Routine

Temporal routine - maintaining the same schedule from day to day - saves time. It is also boring and inherently undesirable. As such, the amount of temporal routine a person engages in is partly an economic outcome, affected by variations in the price of time, household income and the ability to generate variety. Using time-budget data from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States, I show that men engage in more routine behavior than women, because they spend more time in (routine) market work. More educated people engage in less routine behavior; higher household incomes enable people to purchase more temporal variety. Spouses’ temporal routines are highly complementary. The positive income effects and impacts of schooling indicate yet another avenue by which standard measures of inequality understate total economic inequality.     

Earnings and Languages in the Family: Second‐Generation Australians*

This paper uses Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia data to assess the performance of second‐generation Australians in full‐time employment in 2007. It examines the role of job mismatch and cultural and linguistic diversity at the individual and family levels. The study accounts for non‐random sample selection. The new evidence shows that: (i) over‐education and over‐skilling carry a wage penalty; (ii) there are significant but heterogeneous second‐generation effects; and (iii) language effects explain most of the disadvantage associated with non‐English‐speaking background.     

Household survey data for research on well-being and behavior in Central Asia

This paper summarizes the micro-level survey evidence from Central Asia generated and analyzed in the period 1991–2012. We provide an exhaustive overview over all accessible individual and household-level surveys undertaken in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – and of all academic papers published using these datasets. We argue that Central Asia is a fascinating region for the study of comparative economics given its dual experience of transition and development. However, the region is also understudied, in part due to lack of data, and especially due to a lack of panel data. We identify knowledge gaps derived from this lack of longitudinal surveys and suggest worthwhile areas for future research. Finally, we also present a new and novel individual-level panel dataset called “Life in Kyrgyzstan”.     

《财经研究》六十年大数据分析：中国经济学期刊发展的特点与趋势?

《财经研究》60年的命运和发展与中国的经济、高等教育、经济学和经济学期刊的发展息息相关。文章基于1956-2015年《财经研究》和其他经济学核心期刊的历史数据,从发文数量、被引频次、发文学科、发文栏目、发文区域、发文机构、发文作者和发文关键词等方面进行了横向与纵向的比较分析,研究发现：中国主要经济学期刊在发文学科、栏目选择和研究主题偏好上存在趋同现象,但各个期刊又都有自身的特色,形成了错位互补的发展态势,《财经研究》的强项是财务与会计、综合和金融等三个栏目,特色是财政分权、制度变迁、对外直接投资和中小企业等方面的研究;中国经济学期刊发展中存在的主要问题是国际化程度不高;中国经济学期刊充分体现了中国经济发展的重大历史命题和阶段性特征,新中国成立以来的众多重大社会经济变革问题都能在期刊中找到理论阐述和政策建议。总之,中国的经济学期刊不仅见证了中国60年的社会变迁和经济发展,而且也为建立中国特色的经济学话语体系做出了贡献。     

Comovement among returns of the private Chilean pension system

Abstract

The measurement of comovement among economic variables is key in several areas of economics and finance. This article examines the comovement among Pension Fund Administrators (AFPs) in the Chilean private pension system from 2005 to 2016. We use several statistical methods to assess the comovement among the returns during this period. We found evidence of strong comovement among the returns of all AFPs; the higher the percentage of risk rate of the investment instrument, the higher the comovement was. The introduction of a new AFP in 2010 did not change the comovement patterns. The comovement analysis study shows that the quality attributes of the products offered by the AFPs are homogeneous, supporting the idea that concentrated markets with homogeneous products could incentivize tacit collusive behavior, which could distort the functioning of the pension market, thereby affecting the aggregate well-being of workers.     

Economic transition, higher education and worker productivity in China

We investigate the role of education on worker productivity and firms' total factor productivity using a panel of firm-level data from China. We estimate the returns to education by calculating the marginal productivity of workers of different education levels based on estimates of the firm-level production function. We also estimate how the education level of workers and CEO contributes to firms' total factor productivity. Estimated marginal products are much higher than wages, and the gap is larger for highly educated workers. Our estimate shows that an additional year of schooling raises marginal product by 30.1%, and that CEO's education increases TFP for foreign-invested firms. Estimates vary substantially across ownership classes, the effect of schooling on productivity being highest in foreign-invested firms. We infer that market mechanisms contribute to a more efficient use of human capital within firms.     

