Class, gender and marriage

This paper estimates the contributions of differential fecundity, social heterogeneity, assortative matching and search frictions to aggregate marriage behavior in 18th century Quebec. The reduced form estimates show that a simple random matching model of the marriage market, in which there are gains to assortative matching and women may leave the marriage market at a higher rate than men, can explain these data. The estimates also show that the marriage market was segmented by social status.     

Effect of marriage registration on fertility and intrahousehold distribution in Thailand

Research has shown that changes in the marriage and family laws generally affect the formation, welfare distribution, and dissolution of marriage. However, little is known about the effects of constituting state-sanctioned marriage as opposed to informal marriage, where these laws do not fully apply. The present paper studied the effects of formal marriage registration on fertility outcomes and intrahousehold distribution among married couples in Thailand. Using data from the 1993 Survey for the Status of Women and Fertility in Thailand (SWAFT), it was found that marriage registration increases the number of children in a family and enhances women's contribution to and control of household finances. These results suggest that formal marriage registration promotes spousal cooperation and increases the welfare of women, supporting recent policy efforts in many developing countries in the development and expansion of vital registration systems.     

Economic behavior,marriage and fertility: two lessons from polygyny

"This paper derives and estimates an index of the relative importance of children in marriage by comparing the effect of husband's income on the actual number of wives in the household with the demand for wives derived from the number of children in the household. Moreover, the paper presents the monogamy bias as a possible explanation for often observed low or negative income effects on fertility." The data are from two surveys carried out around 1971 in Maiduguri, capital of the Northeastern state of Nigeria.     

An economic analysis of fertility,market participation and marriage behaviour in recent Japan

This is the 1st attempt in modelling fertility, labor force participation and marriage rate using Japanese data. The authors use Butz and Ward's model and extend it to a simultaneous equation system as in the case of Winegarden. Although the estimates obtained by Full Information Maximum Likelihood and Three Stage Least Squares of the model are statistically significant, some of the signs of the estimates are not consistent to a priori predictions. The crux of the model is that an increase in the wages of men has an unambiguous positive effect on fertility, whereas an increase in wages of women may not lead to higher fertility due to the dominance of substitution effect. But the issue of whether there are discriminatory employment practices and cultural pressures on the participation of women in the labor force, raised by the results obtained can only be answered using a larger set of data or with the help of panel data.     

Explaining efficiency differences among large German and Austrian banks

Cost-efficiency, scale efficiency, and productivity change are estimated by data envelopment analysis; and cost-efficiency is regressed on explanatory variables. No evidence is found for average productivity responding to deregulation over the period studied. State-owned banks are found to be more cost-efficient (likely owing to cheaper funds) and cooperative banks to be about as cost-efficient as private banks. Increasing economies of scale but decreasing economies of scope provide rationale for M&As among banks with similar product portfolios. Interbank and capital market funding is found to be more cost-efficient than deposits when the cost of retail networks is controlled.     

The career and family choices of women: A dynamic analysis of labor force participation,schooling, marriage,and fertility decisions

This paper formulates and estimates a discrete time, discrete choice dynamic labor supply model in which marriage, fertility, and education are choice variables. The dynamics of these choices are captured by various forms of state and duration dependence. Uncertainty comes from the imperfect control women have over births and from a choice-specific random shock to utility each period. Women choose different career and family life-cycle paths because of these uncertainties and also because they have different tastes. The structural parameters of the model are estimated using maximum likelihood estimation techniques with data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.     

Misrepresentation and stability in the marriage problem

It has been shown previously that, for two-sided discrete markets of the kind exemplified by the “marriage problem,” no strategy-proof procedure for aggregating preferences into stable outcomes exists. Here it is shown that (Nash) equilibrium misrepresentation of preferences nevertheless results in a stable outcome in terms of the true preferences when the aggregation procedure yields the optimal stable outcome in terms of the stated preferences for one side of the market.     

Levels of fertility and reproduction and differential fertility in Sholapur City

This paper presents the main findings of a survey conducted in 1955 regarding the fertility of women in the city of Sholapur. 1203 families (3535 males and 3289 females) comprised the sample. 1337 women were of childbearing age and the total number of children born to women the year before the inquiry was 321. The overall total marital fertility rate for Sholapur women was 7106.01 children/1000 women or about 7 children/woman. Proportion of female births to total births in the sample was 0.4829. Gross reproduction was 2.9 per woman. Paternal and maternal net reproduction rates of 1.8 and 1.5 represented a rate of increase in the male and female populations per 33 and 27 years respectively. None of the biological and social factors considered was found to have any differential effect on marital fertility of the women. This result was expected, as evidence suggest that the various social, religious, educational, and economic classes in Sholapur are quite similar with regards to marriage and contraceptive behavior. Tables on values of chi-square are also appended.     

Re-examining differences between momentum and time series momentum among individual stocks

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive comparison of momentum (CSMOM) and time series momentum (TSMOM) among individual stocks in the US stock market from January 1964 to December 2015 and find that the two are distinct among individual stocks. With zero-cost strategies on both of them, we find that the explanations in Goyal and Jegadeesh (2018) cannot fully explain the differences between the performances of CSMOM strategies and TSMOM strategies.     

