Measuring National Well‐Being: A UK Perspective

The Measuring National Well‐being program began in the UK in November 2010. Traditional measures of progress such as GDP have long been recognized as an incomplete picture of the state of the nation. Following a six‐month National Debate that elicited 34,000 responses, ONS developed a framework for measuring national well‐being consisting of 10 domains and 40 headline indicators. The indicators include a mixture of both subjective and objective measures. Through supplementing existing economic measures, such as GDP, with measures that reflect social and environmental well‐being, national well‐being looks at the state of the nation through a broader lens. The paper will describe the development of the framework of indicators, including developing subjective well‐being measures, and the dissemination of this information using a range of interactive tools developed for this purpose. This is a long term development program and is still in its early days of measurement. How these data are used to improve policy design, delivery, and evaluation will be important to assess the success of the program. In particular, having a more complete picture of national well‐being will lead to a better understanding of policy impacts on well‐being; better allocation of resources; more informed decisions; assessment of government performance; and international comparisons.     

Switching the lights off: The impact of energy tariff increases on households in the Kyrgyz Republic

This paper describes an analysis of the impact that higher energy tariffs would have on households in the Kyrgyz Republic using micro-data from the 2009 Kyrgyz Integrated Household Survey. This analysis was conducted to determine which households would be most affected by higher energy tariffs and to what extent mitigation measures, such as lifeline tariffs or direct cash transfers, might lessen the impact for poor and vulnerable households. The analysis focused on first-order effects and used benefit incidence analysis and static micro-simulation to estimate the expected costs and benefits of higher energy prices and the corresponding mitigation measures. The results suggest that both the type of energy and the level of connectedness matter. Increasing tariffs for thermal power used for central heating and hot water mainly affects richer households in urban areas. Reducing implicit electricity subsidies affects the entire population due to nearly complete country coverage with electricity connections. Both lifeline tariffs and direct cash transfers could mitigate the effect of higher electricity tariffs at lower costs than universal subsidies.     

Measurement of Quality of Life and Well‐Being in France: The Drivers of Subjective Well‐Being

Ever since the publication of the Stiglitz Report, France has been heavily involved in the measurement of well‐being. The French Statistical Institute (INSEE) has expanded the scope of its existing surveys. It has also launched an innovative experimental survey which, drawing upon a single statistical source, aims for the first time to explore the different dimensions of both objective and subjective quality of life, as highlighted in the Stiglitz Report. It allows us to study, at the individual level, correlations between these dimensions and the accumulation of deprivations. It has enabled us to better understand the links between determinants generally referred to as objective dimensions of quality of life (such as health or education) and subjective well‐being. This information is of paramount importance for policy makers who cannot act directly on the level of people's satisfaction but can only act upon the levers of objective dimensions. This paper presents the main findings of the experimental survey.     

Understanding Changes in the Distribution and Redistribution of Income: A Unifying Decomposition Framework

In recent decades income inequality has increased in many developed countries but the role of tax and transfer reforms is often poorly understood. We propose a new method allowing for the decomposition of historical changes in income distribution and redistribution measures into: (i) the immediate effect of tax‐transfer policy reforms in the absence of behavioral responses; (ii) the effect of labor supply responses induced by these reforms; and (iii) a third component allowing us to explore the effect of changes in the distribution of a wide range of determinants, including the effect of employment changes not induced by policy reforms. The application of the decomposition to Australia reveals that the direct effect of tax‐transfer policy reforms accounts for half of the observed increase in income inequality between 1999 and 2008, while the increased dispersion of wages and capital incomes also played an important role.     

Differences by mother’s education in the effect of childcare on child obesity

Previous studies have found adverse effects of maternal employment on child obesity for higher educated mothers. Using a quasi-structural model, we find additionally a lower risk of obesity for children of less educated mothers with increased time in non-parental childcare.     

A dynamic‐efficiency rationale for public investment in the health of the young

In this paper we assume away standard distributional and static‐efficiency arguments for public health and instead seek a dynamic efficiency rationale. We study a lifecycle model wherein young agents make health investments to reduce mortality risk. We identify a welfare rationale for public health under dynamic efficiency and exogenous mortality even when private and public investments are perfect substitutes. If health investment reduces mortality risk but individuals do not internalize its effect on the life‐annuity interest rate, the “Philipson‐Becker effect” emerges; when the young are net borrowers, this works together with dynamic efficiency to support a role for public health.     

The Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks in the USA: A Forecast‐Augmented VAR Approach

This paper formulates a forward‐looking monetary policy function for the USA in a structural vector autoregression (VAR) model, by using forecasts of key macroeconomic variables, in addition to the ex post realised variables used in a standard VAR. Since this forecast‐augmented VAR (FOAVAR) uses both forecasted and realised variables, and the standard VAR uses only realised variables, the standard VAR is nested in the FOAVAR. I find that the Fed responds to forecasted macroeconomic variables more significantly than realised variables. I also find that the monetary policy shock in the FOAVAR generates impulse responses of variables that are consistent with the predictions of economic theories, while the policy shock in the standard VAR causes a price puzzle: an increase in the price level due to a contractionary policy shock. These results suggest that a monetary policy function identified in a standard VAR, by using only realised macroeconomic variables, may incorrectly represent the Fed's policy function.     

New Evidence on the Effects of the Shortened School Duration in the German States: An Evaluation of Post‐secondary Education Decisions

Most German states have recently reduced the duration of university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years without changing the graduation requirements. We use nationwide data on high school graduates and the different timing of reform introduction in the federal states to identify the effects on post‐secondary education decisions and to evaluate potential effect mechanisms. The results show that university enrolment of female students decreased in the first year after graduation in all analyzed states, whereas participation in voluntary service or staying abroad increased. Furthermore, students from non‐academic families are more affected than students from an academic family background.     

Well‐Being,Deprivation, and the Great Recession in the U.S.: A Study in A Multidimensional Framework

We study changes in social well‐being and deprivation in the U.S. during the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery. We outline an analytical framework for measuring well‐being and deprivation in a multidimensional fashion when data on achievement in each dimension is assumed to be ordinal and binary in nature. We use data from the American Community Survey between 2008 and 2015 and find that there was a decline in social well‐being and a rise in social deprivation in the U.S. during the recession followed by a reversal of trends during the recovery. Despite low deprivation levels among the White population, this population experienced the largest increase in deprivation during the recession and the least decline in deprivation in the recovery period. These results underscore the fact that the impact of recession and the subsequent recovery varied significantly across population groups.     

Job Security,Financial Security and Worker Well‐being: New Evidence on the Effects of Flexible Employment

This paper uses panel data drawn from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey to provide new evidence of the links between unemployment, wages, job security, financial security and workers' well‐being for workers in flexible employment. Our findings indicate that workers in flexible employment encounter more unemployment and experience increased job insecurity; unemployment is associated with wage penalties. Lower wages, job insecurity and financial insecurity affect well‐being. However, these negative outcomes are mitigated by longer job tenure. Our results have implications for moves towards a flexicurity model of employment     

Assessing the Possible Antipoverty Effects of Recent Rises in Age‐Specific Minimum Wages in New Zealand

Real minimum wages increased by nearly 33 percent for adults and 123 percent for teenagers in New Zealand between 1999 and 2008. Where fewer than 2 percent of workers were being paid a minimum wage at the outset of this sample period, more than 8 percent of adult workers and 60 percent of teenage workers were receiving hourly earnings close to the minimum wage by the end of this period. These policy changes provide a unique opportunity to estimate the effects of the minimum wage on poverty. Although minimum wage workers are more likely to live in the poorest households, they are relatively widely dispersed throughout the income distribution. This is particularly true of teenage minimum wage workers. Furthermore, low‐income households often do not contain any working members. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in minimum wages, even without a loss in employment or hours of work, would lower the relative poverty rate by less than one‐tenth of a percentage point.     

国债旅游基础设施投资效应：基于CGE模型的研究

利用国债资金进行旅游基础设施建设所产生的经济效应问题是政府和学术界都极为关心的重大现实问题。在构建“整合”的旅游生产函数的基础上,利用CGE模型对2000--2005年中国国债旅游基础设施投资对于旅游业以及全社会价格水平、总产出、总消费、居民收入、就业以及私人部门投资等方面的经济影响进行了定量研究。研究表明,国债旅游基础设施对于中国旅游业以及社会经济的发展均产生了积极的影响,有必要继续实施,为充分发挥基础设施条件改善对于目的地社会经济发展的推动作用,各地在旅游发展战略和旅游规划制定方面也需要有所调整。     

The Dynamics of Poverty and the Promotion of Transition from Non‐Regular to Regular Employment in Japan: Economic Effects of Minimum Wage Revision and Job Training Support

Comparison between Japan and other advanced countries shows that the relative poverty rate is high in Japan, and that many of the poor households are those with a non‐regular worker. As for mobility between income classes, the proportion of households remaining in the poor class for a long period of time in Japan is close to the average for EU countries. The panel estimation of its effect on wages shows that the raising of the minimum wage is statistically significantly associated with an increase in wages of non‐regular workers, in particular, female, but does not seem to decrease employment. The result shows that for male non‐regular workers, firm‐provided training promotes their transition to regular employment, and that for female non‐regular workers, occupational training promotes their transition to regular employment at different firms.     