Climate change and its marginalizing effect on agriculture

The agriculture of some areas considered marginal in the EU agricultural context is being questioned due to its low productivity and growing dependence on economic aid programs Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This study shows that climate change increases these areas marginalisation of since worsens crop growth conditions. The influence of climate change on the agricultural sector is analyzed using the Multicriteria Decision Paradigm with information provided by the Erosion-Productivity Impact Calculator (EPIC) and a General Circulation Model (GCM) as inputs for multicriteria mathematical programming models. The results obtained show climate change effects on the crop portfolio. Further results suggest that climate change effects are not only economics and environmental, reducing the suitable area for crops, but also social as it causes loss of jobs in the agricultural sector.     

Addressing the disenchantment: universities and regional development in peripheral regions

The paper addresses the rising criticism to innovation policies that have assumed a direct and massive impact of universities in regional economies. It integrates the literature in economics of innovation, higher education, economic geography and regional studies. The paper shows why research excellence is considered a necessary condition for regional impact, why it is not sufficient, and whether there are substitutes. The Additional Material section includes an analysis, based on original data, on research excellence in universities in European peripheral regions. The policy implications call for a new approach to the role of universities.     

Research Ethics Education in Economics

Abstract

In this paper, we report the findings from the data we collected from a survey in order to measure how common research ethics education in economics is. We have found out that (1) research ethics is taught in only a very few economics departments around the globe; (2) topics related to research ethics are not taught in courses on economics and ethics; and (3) the number of papers published in specialised peer-reviewed journals on economics education is only a tiny fraction of the number of papers published in these journals. There has been no evidence in economics showing that economics departments have taken strong initiative on teaching research ethics to undergraduate and graduate students.     

Wage–productivity differentials and Indian economic efficiency

A frontier-general equilibrium analysis with skill transformation evaluates the productivities of skilled and unskilled labor and potential of the Indian economy. We compare the wages of skilled and unskilled labor between 1994 and 2002 with their respective productivities over this period. Education is considered to be responsible for the skill formation over this period: the change in skilled labor supply is endogenous in the model. Compared to its productivity, skilled labor is underpaid in the initial period and overpaid in the second period. Unskilled labor is underpaid in both periods. A decomposition exercise shows that skilled labor gains from free trade, and stands to lose due to education and domestic competition in the second period. The annualized rate of return to education is between 7 and 10%. The economy operates below its potential in both periods, particularly in the second—due to trade limitations and the failure to capture the return to education. Service sectors are found to have potential to grow significantly.     

Sin City? Why is the Divorce Rate Higher in Urban Areas?*

Divorce rates are higher in cities. Based on Danish register data, this paper shows that of the marriages formed in the city, those couples who remain in the city have a 23% higher divorce rate than those who move out. In this paper, we test whether this observation is due to sorting of more stable marriages into rural areas or if there exists a causal effect of living in urban areas on marriage instability. Our identification strategy supplements the timing‐of‐events approach with an instrumental variable. Our findings suggest that the effect of living in an urban area on the divorce risks drops substantially and loses statistical significance once we address sorting.     

地方官员引领产业结构变动

新结构经济学在理论上揭示了发展中国家政府引领产业结构变动的可能性。本文构造了中国省级官员与四位数制造业产业结构变动相匹配的面板数据,系统分析省级官员对辖区产业结构变动的影响,结果发现,在1998—2007年间,平均而言,省委书记省长在短期内能引领辖区产业结构变动;其引领效应随任期增加而下降。本文的发现是相当稳健的,揭示了产业结构变动在短期可以靠官员,在长期主要靠市场。     

What Australian Economics Professors Think

In this article we present the results of a recent survey of economics professors in Australia. We found that there is a comfortable measure of consensus in many areas of economic science, including several contentious issues which currently worry policymakers and the general public alike. We show that there is good evidence to suggest that Australian academic economists share a world economic culture with their western European and (to an even greater extent) their American colleagues.
We also asked the professors to share their thoughts on university economics education. There was good consensus that the professors wanted a rigorous classical economics education for their students, but they were not willing to sacrifice breadth: the ideal student, it appears, is one technically competent in economics with a head for the social and political dimensions of the profession. Overwhelmingly, the professors voted the economics department of the Australian National University as the best place for such an education, with those of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, and Monash, close behind.
Finally, the professors gave their opinions on the understanding of economics by government agencies, business and community groups.     

