Male wages and female welfare: private markets, public goods, and intrahousehold inequality

We show how an apparently welfare improving phenomenon likean increase in the wage of the male member of a family can resultin a seemingly paradoxical result where the entire family isworse off. There is male and female specialization in activitiessuch that the female member is involved in a community levelpublic good. A rise in the male wage leads to adjustment ofhousehold time allocation with the male working more in themarket and less on household activities. In turn, the femaleworks more on household activities and less on the communitypublic good, failing to internalize the negative externalityimposed on other members of the community. Under quite generalconditions the implied negative effect can more than offsetthe positive effect of the male wage raise, and the entire familyis worse off. The theoretical results are consistent with empiricalfindings in the literature.     

Women-headed households and household welfare: An empirical deconstruction for Uganda

Analysis of the first nationally representative household survey of Uganda shows that women-headed households are not poorer when assessed by consumption or income. Nor do they appear consistently disadvantaged on social indicators. Some subgroups of women-headed households do have lower economic welfare, including those headed by widows and those in urban areas. Gender inequalities in educational attainment appears to be the major source of what economic disadvantage such women-headed households do face. High remittances receipts play a key role in maintaining economic parity between women and men-headed households.     

Access to savings and household welfare evidence from a household survey in The Gambia

In this study, we provide evidence on the impact of access to formal savings on household well‐being in The Gambia. Specifically, we study how access to formal savings can impact household outcomes such as total spending, ownership of durable assets, health spending, and education spending. Using a representative household survey and kernel ridge regression method, we find that household access to formal savings has a positive and statistically significant impact on all outcomes except health spending. Furthermore, we find that the largest effect size of access to savings is on education spending. However, the impact estimates on education and food expenditure are not very robust to a mild presence of hidden bias. Overall, we find a robust impact for total spending and asset ownership. Hence, increasing household access to formal savings can improve household well‐being in The Gambia.     

Health-seeking behavior and patient welfare: Evidence from China

The inefficient use of healthcare resources is a persisting challenge to almost all healthcare systems, making it imperative to understand the underlying factors of healthcare demand. This paper investigates patients' health-seeking behavior in rural China using a random coefficients logit model. We further perform a counterfactual simulation and welfare analyses to evaluate the inefficiencies in health services utilization. The counterfactual simulation reallocates patients to more efficient health providers following the principles of the hierarchical medical system. Our analysis suggests that out-of-pocket expenses and distance to providers discourage patients from utilizing healthcare, while quality of care has a positive effect on patients' hospital choices. However, significant heterogeneity exists in patient preferences over quality of care, out-of-pocket expenses, and distance to providers. The simulation results show that the overall welfare change may have masked variations related to the hypothetical change, with societal welfare loss from switching to higher-tier providers. Our analysis provides support for policies to improve hospitals and assist rural patients in financing healthcare in China.     

Social roles, human capital, and the intrahousehold division of labor: evidence from Pakistan

Using detailed data from rural Pakistan, this paper investigateswhether human capital, learning-by-doing, gender, and familystatus affect the division of labor within households. Resultssuggest the presence of returns to individual specializationin all farm, non-farm, and home based activities. The intrahouseholddivision of labor is influenced by comparative advantage basedon human capital and by long-lasting returns to learning-by-doing,but we also find evidence of a separate effect of gender andfamily status. Households seem to operate as hierarchies withsexually segregated spheres of activity. The head of householdand his or her spouse provide most of the labor within theirrespective spheres of influence; other members work less. Whenpresent in the household, daughters-in-law work systematicallyharder than daughters of comparable age, height, and education.Other findings of interest are that there are increasing returnsto scale in most household chores, that larger households workmore off farm, and that better educated individuals enjoy moreleisure.     

Trade openness and household welfare within a country: A microeconomic analysis of Vietnamese households

The positive effects of trade liberalisation on several dimensions of poverty have initiated studies of the trade–poverty relationship. Trade liberalisation accompanies institutional reforms that help to reduce institutional barriers against the poor. This study examines the impacts of trade openness and institutional reforms on rural household welfare at the provincial level through the analysis of the determinants of welfare of rural households in Vietnam. The study employs a model of micro-determinants of growth and tests it on the data from the Vietnam Household Living Standards Surveys (VHLSSs) of 2006 and 2010. What makes the study different from some other studies of the same vein is that it attempts to directly capture the institutional effect on welfare. The study finds that, in the provinces with high institutional reforms and trade openness, the welfare of rural households improved. Institutional reforms in Vietnam appeared to be sluggish in the late 2000s. In particular, both access to land and lower informal charges were the important determinants of welfare improvement over time. These findings suggest that Vietnam should maintain its development by accelerating the process of institutional reforms, thereby helping poor households to improve standards of living.     

