A double-hurdle approach to modelling tobacco consumption in Italy

This article analyzes the determinants of tobacco expenditures for a sample of Italian households. A Box–Cox double-hurdle model adjusted for heteroscedasticity is estimated to account for separate individual decisions concerning smoking participation and tobacco consumption and to correct for nonnormality in the bivariate distribution of the error terms. Nested univariate and bivariate models are found to be excessively restrictive, supporting the adequacy of a generalized specification. Estimation results show that consumption decisions are significantly affected by income and demographic characteristics. In particular, income positively impacts tobacco expenditure, while participation probability substantially declines as age increases. The existence of significant gender differences in both smoking participation and tobacco consumption patterns is found, while high education and white-collar occupation reduces the likelihood to smoke and tobacco expenditure levels. Single adult households have a lower probability of smoking initiation even if, conditional on smoking, they consume more. Finally, complementarity between tobacco and alcohol beverages suggests the necessity of joint public health strategies.     

Testing for structural breaks in panel varying coefficient models: with an application to OECD health expenditure

In this article, we propose a model selection approach for testing structural breaks in a semiparametric panel varying coefficient model. Monte Carlo evidence shows that the proposed model selection approach performs well in finite sample settings. Applying the method to an empirical data, we find evidence of structural breaks in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) health expenditure data by allowing for income elasticity to be state (income)-dependent. The relationship between health expenditure and income is subject to two types of structural changes: smooth changes over income and structural breaks in the time dimension. The findings hold for both foreign exchange rate-converted and Purchasing Power Parity-converted expenditure and GDP.     

An analysis of housing expenditure using semiparametric cross-section models

In this paper we model expenditure on housing for owners and renters by means of endogenous switching regression models using cross-section data. We explain the share of housing in total expenditure from family characteristics and total expenditure, where the latter is allowed to be endogenous. We apply various existing parametric and semiparametric techniques for cross-section data. Exogeneity of total expenditure is rejected for the parametric models but not for most semiparametric models. The results are compared on the basis of budget elasticities and graphs of the estimated relationship between the budget share spent on housing and the logarithm of total expenditure. First version received: November 1997 / Final version received: January 2000     

The “Make‐up” of a Regression Coefficient: Gender Gaps in the European Labor Market

We provide a comprehensive picture of the relationship between labor market outcomes and age by gender in the 28 European countries covered by the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions. The analysis is based on a somewhat unconventional approach that refers to concentration curves in the Gini regression framework. It allows identification of ranges in the explanatory variables where local slopes change sign and/or size, i.e. the components that “make up” a regression coefficient. Gender is a crucial factor differentiating participation among workers, although employment–age profiles do not substantially differ. Relevant differences in age profiles concern working‐hours patterns: some countries are characterized by an almost specular behavior in men and women; other countries instead show similar patterns. Generally, earnings increase with age for both men and women. However, local regression coefficients are not monotonic over the entire age range and can even be locally negative in some countries.     

Food quality,calories and household income

We investigate the relationship between calories, food quality and household per capita expenditure using regression and semiparametric methods on a sample of poor households from rural Mexico, where Programa de Apoyo Alimentario (PAL), a targeted nutritional programme, is operating. The semiparametric method yields an estimate of the elasticity between calories and expenditure of 0.39 below the median and 0.28 above. The corresponding estimates of the elasticity of the calorie price are 0.48 below the median and 0.45 above. We also examine the extent to which the expenditure elasticity of the calorie price is explained by substitution between and within major food groups. We find that there is a very high incidence of substitution within cereals (especially for poor households) and that between group substitution explains at most 59% of the income elasticity for food quality. These estimates suggest that the potential of a cash transfer programme to have a positive impact on the food diversity and the nutritional status of households is quite limited.     

Manufacturing consumption,relative prices,and productivity

I study the patterns of manufacturing consumption expenditures across a broad set of countries that differ in their level of development using disaggregated expenditure and price data. The relative price of manufacturing tends to decline with income and the real share rises with income, particularly for countries in the top half of the income distribution. I find that the nominal expenditure share of manufacturing displays a hump-shape pattern with respect to the level of income per capita. I document that the income elasticities of the relative price of individual manufacturing categories lie in a wide range. However, since most categories have a negative elasticity, the average elasticity for manufacturing is negative. In addition, most aggregations of individual categories, regardless of the criteria used, yield manufacturing sub-sectors that feature a negative income elasticity of its relative price and the variation across income in nominal expenditure shares tends to mask a larger variation across income in real shares. Using a standard development accounting framework, I report large differences in productivity across countries for manufacturing categories. I also find some differences in productivity across countries for manufacturing sub-sectors, but these differences are smaller than the differences between manufacturing and services and considerably smaller than the differences across individual manufacturing categories.     