Why it Pays to Major in Economics

In this article, the authors use a large, recent, and accessible data set to examine the effect of economics major on individual earnings. They find a significant positive earnings gain for economics majors relative to other majors, and this advantage increases with the level of education. Their findings are consistent with Black, Sanders, and Taylor (2003), documenting that about two-thirds of the bachelor's degree premium for economics majors can be attributed to the type of job economics majors perform, and about one-third is a premium that economics majors earn over other workers within the same job.     

J.A. Schumpeter and T.B. Veblen on economic evolution: the dichotomy between statics and dynamics

At present, the discussion on the dichotomy between statics and dynamics is resolved by concentrating on its mathematical meaning. Yet, a simple formalisation masks the underlying methodological discussion. Overcoming this limitation, the paper discusses Schumpeter's and Veblen's viewpoint on dynamic economic systems as systems generating change from within. It contributes to an understanding on their ideas of how economics could become an evolutionary science and on their contributions to elaborate an evolutionary economics. It confronts Schumpeter's with Veblen's perspective on evolutionary economics and provides insight into their evolutionary economic theorising by discussing their ideas on the evolution of capitalism.     

Crime and benefit sanctions

In this paper we look at the relationship between crime and economic incentives in a different way to other work in the economics of crime field. We look at empirical models where a toughening of the unemployment benefit regime can be used to study how people on the margins of crime may react to changes in economic incentives. We present three sets of complementary evidence, all of which show that toughening the benefit regime can have an unintended consequence, namely increases in crime. The first approach presents quasi-experimental evidence, looking at crime rates in areas of England and Wales before and after the introduction of a new, tougher unemployment benefit programme—the Jobseekers Allowance (JSA)—in October 1996. The second approach considers qualitative evidence on individuals affected by the change in the benefit regime. The third relates changes in area crime rates to post-JSA sanctions. Each of these approaches uncovers evidence of higher crime occurring as a consequence of the benefit reform.

Transatlantic Differences in Labour Markets: Changes in Wage and Non-Employment Structures in the 1980s and the 1990s

Abstract. Rising wage inequality in the United States and Britain and rising continental European unemployment have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the unskilled, combined with flexible wages in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but wage rigidities in continental Europe ('Krugman hypothesis'). This paper tests this hypothesis based on seven large person-level data sets for the 1980s and the 1990s. I use a more sophisticated categorization of low-skilled workers than previous studies, which exhibits differences between German workers with and without apprenticeship training, particularly in the 1980s. I find evidence for the Krugman hypothesis when Germany is compared with the United States. However, supply changes differ considerably between countries, with Britain experiencing enormous increases in skill supply explaining the relatively constant British skill premium in the 1990s.     

Do Migrants Get Good Jobs? New Migrant Settlement in Australia*

The paper uses two cohorts of the longitudinal survey of immigrants to Australia data to study how changes in social security legislation in 1997 affected the quality of jobs held by new migrants. We use bivariate probit models to estimate the probabilities of holding a ‘good job’ in terms of the usual human capital and demographic variables (including visa category). Our results suggest that the policy change had a positive impact on the probability to find a job, but a negative impact to hold a good job.     

Mismatches in the Spanish Labor Market: Education vs. Competence Match

The accuracy of the match between a workers talents, skills, and capabilities and those required by his or her job has seldom been addressed in the empirical literature. However, a number of analyses on the match between workers education levels and those required by jobs have been published over the last 10 years. Obviously, the level of formal education completed by workers is more easily observed than their levels of human capital competences. Indeed, the latter would be rather difficult to observe. Nonetheless, this approximation is not straightforward, since formal education is only a mean for the acquisition of some human capital competences. We cross-examine the education match and the competence match between the supply and the demand of labor in Spain with data from 1998. Our results suggest that both types of matches do differ in their incidence, determinants, and wage consequences.