Home value misestimation and household behavior: Evidence from China

Households often make errors when self-assessing their housing wealth. By using the Chinese Households Finance Survey, we show that Chinese urban households systematically overestimate their home value. This bias is significantly related to household consumption: a one standard deviation increase in the extent of estimation bias is associated with a 10% increase in household consumption. Our main results are robust against a variety of robustness checks, e.g., taking into account the expectations of future home price, using the interviewee's estimation as the instrumental variable for the household self-estimation, implementing the hedonic model on an external data source to assess real homevalue, etc.. Further, we show that overestimated households are more likely to take risk in financial market, and have a larger amount of immediate and conspicuous consumption. These findings have policy implications for the recent debate about property tax, indicating the unintended consequences of property tax through providing more precise information about home value.     

Indexation and household saving behavior: Some empirical evidence from finnish data

Zusammenfassung Indexierung und das Sparverhalten der privaten Haushalte: Empirische Evidenz aus Finnland. - In diesem Aufsatz werden finnische Daten über indexierte Depositenkonten benutzt, um die Wirkungen der Indexierung auf das Sparverhalten der privaten Haushalte empirisch zu belegen. Die Ergebnisse best?tigen, da\ bei Unsicherheit über die Inflationsrate die Absicherungsmóglichkeit einer voll indexierten Finanzanlage dazu führt, da\ sich der Anteil der indexierten Anlage am gesamten Sparkapital vergró\ert. Diese Folgerung scheint ziemlich stabil zu sein gegenüber verschiedenen N?herungswerten für das private Vermógen, Modifikationen des Grundmodells und der Sch?tzmethoden. W?hrend die Indexierung das Banksparen positiv beeinflu\t hat, konnte kein me\barer Einflu\ auf die Sparquote insgesamt nachgewiesen werden.

---

Résumé Indexation et le comportement d’épargne des ménages: Quelque évidence empirique des données finnoises. - Dans cet article des données finnoises concernant des comptes de dépót indexés sont utilisées pour trouver l’évidence empirique sur les effets de l’indexation sur le comportement d’épargne des ménages. Les résultats supportent la vue que la ?hedging? capabilité d’un actif complètement indexé favorise en présence de l’incertitude sur le taux d’inflation l’actif indexé. Cette conclusion semble être assez robuste après qu’ on a utilisé d’autres variables approximatives pour la richesse de ménage et modifié le modèle de base et les méthodes d’estimation. Pendant que l’indexation a fait monter la portion de l’épargne bancaire, il n’y a pas d’effet mesurable sur l’épargne total.

---

Resumen Indexación y ahorro de los hogares: evidencia empírica de datos finlandeses. - En este trabajo se utilizan datos de Finlandia sobre depósitos bancarios indizados para obtener evidencia empírica de los efectos de la indexación sobre el ahorro los hogares. Los resultados confirman la noción de que la capacidad de “hedging” de un activo integramente indizado bajo condiciones de inflación incierta causa una realocación através de una demanda de ?hedging? en favor de una parte mayor del activo indizado. Esta conclusión parece bastante robusta con respecto a las ?proxies? para el patrimonio de los hogares, modificaciones del modelo básico y los métodos de estimación. Los resultados empíricos con respecto al efecto sobre la cuota de ahorro no revelaron ning?n impacto mensurable. El ahorro bancario, por otro lado, resultó afectado positivamente.

     

Poverty,income distribution and child welfare in Latin America: A comparison of pre- and post-recession data

The traditional and external dependency of most Latin American economies and their recent pattern of growth has made them particularly vulnerable to the unexpected and severe changes of the world economy that began in 1979–1980. Even those countries with less open economies have been forced to seek adjustments to the new world situation that are, both in nature and consequences, essentially different from those of the interdependent industrial economies.This paper attempts to evaluate the impact of these recent economic changes on the living conditions of the populations of Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama and Venezuela. It is based on household data and is limited to those aspects of household living conditions that can be observed through the variables included in labour surveys. It analyses changes in overall income distribution, the movement of different socio-economic groups within the income pyramid and changes in these groups' livelihood strategies.     

