Subjective Well-Being Around Retirement

This paper studies the effect of both retirement and unemployment on life satisfaction, using subjective satisfaction indicators from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Moreover, we analyze how accurate individuals anticipate changes in satisfaction around retirement, as well as the correlation between the forecast error in life satisfaction and the labor market status. Being unemployed has a significant negative effect on life satisfaction; (in)voluntary retirement on the other hand has no significant effect on life satisfaction. A new finding is that unemployed individuals underestimate future life satisfaction. That is, their current labor market status has temporary negative effects on well-being, but, after 5 years, individuals are happier with their life than previously anticipated. We find no effects of (in)voluntary retirement on the forecast error.     

Are smokers too optimistic about their health status: Ex ante perception versus ex post observation

As the world has moved toward the era of non-communicable diseases, whether the individuals are in a capable position to accurately evaluate their own health status has an important implication on disease prevention in particularly and population health outcome in general. In this paper, we address four important questions surrounding the accuracy of health perception: (1) to what extent that individuals can make an accurate evaluation on their own health status; (2) what are the major factors influencing health misperception if any; (3) what are the causal directions between health behavior and health perception; and (4) whether individuals can learn and update their self-evaluation on health status over time and whether such learning is productive in that it mitigates the health misperception. Specifically, we use a longitudinal data set obtained from Taiwan that covers six waves of survey over about twenty-year period to compare the ex ante subjective perception on health and the ex post mortality hazards. Our results suggest that over one third of the survey respondents are not performing well in the evaluation of their own health status. We also find that smokers are more likely to have an optimistic bias on their own health assessment as compared to nonsmokers. After controlling for the simultaneous causality problem, we find a causal effect of individuals' misperceptions on continuing smoking, but not vice versa. In addition, our results show that individuals update their subjective perception on health over time through the learning from personal health shocks and the provision of public information on smoking hazards. Although the learning process tends to be overshooting among smokers, it is beneficial to mitigate the optimistic bias. We also find the evidence that personal health shock has a stronger impact on updating behavior than public information, indicating that personal experience is a more effective channel through which to correct the bias in health perception, compared to the provision of public information, such as anti-smoking campaign.     

Indonesia in the Time of Covid-19

The Covid-19 virus has spread across the world with alarming speed, infecting millions and causing economic disruption on an unprecedented scale. In this survey, we examine the impact of the outbreak on the Indonesian economy, as well as the government’s response to the public health crisis and its provisions for the emerging economic crisis. Indonesia’s delay in responding to the health crisis while Covid-19 spread in neighbouring countries in January–February 2020 has been costly for the health of the population. The government’s policy responses have so far been aimed at steadying the ship, addressing both the needs of the poor and the potentially poor (vulnerable) groups. At the time of writing, Covid-19 had not been tamed in Indonesia by any means. Hence, its implications for economic growth, jobs and welfare remained uncertain, as policy discussions were all about opening up the economy from virus-imposed restrictions across the country, under what has been termed the ‘new normal’.     

Did military service during World War I affect the economic status of American veterans?

I exploit discontinuous changes in the likelihood of military service induced by the transition between different registration regimes under the World War I draft to determine if wartime service affected economic outcomes. A new 1900–1930 linked sample is constructed to study the short-term effects, while the 1960 census is used for the long-term analysis. Implementing a fuzzy regression discontinuity design and a difference-in-discontinuities approach, I find little evidence of a causal relationship between wartime service and economic status. This may be due to America’s relatively short involvement in the war, coupled with comparatively less-generous benefits thereafter.     

Heidegger’s ‘potentiality-for-being’: Towards adequate economic development in Nigeria†

Even though Nigeria no longer remains so, in 2014 the country was declared ‘Africa’s biggest economy’ on the basis of its gross domestic product (GDP). It is a reality that many Nigerians still suffer deprivation and abject poverty. I argue that, as opposed to using GDP as a sole measure, multiple determinants need to be considered in order to convincingly validate the claim that Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy because it was largely based on measurable economic output rather than the well-being of the populace. Using Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to question the structures in Nigeria which undermine ‘potentiality-for-being’, I show how Heidegger’s philosophy proffers possible solutions on how best to actualise proper potentiality-for-being. I also illustrate how the GDP of Nigeria is largely based on population and not on economic well-being. Lastly, refuting the use of GDP as the only determinant for economic progress, I propose the Heideggerian potentiality-for-being as a complementary determinant.     