The Distribution of Household Health Expenditures in Australia*

Out‐of‐pocket health expenditures in Australia are high in international comparisons and have been growing at a faster rate than most other health costs in recent years. This raises concerns about the extent to which out‐of‐pocket costs have constrained access to health services for low income households. Using data from the ABS Household Expenditure Survey 2003–2004, we model the relationships between health expenditure shares and equivalised total expenditure for categories of out‐of‐pocket health expenditures and analyse the extent of protection given by concession cards. To allow for flexibility in the relationship we adopt Yatchew's semi‐parametric estimation technique. This is the first detailed distributional analysis of household health expenditures in Australia. We find mixed evidence for the protection health concession cards give against high out‐of‐pocket health expenditures. Despite higher levels of subsidy, households with concession cards do not have lower out‐of‐pocket expenditures than non‐cardholder households except for the highest expenditure quintile. Cards provide most protection for GP out‐of‐pocket expenditures.     

城镇职工基本医疗保险下的医疗支出研究——不可忽视的持续性特征

文章利用2005-2007年江苏省昆山市城镇职工医疗保险数据,通过四部分模型研究基本医疗保险下的居民医疗支出持续性特征。研究发现,居民医疗支出持续性特征相当明显,如将其忽略会使其他变量存在估计偏误,其中对年龄的影响最大。持续性特征表现为:t-1期和t-2期的医疗支出对t期就诊或住院概率表现出不同的信号功能,t-1期的医疗支出对t期门诊或住院医疗支出的持续性效果是t-2期的6-7倍。对持续性特征的深入研究将为医疗保险制度改革提供实证依据。     

Gender Inequality in the Spanish Public Pension System

This contribution studies revenue sharing in the public pension system in Spain from a gender perspective, revealing that differences are evident in the percentage of men and women entitled to different types of pensions and in the average fiscal amount per pension for men and women. Using 2010 data, the study analyzes how labor market conditions are reflected in pension type and amount for women pensioners, yielding two important conclusions: the income of women pensioners decreases, relative to men, with age; and the degree of inequality of pensions among women is lower than that among men. These gender differences owe to the contributory character of the system, which reproduces the labor market inequalities of both genders – inequalities that ultimately derive from the social division of roles in which women remain responsible for unpaid care work. This conclusion is consistent with similar studies on other European countries and world regions.     

Gender differences in trust and reciprocity: evidence from a large-scale experiment with heterogeneous subjects

This article examines gender differences in an experimental trust game. Recent studies have shown that men trust more and that women are more reciprocal in laboratory experiments. Participants in these studies, however, are typically university students who may not be representative of the entire population. In this study, we use data from a large-scale experiment with heterogeneous subjects who are representative of the German population. We find that men exhibit not only more trusting behaviour, but also more reciprocating behaviour than women. Moreover, our results are indicative of age-dependent gender differences. For men, we find an inverse U-shaped relationship between age, on the one hand, and both trust and reciprocity, on the other; however, we do not find age effects for women.     

Is health care a luxury? The debate revisited with new evidence from emerging economies

This paper studies the long-run relationship between health care expenditure and income using a panel data set of emerging economies over the period 1995–2012. The results show that expenditure on health care and income are non-stationary and cointegrated. After controlling for cross-sectional dependence and unobserved heterogeneity among different countries, we find that the income elasticity of health care is less than 1, indicating that health care is a necessity and not a luxury. Government expenditure and out-of-pocket expenditure turn out to be important determinants of health care expenditure. Among non-monetary factors, results show that old age dependency and female education seem to have significant bearings on health care expenditures. Policy recommendations suggest that government should increase spending on health care in emerging economies since higher incomes may not automatically translate into higher health care spending by the people of these countries.     

Income and Fiscal Incidence by Age and Gender: Some Evidence from New Zealand

With many fiscal policies likely to have quite different age/gender incidences, this paper examines age and gender dimensions of income distribution and fiscal incidence in New Zealand using Household Economic Survey data for 2010. Applying, and testing, an intra‐household income sharing rule, our evidence suggests strong life‐cycle and gender aspects to fiscal incidence. Net tax liabilities are found to be low and negative, at younger and older ages but positive during much of the “working age.” Notwithstanding considerable within‐gender heterogeneity, women are found on average to have systematically and persistently lower net fiscal liabilities than men, especially at older ages.     

Measures of Human Capital and Nonlinearities in Economic Growth

In this paper we study the relationship between human capital accumulation and economic growth using various measures of human capital frequently employed by researchers. We use semiparametric estimation techniques to uncover any nonlinearities that may exist. Using mean years of schooling measures of human capital we find a nonlinear effect on economic growth. There seem to be important differences in the growth effect of educational attainment by gender and level of education. Enrollment rates do not yield a nonlinear effect.     

Back to Engel? Some evidence for the hierarchy of needs

Using UK household expenditure data spanning over four decades (1960–2000), this paper employs Engel’s needs-based approach to analyzing household expenditure patterns and finds evidence for the existence of a stable hierarchy of expenditure patterns at low levels of household income. Second, we investigate how rising household income influences the manner in which total expenditure is distributed across Engel’s expenditure categories. Our results suggest that i) total household expenditure is distributed across Engel’s expenditure categories in an increasingly even manner as household income increases and ii) over time, there has been an acceleration in the rate at which household expenditure patterns become diversified as household income rises. Finally, we consider how the shape of Engel Curves may help shed light on the relationship between goods and the underlying needs they serve.     