A Micro‐Econometric Analysis of the Antipoverty Effect of Social Cash Transfers in Italy

We analyze the anti‐poverty effect of social cash transfers using a micro‐econometric approach. Aggregate analyses, based on comparing average poverty indicators before and after public transfers, fail to address who receives the transfers and how the transfers are distributed among the poor. We consider three dichotomous outcome variables: (i) poverty status before the receipt of transfers; (ii) the receipt of transfers; and (iii) poverty status after the receipt of transfers. We use a trivariate probit model with sample selection, connecting the outcome variables to the characteristics of the household and its head. Our empirical results highlight that the Italian social transfers system overprotects certain household typologies at the expense of others, as social transfers are primarily awarded to employees with permanent positions and the elderly, while the system is not generous enough to large households with dependant children, the self‐employed, temporary contract workers, and the unemployed.     

Intergenerational Mobility in the United States and Great Britain: A Comparative Study of Parent–Child Pathways

We build on cross‐national research to examine the relationships underlying estimates of relative intergenerational mobility in the United States and Great Britain using harmonized longitudinal data and focusing on men. We examine several pathways by which parental status is related to offspring status, including education, labor market attachment, occupation, marital status, and health, and perform several sensitivity analyses to test the robustness of our results. We decompose differences between the two nations into that part attributable to the strength of the relationship between parental income and the child's characteristics and the labor market return to those child characteristics. We find that the relationships underlying these intergenerational linkages differ in systematic ways between the two nations. In the United States, primarily because of the higher returns to education and skills, the pathway through offspring education is relatively more important than it is in Great Britain; by contrast, in Great Britain the occupation pathway forms the primary channel of intergenerational persistence.     

A Measure of the Shadow Economy in a Small Economy: Evidence from Household‐Level Expenditure Patterns

In this paper we measure the size of the shadow economy in North Cyprus by using micro‐econometric approaches and then calculate its implications on national accounts and fiscal balances. There is a relatively new strand of literature that focuses on comparing income–expenditure patterns of households to calculate the degree of underreporting of income levels by self‐employed and privately employed individuals, as compared with public servants. We use the 2008 Household Budget Survey of North Cyprus and analyze the differences in food consumption patterns among three kinds of employees: self‐employed, privately employed, and public. We found that self‐employed and privately employed individuals underreport their income levels by 20 percent and 13 percent, respectively, compared with publicly employed individuals. This has important implications for the aggregate economy in North Cyprus, where we estimate that the shadow economy created by underreporting is as much as 8.6 percent of GNP and 11.1 percent of total tax revenue.     

户籍制度改革对农村劳动力流动影响模拟研究?--基于新经济地理学视角

文章基于新经济地理学中间投入品模型,将户籍制度、土地产权制度和不同劳动力流动模式等因素纳入研究框架中,构建了中国户籍制度演变模型,并通过数值计算模拟了户籍制度和土地产权制度改革对农村劳动力流动的影响。研究结果表明：(1)不同户籍制度的改革路径极大地影响了农村劳动力转移和经济发展,如果降低户籍制度对劳动力流动的束缚,经济系统会释放巨大的改革红利,而维持当前户籍制度不变将遭受较大损失;(2)不同土地产权制度的改革路径影响了户籍制度的改革效果,如果农民工“带着土地”进行转移将会放大户籍制度改革所释放的红利。这表明户籍制度改革和土地产权制度改革要协同进行,不仅要减少户籍制度对农民工迁移的束缚,还应保留其农用地承包权和宅基地使用权。文章的研究不仅丰富和完善了现有劳动力迁移理论,也为地方政府相关决策提供了新的思路。     

剩余价值国际转移视阈下马克思经济增长理论研究——兼论新时代经济高质量增长

按照国际价值进行交换,剩余价值从劳动生产率低的国家向劳动生产率高的国家转移。纳入剩余价值国际转移的马克思经济增长理论表明,剩余价值国际转移率对经济增长有正效应,若不考虑剩余价值率与资本有机构成的影响,一国的技术越先进,劳动生产率越高,从而剩余价值国际转移率越高,该国的经济增速就越快。经济高质量增长的关键在于技术进步和劳动生产率提高,坚持创新发展,必将使我国的技术水平和劳动生产率实现大幅跃升,发达国家利用技术优势转移我国剩余价值的现象将得到遏制。在人类命运共同体理念引领下,依靠技术创新驱动的经济高质量增长,有利于弱化剩余价值国际转移,推动世界经济联动增长。