流动人口生育意愿、性别偏好及其决定因素——来自全国四个主要城市化地区12城市大样本调查的证据

基于课题组2009年进行的全国四个主要城市化地区12个大中小城市流动人口调查的微观数据,考察了流动人口的生育意愿和性别偏好,特别是研究了影响流动人口生育意愿的决定因素。流动人口同城市人口在生育数量偏好上已经不存在明显差距,但性别偏好观念上仍有显著差异;较农村人口,流动人口生育数量偏好明显要小,男孩偏好也要弱。流动人口的年龄、性别、婚姻状况、受教育程度、健康状况、工作类型和居住类型对生育意愿有显著影响。     

Fear Prudence: Hobbes and Williamson on the Morality of Contracting

Abstract:

Using data from the census of India and the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), this paper analyzes trends in child sex ratios (0-6 years of age) and the increase in son preference in India. Latest census data (2011) show that the child sex ratios (females per 1,000 males) have decreased compared to data from the last five decades. Increasing son preference and neglect of daughters is occurring in many states in India, despite the advances made in education, literacy, healthcare, and income attainment. A skewed sex ratio and shortage of girls is detrimental to the health and welfare of women, as well as to the human development of India. Policymakers need to formulate appropriate policies, coupled with strict enforcement laws, in order to contain this grave trend in son preference and the infanticide, neglect, and devaluation of women in India.     

重男轻女观念会加剧当地家族企业的机会主义动机吗——以家族企业上市公司为例

本文基于重男轻女观念的视角,探究地区文化是否会影响当地家族企业的机会主义动机。本文研究发现,重男轻女地区的家族企业更愿意安排男性家族成员担任CEO等重要职位,更多地引入家族成员参与企业经营。由于担心这种机会主义行为,外部投资者对当地家族企业的投资更为谨慎。本文从地区文化的视角阐释了家族企业的异质性,推动了已有研究从“家族企业与非家族企业有何不同”向“不同地区文化下的家族企业间有何不同”层面深入。     

What drives the reversal of the gender education gap? Evidence from Germany

We study the mechanisms that are associated with the gender education gap and its reversal in Germany. We focus on three outcomes, graduation from upper secondary school, any tertiary education and tertiary degree. Neither individual and family background nor labour market characteristics appear to be strongly associated with the gender education gap. There is some evidence that the gender gap in upper secondary education reflects the rising share of single parent households which impacts boys’ attainment more than girls’. The gender education gap in tertiary education is correlated with the development of class sizes and social norms.     

信息技术、性别平等与中国农村孩童教育——来自中国营养健康调查的证据

采用中国家庭营养与健康调查(CHNS)1991-2009的数据,分析中国农村中小学孩童入学的影响因素,并着重研究移动电话、互联网、电视等信息技术的发展对中小学孩童入学率的影响。信息技术对于促进性别平等具有差异化的作用,电话、互联网技术的发展能显著提高女孩的入学率,促进性别平等;而电视对性别平等的推动作用不明显。信息技术主要通过提高女孩的就业机会,从而提高其教育回报率发挥作用。中国农村的教育投资决策不仅取决于教育回报率,而且受到社会性别文化的影响,男孩偏好越严重的地区,越倾向于对男孩进行教育投资。要巩固和加强基础教育领域性别平等的现有成果,一方面要继续推动信息技术尤其是电话、互联网技术的发展,另一方面要通过政策或法制的手段逐渐淡化或消除农村地区的男孩偏好。     

Housing prices and son preference: Evidence from China’s housing reform

Do high housing prices reduce the demand for sons? As Chinese parents need to acquire houses for their sons’ marriage, high housing prices increase the cost of sons relative to daughters. We exploit China's housing reform in the 1990s as a natural experiment to identify the effect of housing prices on demand for sons. We find that housing prices have no effect on the probability of having a son at the first birth. High housing prices reduce the probability of having a son at the second birth, especially when the first-born is a daughter. A 10% increase in housing prices reduces the probability of having a son at the second birth by 0.78 percentage points. The findings remain robust when using aggregate prefecture-cohort data for the post-reform period.     

Catching up? The educational mobility of migrants’ and natives’ children in Europe

Migrants into European countries are often less educated than European natives. We analyse whether migrants’ children are more or less likely than natives’ children to achieve upward educational mobility across generations, and study differences in the factors, which contribute to differences in mobility for the two groups. We find that migrants’ descendants are more often upwardly mobile (and less often downwardly mobile) than their native peers in the majority of countries studied, and show that the main factor contributing to these patterns is the education level of parents. Although a lower parental education means that their children are less likely to access the same amount of human, social and financial capital as children of more highly educated parents, migrants’ descendants over the last two generations were able to make significant progress in reducing education gaps with natives.     

The true effect of students’ employment on the duration of studies

We examine the effect of the first-degree students’ employment on the prolongation of their studies. When employing a popular instrumental variable, the regional unemployment rate, we find a negative impact of students’ employment on duration of studies. Then, adding a predetermined IV – the individual’s employment prior to the beginning of academic studies – turns the estimate positive. Furthermore, we find that the relationship between the extent of students’ employment and duration of their studies depends on their age: among the younger students (aged 22–26), the extent of employment has no effect on the duration of studies, while among the older students, the effect is positive and statistically significant.     

Does sports activity improve health? Representative evidence using local density of sports facilities as an instrument

Using representative and geocoded data from the Swiss Household Panel and the Swiss Business Census, we estimate the effect of sports activity on health. OLS models show that sports activity significantly decreases overweight, sleeping problems, headaches, back problems, and perceived health impediments in everyday activities and significantly increases health satisfaction. Because sports activity is likely to be misreported and correlated with unobserved determinants of health, we use the number of sports facilities within 6 miles of the individual’s residence as an instrument for sports activity. Although the instrument is powerful in explaining sports activity, the second-stage effects on health are mostly statistically insignificant due to the high SEs of the IV estimates.     

Gender differences in the quality of the school-to-work transition in Spain

This article analyses to what extent gender affects the quality of the school-to-work transition in Spain, paying special attention to workers’ educational attainment. We estimate a four-equation system that explains the main obstacles young people face in their insertion process: part-time work, overeducation, fixed-term contracts and long unemployment spells; the model also considers the impact of the latter variable on the other three. Moreover, a synthetic indicator of transition quality based on the estimation of this model is developed. We conclude that men experience a better insertion process than women at every level of education (except for higher vocational training), although the gender gap is greater for long-cycle university programmes. Furthermore, when field of study is considered, men from most specializations enjoy a smoother transition than their female counterparts; nevertheless, women have the advantage in some female-dominated fields. A further analysis of gender differences reveals that they are due to the fact of being male or female to a great extent. The results also highlight that school-leavers from work-oriented programmes and those specialized in fields that provide them with more specific skills are more likely to succeed in the transition.     

Do foreign institutional investors enhance firm innovation in China?

This paper investigates the impact of the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investor (QFII) scheme regulated by the Chinese government on firm innovation in China. By explicitly addressing the potential endogenous relationship between foreign institutional ownership and firm innovation, we find that foreign institutional investors enhance firm innovation in China, suggesting that the Chinese government should further relax its foreign capital investment control, for example, increase the quota of the QFII scheme.