Education and its intergenerational transmission: country of origin-specific evidence for natives and immigrants from Switzerland

This study compares the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment across immigrant groups using the Swiss Census 2000. Determinants of educational outcome and educational mobility are examined. A child’s educational opportunity depends on its parental background. Not only the effect of parental human capital but also other determinants of child educational attainment vary depending on the child’s nationality. Overall educational upward mobility is more pronounced among second generation immigrants than among natives. Children of Turkish, Portuguese and former Yugoslavian origin appear to be most disadvantaged in the process of human capital formation.

Measuring education over time: A comparison of old and new measures of eduction from the Current Population Survey

An established practice by economists when using the Current Population Survey (CPS) data on educational attainment is to use the highest grade completed. However, results shown in this paper suggest that it is better to treat those who attended the 13th grade but did not complete the grade as having some college education rather than associating them with those who only have a high school diploma.     

Recession,terms of trade,and immigrants

The current literature does not adequately analyze how economic crisis affects employment of immigrants in host countries. It is generally believed that immigrants lose jobs and return home during recession. We show that recession may instead help relatively unskilled immigrants when it leads to terms-of-trade improvement in the host country, and when the unskilled sector is protected by minimum wage regulations. We also derive the condition under which the income gap between natives and immigrants falls.     

International comparisons of rural-urban educational attainment: Data and determinants

We study cross-country differences in rural and urban educational attainment by using a data set comprising 56 countries. We focus on the determinants of rural-urban educational inequality, which is measured by the ratio of rural to urban average years of schooling within each country. We find that riskier human capital investment, less credit availability, a colonial heritage, a legal system of French origin and landlockedness of nations are all associated with relatively lower rural educational levels and greater rural-urban educational inequality. Conversely, larger formal labor markets, better infrastructure and a legal system of British origin are associated with relatively higher rural educational levels and lower rural-urban educational inequality. We also identify an interaction effect between economic development level and some of these factors. In particular, we find that as development level increases, the negative (positive) relationship between French (British) legal systems and rural-urban educational inequality is reversed and becomes positive (negative).     

高等教育收费与教育公平问题的综述

高等教育学费制度改革作为我国教育领域的一项重大改革已经进行了20多年的实践，高等教育收费收入作为筹措高等教育经费的一个重要渠道，对高等教育的发展起到了关键性的作用，但关于教育实行了收费以后，有关教育公平的文题引起全社会的关注，本文就近些年的相关文章作了个综述。     

The intergenerational transmission of maternal human capital and the gender gap in educational attainment

An intergenerational effect of maternal (and not paternal) human capital on offspring's human capital production is a mechanism that induces males and females to attain different education levels. This mechanism allows for explanations of the reversal in the gender education gap.     

消费者自我概念与品牌个性间关系的调节作用

本研究实证了消费者自我概念结构维度对品牌个性的相对影响力以及人口统计因素(性别、年龄)的调节效果.结果显示,在3个被研究的自我概念维度中,实际自我概念对品牌个性具有显著的积极影响;社会自我概念对品牌个性也具有显著的积极影响.理想自我概念对品牌个性的影响则未获统计学意义上的支持.而在性别和年龄等人口统计学因素调节下,消费者自我概念结构维度对品牌个性的关系强度存在显著的差异.这些研究结果对于实施基于消费者自我概念的品牌个性定位与推广战略具有理论意义和实务启示.     

Assessing policies to equalize opportunity using an equilibrium model of educational and occupational choices

The inter-generational correlation of education in the U.S. is tremendous. For instance, in PSID data from 1990, young males with college-educated parents had a 70% chance of attending college. But those with high school drop-out parents had only a 15% chance. In this paper, we analyze the impact of college attendance bonus schemes designed to increase college attendance rates (and PV of lifetime income) of youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. Of course, policies that increase the supply of skilled labor may reduce the college wage premium (see Heckman et al. [Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, Explaining rising wage inequality: explorations with a dynamic equilibrium model of labor earnings with heterogeneous agents, Review of Economic Dynamics, 1 (1998a), 1–58; Heckman, James, Lochner, Lance and Taber, Christopher, General-equilibrium treatment effects: a study of tuition policy, American Economic Review, 88:2 (1998b), 381–386]). This may have the unintended consequence of wiping out most of the gains to the targeted groups. The strength of such equilibrium effects on wages depends on the substitutability between different types of labor. Thus, it is important to evaluate education subsidies within an equilibrium framework that allows for flexible patterns of substitution across factor inputs. This is exactly what we do here, using an overlapping generations equilibrium model of the U.S. labor market fit to PSID data from 1968 to 1996. The model allows for imperfect substitution among types of labor differentiated by education, gender, age and ten (1-digit level) occupations — a much finer differentiation than has been considered in prior work.We find that very large college attendance bonuses are necessary to equate college attendance rates between youth whose parents had only high school degrees or were high school dropouts and youth whose parents attended at least some college. The size of these bonuses far exceeds any reasonable measure of college costs; suggesting the “costs” the bonuses overcome are primarily psychic or effort costs. For example, youth from disadvantaged backgrounds may be poorly prepared for college. This suggests that bonuses targeted at college age youth are probably a very inefficient way to reduce inequality. Earlier intervention is likely called for.     

我国居家养老服务体系建设的难点及其突破

随着我国进入老龄化社会,养老问题成为一个必须面对的严峻课题,建设科学而完善的居家养老服务体系无疑是解决当下我国老龄化所带来的诸多问题的有效途径。目前我国居家养老服务体系建设的难点主要有法律法规不完善、社会支持系统不健全、资金提供不充裕、养老服务项目不齐全、服务人员专业素质不高等。要建构适合中国国情的居家养老服务体系,需要政府、社会、家庭等主体共同努力。     

我国出口汇率传递率行业和国家差异的实证研究

本文基于月度单位出口价值和汇率数据,采用固定效应面板数据模型分析了2005年6月-2008年12月间人民币汇率变动对中国出口价格的短期汇率传递率的行业和国别差异。研究表明,中国出口的314个HS4行业的平均汇率传递率和整体汇率传递率都很高,接近于完全传递,但不同行业的汇率传递率差异非常大,其中有14个HS4行业的按市场定价系数大于0.5,且涵盖食品、化工、纺织、钢铁、机械等多个HS1行业。在对15个HS2行业10大贸易伙伴按市场定价系数进行的国别差异估计中,发现我国出口对美国存在明显的按市场定价行为,对其他贸易伙伴汇率传递率近似完全传递。这意味着试图通过人民币升值来改善美国对华贸易逆差的政策效应会被削弱,同时也表明我国应加强与东亚贸易伙伴的区域经济合作,并提高出口商抵御汇率风险的能力。