China and the WTO: Tariff offers,exemptions, and welfare implications

China and the WTO: Tariff Offers, Exemptions, and Welfare Implications. — Trade reforms have opened the Chinese economy and the reforms offered for WTO accession involve further liberalization. To assess the implications of these offers, the authors take into account the tariff exemptions that are especially important in China’s trade regime, and the reductions in the variability of tariffs at the tariff line level required by the WTO offers. The offers will result in real income gains of over $ 50 billion, benefitting China and its major trading partners. Omitting the tariff exemptions is shown to result in over-estimation of the benefits from liberalization, while focusing on average tariff reductions leads to under-estimation.     

Economics of multihabitation: Housing conditions, household occupancy and household structure under rent control, inflation, and nonmarketability of ownership rights

Multihabitation, in terms of sharing facilities in a dwelling or extended family occupancy, is common in parts of the Third World. This paper uses the Ghanaian housing market to assess the impact of multihabitation on house condition and on household occupancy rates per room, as distinct from the influence of other factors on these variables. Multivariate statistical techniques form the method of analysis and the models have a high predictive accuracy. The impacts of current government policies, such as rent control, on house condition and occupancy rates is also discussed, along with cultural attitudes to ownership and obligations to the extended family.     

Changes in Japanese household consumption and saving behavior before,during and after the Bubble era: empirical analysis using NSFIE micro-data sets

This paper seeks to clarify changes in the Japanese household behavior in the 1980s and 1990s through empirical investigation of available data on consumption and saving using the micro-data sets of the National Survey of Family Income and Expenditure. Our findings are as follows: First, household consumption was stable even during the Bubble period. Second, “bubbly” consumption in the Bubble era was due to consumption relying on corporate expense accounts. And, third, the saving behavior of households changed significantly after the Bubble burst and asset prices imploded. This is indicated by the change in the coefficient of assets in the saving function.     

International labor-cum-capital migrations: Theory,welfare implications,and evidence

Although capital is often portrayed as being more internationally mobile than labor, the theory of labor migrations typically ignores capital flows. Economic historians provide long-term evidence suggesting close linkages between capital and labor movements for high labor immigration/emigration economies. Analyzing this linkage shows that labor-cum-capital migrations have distinctive economic effects compared to labor migrations alone. These distinctive effects impact on international economic economic convergence. GNP per head is invariably a poor indicator of development trends when labor (with or without capital) migrates.     

Growth, inequality, and welfare: comparisons across space and time

We propose and apply several welfare measures that combine averageincome with a measure of inequality to undertake cross-countrycomparisons of aggregate welfare for the 1970 to 2000 period.Our welfare measures, which are based on theoretical and empiricalfindings on the role of inequality in social welfare, drasticallychange the impression of levels of welfare, significantly affectthe welfare ranking of countries in different benchmark years,affect changes in ranking over time, and affect convergencebetween industrialized and developing countries. While the resultsare sensitive to the type of inequality and its presumed effecton welfare, the results are robust to different ways to addresscomparability problems inherent in the inequality data used.     

A household production model of paid labor, household work and child care

In this paper we use data on time allocation of women to estimate the value of market and non-market work. Four time use categories are distinguished: paid work, houshold work, care for children, and leisure. The estimation results show that the value of non-market production (household production and child care) is substantial and exceeds that of market production (paid work).     

Overshooting,reform and retreat of the welfare state

Summary The paper discusses various reforms that may lower the costs of the contemporary welfare state, including a shift from taxes to actuarially fair, although still compulsory, insurance premia; wider use of co-insurance,etc. It is also suggested that social security entitlements are made more robust against political interventions by moving them outside of the government budget. Freer competition is suggested in the provision of social services. Reform of the political process is also discussed to avoid an overshooting of the welfare state in the sense that imperfections in the political process result in excessive welfare state spending.Seventh Tinbergen Lecture delivered on October 1, 1993 at De Nederlandsche Bank, Amsterdam for the Royal Netherlands Economic Association. I Am grateful for comments on an early draft of this paper by Thorvaldur Gylfason, Torsten Persson, Agnar Sandmo, Karl Gustaf Scherman, Lars E.O. Svensson, Paul Söderlind and Lars Söderström.     

Integration and the export behaviour of firms: Trade costs,trade volumes and welfare

Integration and the Export Behaviour of Firms: Trade Costs, Trade Volumes and Welfare. - This paper analyses a model in which, because of fixed costs associated with exporting, only a proportion of firms in an industry engage in international trade. Economic integration (a reduction in trade costs) increases the proportion of firms trading and reduces the total number of active firms as relatively small non-trading firms are replaced by larger trading firms. There are welfare gains from integration, but because of the adverse effects of integration on the total population of firms these gains are smaller than in the standard model where all firms export.