Evidence from Canadian data

This paper makes use of the fact that the stock of medical manpower in Canada is institutionally and exogenously determined in order to develop a model predicting physician average net income. An econometric evaluation of this model on a sample involving Canada's ten provinces during 1968–1982 suggests that a one per cent increase in physician fees increases physician average net income by 0.70 per cent, and a one per cent increase in the physician to population ratio reduces average net income by 0.62 per cent. In both cases, the elasticities are less than unity because the supply function for an individual physician is backward bending — on average, a Canadian physician reduces his hours worked by an amount between 0.17 and 0.50 per cent (95 per cent confidence interval) if his real wage rate is increased by one per cent.     

Schooling choices: Preferences, discount rates, and rates of return

This paper develops an empirical model to identify the structural parameters of schooling preferences and human capital production. Our model distinguishes between consumption and investment motives with regard to schooling. The results show that both motives matter. Preferences for schooling vary with social background and ability. Children from poorer social backgrounds and of lower ability have a lower preference for schooling. The discount rate that enters the net value of lifetime income varies with social background as well. The marginal rate of return to schooling decreases with ability and schooling. On average the marginal rate of return is 7.3 per cent, which can be contrasted with a `Mincerian' rate of return equal to 4.8 per cent. This indicates that the usual OLS estimate underestimates the true rate of return. First version received: November 1997/Final version received: February 1999     

On the interaction between education and social security

This paper uses an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility choices to analyze the quantitative costs and benefits of subsidizing higher education, paying particular attention to the interaction between such policy and the sustainability of the social security system. The paper focuses on the demographic change as the mechanism that link both policies. It is found that an increase in education subsidies changes the educational composition of the population and lowers average fertility. Lower average fertility and higher life expectancy of educated individuals translates into changes in the age structure of the population that requires an increase in the social security tax rate in order to balance the pension budget. Such process reduces the welfare benefits of this educational policy since the rise in social security taxes lowers the after-tax lifetime earnings of almost all individuals born in the period of the policy reform and over.     

Immigrant Generation and Income in Australia*

Microdata for adult men from the 1981 Australian Census are used to study the determinants of income by immigrant generation. The overseas born, 30 per cent of adult males, have 5 per cent lower incomes than the native born, and ceteris paribus, 7 per cent lower incomes. Schooling and pre-immigration labour market experience have smaller effects for the overseas born. Among the Australian born, those with overseas-born parents have 4 per cent higher incomes overall, but, ceteris paribus, there is no difference. The means and partial effects of the explanatory variables among the native born are not related to the parents' nativity.     

Generational and gender-specific aspects of the tax and transfer system in Denmark

Using the device of generational accounting, this paper assesses the distribution of lifetime net tax payments across gender and generations in Denmark. We find two significant biases associated with the current structure and stance of public finances. First, not only do men contribute a much large share of their lifetime incomes to the government than women, womens' net payments are even negative. Second, the tax burden on future generations is likely to be substantially higher than the tax burden on current generations.     

Determinants of Household Weatlh: Assets of Divorcing Couples in Australia

Recent reviews indicate that research on wealth in Australia has been limited by a lack of reliable data. The Economic Consequences of Marital Breakdown Survey containing data on the wealth of couples about to divorce, and items from the National Social Science Survey, provide new data for analysis. Shares of net wealth of housing (55 per cent) and superannuation (1 4 per cent) are comparable to those in previous studies. A 'wealth function' was developed taking account of age, gender, years of schooling and further education. There was a 2.6 per cent gain for each year of age and a decumulation of assets after age 58 years. Each year of schooling adds another 10 per cent to net wealth. There is a 16 per cent gain for those who have undertaken some further education after completing school. Some 22 per cent of adult Australians report ever receiving an inheritance. This new information begins to provide some of the answers on 'how' and, by inference, 'why' Australian households save.     

Welfare effects of bubbles in an endogenous growth model

This paper examines welfare effects of asset bubbles in an endogenous growth model with overlapping generations. In our model, a steady-state equilibrium with bubbles exists only if the presence of bubbles raises the welfare level of the initial generation. Bubbles can be beneficial to generations born at relatively early dates, whereas they reduce the welfare level of sufficiently distant future generations. Increasing the rate of supply of the useless asset improves the lifetime utilities of future generations.     

A Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of Capital Controls: Spain, 1986–1990 *

This Paper offers a quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of capital controls in Spain during the period 1986-1990. The analysis is based on a portfolio-balance model Previously estimated for the Spanish economy, where the complete elimination of capital controls is simulated. Our results suggest that capital controls would have avoided a net capital outflow amounting to nearly a 4 per cent increase in the Spanish net foreign asset position, as a quarterly average, during the first five years of Spanish membership into the EU. [C32, F21, F36]     

Decomposing Redistributive Effects of Taxes and Transfers in Australia: Annual and Lifetime Measures

This paper decomposes the redistributive effect on annual and lifetime inquality of a range of taxes and transfers in Australia, using a dynamic cohort lifetime simulation model. The redistributive effect is decomposed into vertical, horizontal and reranking effects. Horizontal inequities in the tax and transfer system are found to be negligible. The extent of reranking is greater in the lifetime than in the annual context and is affected by the equivalence scales used to adjust household incomes. If no adjustment is made to household incomes, reranking is about nine per cent of the reduction in lifetime inequality. However, if each child is counted as equivalent to one-third of an adult, reranking is found to be less than one per cent.     

FISCAL REFORM IN SWEDEN: WHAT GENERATIONAL ACCOUNTING TELLS US

Generational accounts answer the simple question of how much future generations will have to pay in net taxes as compared to today's generations. This paper briefly reviews the concept of generational accounting and provides estimates for Sweden, where public finances deteriorated significantly after 1990. The results suggest that the measures adopted since 1994 should improve dramatically the relative position of future generations, who may nevertheless be expected to face large net tax bills.     

Structural Operations and Net Migration Across European Union Member Countries

This paper analyzes the effects of international transfers to finance infrastructure on net migration flows among countries within the EU. A new economic geography model is employed with common pool financed infrastructure investments to derive a set of empirically testable hypotheses about the effects of transfer payments to finance infrastructure investments on migration. A significant effect of structural fund expenditures is identified on the bilateral net migration of workers among the EU member countries. On average, a one percentage point increase in the expenditures on structural funds (in per cent of gross domestic product (GDP)) leads to a reduction in the measure of bilateral net migration by about 0.4–0.8%.     

Reserves,Sovereign Wealth Funds and the Resilience of Global Imbalances

Reserves and sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) assets should be jointly considered for the assessment of global imbalances, hence their denomination as sovereign external assets (SEAs): both are public capital outflows from developing to developed countries, both hinder adjustment in current account surplus and deficit countries and, therefore, both contribute to sustain global imbalances. They represented 135 per cent and 50 per cent of net and gross US financing needs, respectively, in 2007. Reserves contribute 80 per cent and SWFs 20 per cent. They will go on providing resilience to the global imbalances, and the relative importance of SWFs is set to increase if commodity prices stay high.     

Capital Taxation, Tobin's q and Overlapping Generations

This study examines the effect of capital taxation on the long-term equilibrium in an intertemporal model, incorporating overlapping generations of the Blanchard–Weil type and value-maximizing firms with adjustment costs in investment. I demonstrate that an increase in capital taxation raises the steady-state expected lifetime utility of an agent born after the tax increase, provided the intergenerational redistribution effect achieved through lowering the rate of return is greater than that achieved through the tax revenue effect owing to the reduced capital–labour ratio, and that an increased ITC rate would not necessarily raise the steady-state lifetime utility of all agents.
JEL Classification Numbers: D91, D92, E62, H24, H25.     

Intergenerational externalities,sustainability and welfare—The ambiguous effect of optimal policies on resource depletion

This paper studies an endogenous growth model with exhaustible resources, overlapping generations and human capital externalities. In the competitive equilibrium, selfish behavior and inefficient skills accumulation may prevent sustained growth. Implementing the utilitarian optimum likely induces sustainability via increased knowledge formation, but resource depletion may be faster or slower than under laissez-faire depending on the social discount rate. Heavy (modest) social discounting delays (anticipates) the achievement of net welfare gains for newborn agents and successors. The reason is that human capital accumulation magnifies the positive growth effects of policies that lower the rate of resource destruction, preserving the welfare of newborn agents. Resource-depleting policies, instead, hamper growth and reduce lifetime welfare of early-in-time generations—the first loser being the currently young.     