人的全面自由发展目标实现的历史分析

人的全面自由发展是一个自然历史过程,人的发展状况归根结底是社会经济规律运动的表现。在总体框架下,社会经济历史中发生的对人的发展有各种主观选择,它们尽管不能超越历史的制约,却不一定是当时历史条件下的最佳方案。在不同的社会发展阶段,人的全面自由发展具有不同的内涵。共同富裕、共同发展目标应当作为社会主义初级阶段人的全面自由发展的历史特征。在不脱离现时代经济文化结构的前提下,注重人的发展完全可以从文明发展、劳动力生产社会化、社会保障、增强人民群众环境维护权、努力改变城乡二元经济结构等方面入手。     

Labour-Market Developments at a Time of Heightened Uncertainty

These are testing times for labour-market policies in Indonesia. The country faces two major challenges in an unpredictable international and domestic environment: providing people with better, more secure jobs and raising productivity to help raise living standards and reduce poverty. Over the past several months, new global and domestic threats to economic growth have emerged and may hinder progress in jobs and productivity. In the longer term, the government is searching for new strategies to increase productivity, with a focus on supply-side investments in skills and training. In relation to events abroad, uncertainty has increased over the early initiatives taken by the new US president and his nationalist administration, such as the scuttling of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. At home, likely to be of some significance for economic policy are mass actions that were levelled against Jakarta’s governor but de facto also directed against the government. In the medium term, our assessment of the record of the Joko Widodo (Jokowi) government on the labour market is mixed. Over the past two years, growth has been slower than under the previous administration and hence job creation has also been muted. The experience of a handful of countries in Asia suggests that the government might have done more to stimulate economic growth and create jobs. The disappointing performance of manufacturing stands out. Yet inflation has fallen and the slide in the value of international trade—both exports and imports—has reversed in recent months. Improved fiscal management and a generally successful tax amnesty are other pluses. There was also an unexpected but considerable fall in unemployment in 2015–16, according to labour-force statistics. Some policies, such as the new approach to minimum wages, seem to have had beneficial effects for both business and the economy, and Indonesia has done well in some international rankings, such as the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index. However, the picture for the medium to longer term seems less bright for the labour market. There has been much talk about raising productivity by improving skills through government support for investment in training and apprenticeships, as well as by expanding vocational training along the lines of the German model. Expanding tourism is seen as one solution to the lack of employment for young secondary- and tertiary-educated jobseekers. But we have an impression of policy-making on the run; often, the argument for government intervention has not been made clearly enough. We argue that Indonesia still lacks a coherent, well-thought-out plan to increase jobs and productivity.     

美貌能带来幸福感吗?

作为一项稀缺资源，好的外表能够为个体带来多重溢价和福利。文章基于中国家庭追踪调查（CFPS）数据考察了个体的外貌与主观幸福感之间的关系。研究发现，在控制了影响幸福感的其他因素之后，个体的外貌对其幸福感依然有着显著的正向影响：外貌更具吸引力的个体，其自评的生活满意度更高。外貌的这一影响在不同性别、不同年龄段和不同收入群组中均有所差异。同时，在该影响机制中，个体的经济状况扮演着中介渠道的角色。文章运用访员固定效应和工具变量估计控制了模型的内生性问题。     

Social mobility in the early middle ages

Estimates of inequality of living standards based on average height differences between socioeconomic strata are likely biased if the social status of some individuals changed during their lifetime. Height differences estimated from skeletal remains, reflecting living standards during childhood and adolescence, are probably too small if social status is inferred based on grave goods which are associated with the individuals’ social status at the time of their death. The higher the level of social mobility, the more distinguished individuals will not have had a privileged childhood and, therefore, have the biological characteristics of the disadvantaged group. In a newly assembled sample of individual level anthropometric data from 26 early medieval row grave cemeteries in south-western Germany, men buried with a long sword in their grave were on average about 3 cm taller than the others. In a simple model of the mechanics of the social-mobility bias, this height difference, together with parameters from the literature, implies a level of social mobility typical of small-scale agricultural or pastoral societies.     