当前中间阶层利益结构二元性及其冲突

随着市场机制的逐渐确立，我国中间阶层成为在结构上拥有类似的社会综合地位的社会共同体，同时体制权力的主要作用领域从政治资源转向为经济资源，形成了中间阶层的“市场——体制权力”二元利益配置机制，我们可以用“双色蛋糕”模型来描述这一异质化特征。此特征导致中间阶层各群体间错综复杂的关系，其中的利益分化与冲突关系影响到中间阶层的整合与期望功能的实现。     

Re-evaluating differences in poverty among central city,suburban, and nonmetropolitan areas of the US

Poverty in the United States varies greatly by location. The difference in poverty intensity among locations, however, has only been evaluated by the official poverty measure – the headcount ratio – which has several drawbacks. The official poverty statistics also suffer from use of a single, arbitrary poverty line. This paper uses a recently-developed distribution-sensitive measure of poverty and 1990 census data to reconsider the difference among central city, suburban, and nonmetropolitan poverty levels, as well as differences among US regions. Instead of using a single, arguable poverty line, this paper lets the poverty line vary over an income range so that conclusions are more robust. We check for significance of differences across locations by applying some recently-developed methods of statistical inference.     

我国中部各省的资本配置效率差异比较

参考Wurgler的研究方法,考察资本要素在我国中部地区近十年来的配置效率及波动,从宏观角度分析中部各省资本流动的效率及其差异,研究结果表明:中部各省资本的配置效率受产业结构的调整影响;各省的动态资本配置效率的波动幅度在2004年以后趋于平缓,表明外部因素对各省经济效率的影响逐渐减小,而市场调控的作用逐渐得到发挥;各省的行业投资及发展差异是导致各省的动态资本配置效率差异显著的主要原因之一。对此,提出相应的政策建议。     

Short-run fluctuations in fertility and mortality in pre-industrial Sweden

This paper describes and interprets annual Swedish data from 1750 to 1869 on weather, harvests, real wages, birth rates, and death rates using vector autogression. Impulses due to unexplained increases in wealth, whether this occurred through increased real wages, improved agricultural yields, or warmer winters, led in the short run to increased fertility and decreased infant and non-infant mortality, and hence to increased rates of population growth. Unexplained or unanticipated fluctuations in infant mortality led to replacement cycles in fertility within one to three years, although only a negligible cumulative effect on fertility persisted after five to ten years. Fluctuations in deaths among persons older than one year evoked a fertility response several years later, but this replacement response persisted after more than a decade. Although vector autoregression is not designed to account for long-term trends and their consequences, the interrelationships found here among exogenous weather shocks and fluctuations in economic conditions and demographic rates provide support for the homeostatic mechanisms hypothesized by classical economists and discussed by Malthus. The methodology of vector autoregression appears useful for studying historical series on climatic, economic and demographic variables where we do not yet have a sufficient theoretical foundation for specifying and estimating structural models.     

Female first marriage in East and Southeast Asia: a Kiefer-Neumann model

Many studies have shown that schooling levels of husband and wife are important determinants of household behavior in developing countries. This article asks how the schooling levels of husband and wife come to be associated with each other through the marriage market. The Kiefer-Neumann model of labor market search is adapted to marital search, the aim being to explain both the positive sorting on educational levels for spouses, and the positive relationship between female schooling and age at 1st marriage. World Fertility Survey data for Indonesia, Korea, and Malaysia are employed in the analyses.     

Age at marriage,social norms,and female education in Nepal

We study the impact of age at marriage on female education. We hypothesize that in cultures where women marry young, parents discount the pecuniary benefits of educating girls; the earlier the anticipated age at marriage the greater this discount. We empirically test this effect using household data from Nepal. We control for potential endogeneity of age at marriage by exploiting variations in cultural norms regarding dowry and differences in the average age of female marriage among ethnicities and regions as instrumental variables. The econometric results support the hypothesis that female education is negatively affected by cultural norms that favor early marriage.     

Economic contribution of rural children and the family fertility behavior: a rationale for high fertility in India

"This paper aims at analysing the economic contribution of children and its effect on parental decisions. It is shown that, under conditions of [India's agricultural structure,] the children's contribution towards family resources is highly valued by parents, and this acts as an incentive to raise more...children. Thus, high fertility in rural areas of India can be justified in so far as the positive net economic contribution of children is highly valued by parents."     

Travel patterns and environmental effects now and in the future:: implications of differences in energy consumption among socio-economic groups

Travel patterns among different socio-economic groups in Sweden are investigated. It is shown that elderly persons, persons with low incomes and women in general do not travel extensively. Middle-aged persons, persons with high incomes and men travel much farther. Cars are the dominant transportation mode for all population groups. Aeroplanes are used mostly by high-income earners and men, while public transportation is mostly used by young people and women. Energy consumption for the different travel patterns differs substantially. Men with high incomes consume the most energy, with 94 000 MJ during one year, while elderly women consume 12 000 MJ. When compared to a calculated sustainable level of energy consumption for travel, most population groups are in excess. The level for sustainable energy consumption is calculated based on an assumed global potential for renewable energy of 360 EJ per year, divided equally among the global population. A certain share of this energy potential is supposed to be used for travelling. A scenario for 2020 is presented in which vehicle energy efficiency has increased and travel patterns have changed from what they are today. Sustainability can only be reached when both travel patterns and vehicle technology have changed radically. Differences in energy consumption for travel due to age and gender are likely to remain in the future. Scientific knowledge from the social domains seems to be important for devising efficient strategies for a sustainable society. Current focus on policy measures has been mainly on technical issues.