The Socially Optimal Level of Saving in Australia, 1960-61 to 1994-95

In this paper a model is developed which determines the socially optimal level of saving for a small open economy. The model also determines the socially optimal disposition of saving between domestic capital accumulation and overseas asset accumulation. The model is then applied to the Australian economy for the period 1960-61 to 1994-95. For each year of that period socially optimal levels of saving, investment and the current account of the balance of payments are determined. Two main conclusions emerge. Firstly, while Australia under-saved by an average of 1.7 per cent of GDP from 1974-75 to 1994-95, it over-saved by an average of 5.3 per cent of GDP in the earlier period from 1960-61 to 1973-74. Secondly, Australia did not make optimal use of world capital markets to smooth consumption in the period from 1960-61 to 1994-95; although there is less evidence for this since 1984-85, suggesting that deregulation of capital markets may have facilitated the optimal smoothing of consumption.     

Are Australia's Current Account Deficits Excessive?

This paper compares the evolution of the Australian current account balance over the period 1954-94 against an optimal current account derived from a consumption-smoothing model. The findings indicate that the Australian current account was not used to smooth consumption optimally in the period prior to the relaxation of capital controls in the early 1980s. The results also suggest that in the period since the mid-1980s Australia's current account deficits have become excessive, and that the increase in net national saving required to satisfy its external borrowing constraint is about 2 to 4 per cent of GDP.     

中国城镇养老保险制度改革的收入分配效应

在公共养老保险制度下,可以通过调整养老保险的缴费率或养老金计发办法来影响参保人一生中的养老金纯受益,从而实现代际间和代际内的收入再分配。本文利用中国国家统计局2002年的城市住户调查数据,分别估计城镇参保职工在1997年养老保险制度和2005年最新养老保险制度下的终生养老金纯受益,并以此从代际间和代际内的角度对中国养老保险制度改革的收入分配效应进行定量分析。分析表明:在1997年的改革方案下改革前的养老保险制度中存在的逆向收入转移效果得到改善;但在2005年改革方案下,2002年时40岁以上的群体中存在较明显的逆向收入转移倾向。另一方面,从代际分配来看,1997年改革方案的代际不平衡大于2005年改革方案;在2005年改革方案下各代人的养老金纯受益都有所提高,但这是以养老保险制度的缴费率和养老金计发办法不变,养老财政收支能维持平衡以及参保人在整个工作期间按规定缴费为前提的。     

Australian Capital City Real House Prices, 1979–1993

Real house prices have increased by 35 per cent in Australian capital cities during the last 15 years, with Brisbane, Canberra, and Sydney experiencing rises of 48 to 61 per cent and Adelaide, Melbourne and Perth having increases of 20 per cent or less. This article estimates a single model for the six cities to explain the divergent real price behaviour over time and space. It is concluded that the fundamental forces driving real house prices are the growth rate in real wage income (primarily due to employment growth) and the growth in population caused by net overseas migration.     

Bequests,taxation and the distribution of wealth in a general equilibrium model

This paper examines the role of bequests and of taxation on bequests for the distribution of wealth. We investigate a model with overlapping generations and heterogenous households where parents derive utility directly from their bequests. We obtain all results analytically. Using the coefficient of variation as the measure of inequality, bequests per se diminish the inequality of wealth since they raise private savings and hence average wealth holdings more than the variance of wealth. From a policy perspective, taxing bequests and redistributing government revenue lump-sum among the young generation further decreases wealth inequality.     

The Distribution of Wealth in Australia — A Survey*

This paper surveys and analyzes the available evidence on the distribution of wealth in Australia. On the basis of this evidence, it is argued that the cross-section distribution of personal wealth reveals considerable concentration in the top tail, with the top 1 per cent of adult individuals holding around 25 per cent of private wealth. The inequality of wealth revealed in the cross-section distribution among the top 10 per cent of wealth holders is not significantly reduced when adjustments are made to correct for life-cycle influences. Although the proportion of wealth held by the top 1 per cent of adult individuals has decreased sharply since World War I, the second to tenth percentiles have almost the same proportion in the 1960s and 1970s as in 1915.