An Overview of the Proximate Determinants of Economic Growth in Indonesia Since 1960*

In this paper, we address two questions. First, what determined the growth of GDP per worker in Indonesia from 1960 to 2014? We examine Indonesia’s economic performance, using a growth accounting framework. We show that economic growth during the Soeharto era after 1975 was mainly determined by an increase in capital accumulation. Negative growth in total factor productivity (TFP) during the Asian financial crisis was more noticeable in Indonesia than in comparable ASEAN countries. In Indonesia, the contribution of TFP growth turned persistently positive after 1999. Second, what are the key determinants of the GDP per worker differences between Indonesia and the United States? Using data from the recently updated Penn World Table database and employing a levels accounting method, we find that the gap in physical capital deepening between the two countries is of declining importance in explaining the gap in labour productivity between Indonesia and the United States. We then compare our findings with data from the World Bank’s Changing Wealth of Nations 2018.     

How does the first job matter for an individual’s career life in Japan?

Exploiting annual information on the work status of female workers from the Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers (JPSC), this paper examines how an individual’s job status immediately after graduation, referred to as “first job,” matters for his/her future job career. Using the ratio of regular employees in the labor force in the year preceding an individual’s graduation as an instrument for the first-job status (i.e., regular job or not), we confirm that even for women, whose retention rates are lower than those of men because of marriage and childbirth, individuals’ first-job status has a significant effect on their job status in the future. We further find that the effect gradually declines over the years and effectively disappears around 10 years after graduation. Finally, we find that the first-job effect is reversible: no negative effect of failing to obtain a regular job at graduation is observed if an individual can secure regular employment within a reasonable time period after graduation.     

Social Network and Weight Misperception among Adolescents

It is recognized that public health intervention targeted toward changing lifestyle behaviors to reduce overweight status is a considerable challenge. It is important that individuals recognize their overweight status as a health risk in order for an effective change in lifestyle behaviors to occur, and growing evidence suggests that actual weight and perception of weight status often do not match, especially among adolescents. In this article, we explore the extent to which exposure to heavier peers and parents affects misperception of their own weight status by adolescents. Using data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, we estimated instrumental variable models with school‐level fixed effects to account for bidirectionality of peer influence and environmental confounders. Our results indicate that individuals who live in an environment that exposes them to overweight/obese parents and heavier peers tend to misperceive their weight status and think of themselves to be of lower weight than they actually are. Our analysis also revealed differential effects by gender and type of peers.     

Lynchings,labour, and cotton in the US south: A reappraisal of Tolnay and Beck

I examine lynchings of African Americans in the US South from 1882 to 1930, more than twenty years after Tolnay and Beck’s (1995) seminal work. The authors claim that lynchings were due to economic competition between African American and white cotton workers. I confirm much of their original hypothesis with new data and techniques, and expand upon it, finding that another explanation, Williamson’s (1997) psychosexual one, might complement the economic one. I also discover that, in line with an economic competition framework, lynchings predict more black out-migration from 1920 to 1930, and higher state-level wages.     

Childhood health and future outcomes: Evidence from panel surveys for the Japanese population

Numerous studies in developed and developing countries around the world have found that childhood health is associated with future health and socioeconomic status. This paper uses nationally representative panel surveys to examine the impact of poor childhood health on the future socioeconomic outcomes of the Japanese population. I find that poor childhood health adversely affects various future health conditions for the middle and long run, and that the effects on subjective and physical health are amplified with age. In addition, poor childhood health negatively affects promotion opportunities in the mid-term and labor participation over the long-term. Moreover, I find that low parental income directly and negatively affects subjective and psychological health. The empirical results imply that public policy for continuous good health in childhood improves future socioeconomic outcomes.     