You can’t always get what you want: gender differences in job satisfaction of university graduates

Previous literature stressed on the gender differences in job satisfaction and the factors influencing the job satisfaction of men and women. Two rationales are usually provided for the finding that women tend to be relatively more satisfied with their jobs than men although disadvantaged in labour markets: first, women may have relatively lower expectations of career and income, and second, they may attach relatively less importance to extrinsic rewards than men. In order to analyse whether substantial gender differences exist already at the beginning of the career, we employ information of over 20 000 graduates collected through a large-scale survey of German university graduates who recently entered the labour market. We find that the job satisfaction of female graduates is on average slightly lower than the job satisfaction of male graduates, but our results do not point to substantial gender differences. In our sample of highly qualified individuals, men and women are very similar in what they want from their jobs and also in their perceptions of what they get. While our results point to substantial similarity of men and women in the early career stage, gender differences may emerge at later stages of the career life cycle.     

Firm turnover,restructuring and labour productivity in transition: the case of Poland

Many studies have found strong and positive relationship between per capita income and health care expenditure. These studies usually adopt the assumptions that (1) the relationships among the variables are constant; and/or (2) the supply-side market for health care could be treated by using standard demand functions models. To take into account of the supply side of health care, we use the demand and supply approach with the cointegration model to re-examine this issue. By using Taiwan health care expenditure data, our results show that the real income elasticity is smaller than unity and the health care expenditures are primarily for ‘curing’ rather than ‘caring’.     

The cyclical response of employment to output changes: United States manufacturing industries, 1948 to 1983

This paper provides new evidence on the income elasticity of health care by combining stationarity and cointegration tests of health care expenditure and incomes with estimates of the cointegrating relationship between them. A recently updated dataset of health care expenditures and disposable personal income for the US states for the years 1966–1998 is used. The principal findings are that health care expenditures and incomes at the state level are non-stationary and cointegrated. Dynamic OLS cointegrating regressions of the pooled state time series estimate the income elasticity of health care at 0.817 to 0.844, well below unity, confirming that health care expenditure, even at the aggregate level, is a necessity good.     

Nonlinear relationship between health care expenditure and its determinants: a panel smooth transition regression model

This paper employs a panel of 16 OECD countries over the period 1975–2009 to reexamine the health care expenditure (HCE)-income relationship by considering a lagged ratio of public expenditures on health as the transition variable in panel smooth transition regression (PSTR) models. PSTR models can capture the heterogeneity of any individual country, provide more detailed information for policy makers of an individual government, and resolve the insufficient observations problem that frequently appears in annual country-level data. Our empirical results indicate that the relationship between HCE and its determinants, including income, time (trend), and age structure variables, is nonlinear and varies with time and across countries. The time (trend) variable—a proxy for technical progress in health care—has a non-linear impact on HCE. Ignoring the variables—technological change of health care and age structure of population—will result in over-estimates of the income elasticities of HCE. Moreover, HCE behaves as a necessity good, and the income elasticity increases when the five-period lagged ratio of public expenditures on health increases. Clearly, the ratio of government financing on health plays an important role in influencing HCE.     

Generalized cointegration: a new concept with an application to health expenditure and health outcomes

We propose a new generalization of the concept of cointegration that allows for the possibility that a set of variables are involved in an unknown nonlinear relationship. Although these variables may be unit-root non-stationary, there exists a nonlinear combination of them that takes account of such non-stationarity. We then introduce an estimation technique that allows us to test for the presence of this generalized cointegration in the absence of knowledge as to the true nonlinear functional form and the full set of regressors. We outline the basic stages of the technique and discuss how the issue of unit-root non-stationarity and cointegration affects each stage of the estimation procedure. We then apply this technique to the relationship between health expenditure and health outcomes, which is an important but controversial issue. A number of studies have found very little or no relationship between the level of health expenditure and outcomes. In econometric terms, if there is such a relationship, then there should exist a cointegrating relationship between these two variables and possibly many others. The problem that arises is that we may be either unable to measure these other variables or that we do not know about them, in which case we may incorrectly find no relationship between health expenditures and outcomes. We then apply the concept of generalized cointegration; we obtain a highly significant relationship between health expenditure and health outcomes.     

The role of gender and its potential channels to affect self-employment in Taiwan

This research investigates the gender differences in the self-employment sector by employing a dynamic panel model with county- and city-level data from 1998 to 2016 in Taiwan. Our study is distinct from most others in this issue in that we explore not only the inter-gender difference, but also the intra-gender differences in self-employment. Following this framework, we first find that women are on average less likely to self-employ than men, and further find that older men, married men, men living in lower income regions and women living in higher income regions are more likely to become self-employed compared to their respective reference groups. We thus argue that gender influences self-employment not only directly but also through interactions with other demographic variables. Separate evaluation of different groups based on demographics should therefore result in better targeting of policies.