Migrating for children’s better future: Intergenerational mobility of internal migrants’ children in Indonesia

Internal migration dominates population mobility in Indonesia; according to the 2010 census, there were almost 30 million permanent migrants, around 12.5 percent of the population. The effects of this internal migration on the second generation continue to be under-explored. This paper investigates the long-term impact of parents’ migration on their children’s intergenerational per capita expenditure when adults. We argue that parental migration affects the human capital investment on their children, which has a direct impact on the children’s outcomes when adults and on their deviation from the parents’ economic status, hence their intergenerational mobility. We pooled the five waves of data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), and we tackled the self-selection of parents’ migration using an endogenous treatment regression. Our findings show that despite the fact that parental migration increases the education level of children and their per capita expenditure, it increases intergenerational mobility of the children as adults compared with non-migrants’ children when they live in urban areas as adults, come from the poorest parents, or had migrated during childhood. The left-behind children have more intergenerational mobility only if their father migrated, while there is no significant impact on intergenerational mobility if their mother migrated. The results are consistent with the persistence of Indonesian individual inequality.     

Impact of institutional determinants on income inequalities in Indonesia during the Era Reformasi

This article examines the links between a selected group of institutional factors and income inequalities. The Indonesian transformation process, referred to as the Era Reformasi, which started in 1999, was a substantial institutional change in the social, political, and economic sphere that could have impacted income inequalities. We conducted an analysis based on Engle and Granger’s (1987) cointegration technique and the autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model, which allowed us to assess the short-run and long-run links, as well as causal relationships between variables. Particular attention was paid to governance indicators and economic freedom as factors that influence other economic and political institutions. The results show that improvements in institutional factors, namely economic freedom, corruption control, government effectiveness, regulation quality, and voice and accountability, significantly reduced income inequalities during the Era Reformasi in Indonesia.     

促进县域基本公共服务均等化

本文讨论了公共服务于县域经济发展的关系,我国县域基本公共服务发展的现状和问题,提出了促进我国县域基本公共服务均等化的对策性建议。县域基本公共服务均等化有利于县域经济社会的健康发展,县域基本公共服务的空间差异既有客观性原因也有制度性原因。应以人为本,以促进县域经济社会健康持续发展为目标,加快相关制度体制改革,促进人口迁移和要素流动,加快市场、区域一体化,快速推进县域基本公共服务的均等化。     

论文化身份对儿童文学译介的影响

本文运用多元系统理论中有关理论对文化身份对童文学译介的影响进行了探讨。文化身份制约了儿童文学翻译,影响译者对翻译作品的选择及翻译策略的选择。然而,文化身份的制约不是决定性的,译者的主观文化态度、不同文化间的相互需求也会影响儿童文学翻译。     

Self-assessed well-being and economic rank in South Africa

This study explores subjective measures of well-being in South Africa collected in the first two waves of the National Income Dynamics Study. These subjective measures include individual life satisfaction, current self-assessed economic rank and expected economic rank in the future. The paper describes how the distributions of these measures have changed over the course of the panel and it investigates the relationship between life satisfaction and perceived economic rank in a multivariate context, controlling for individual fixed effects. The panel data suggest a leftward shift in the distribution of life satisfaction over the two waves. Moreover, the majority of adults did not perceive their economic rank as having improved and they reported lower expectations of future upward economic mobility. Perceptions of current and future economic rank are key correlates of life satisfaction, findings that remain robust to controls for unobserved individual heterogeneity.     

Does children’s marriage matter for parents' mental health？Evidence from China

How to effectively alleviate mental disorders among elderly individuals is an important issue. Children are important financial and spiritual supporters of parents. However, whether there are upward spillovers from children to parents remains understudied. Using the instrumental variable (IV) method and data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper estimates the causal effect of children's marriage on the mental health of older parents. The IV estimation results demonstrate that having unmarried children is associated with a significant deterioration in parental mental health, especially in older, less educated, poor and male groups. Further evidence suggests that having unmarried children leads to significant changes in parents' economic behaviors, including labor supply, consumption, and savings; this indicates that parents are more likely to actively respond to their children’s unmarried status by increasing labor supply, reducing consumption and increasing savings rather than by engaging in negative behaviors.