Child Labor and the Interaction between the Quantity and Quality of Children

This article analyzes the impacts of child labor on the interaction between the quantity and quality of children in the spirit of Becker and Lewis. It shows that, without child labor, the quantity of children can be a normal good so that it increases with parental income under some fairly standard formulations. However, the correlation between fertility and parental income becomes negative when the role of child labor is considered. The model also implies that fertility increases with the wage rate of child labor. Moreover, it suggests that government intervention not only directly affects the supply of child labor but also influences parents' decisions on fertility, which indirectly determines children's labor market participations.     

A simultaneous-equation model of labor supply,fertility and earnings of married women: the case of registered nurses

A simultaneous-equation model of labor supply, fertility, and earnings is developed and estimated for an important subset of the female population, married registered nurses (RNs). Measures of variables specific to married nurses age 21-64 are developed by aggregating observations on individual nurses or their families into Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) averages, from the 1-in-100 Public Use Sample of the 1970 Census of Population in the U.S. The sample was restricted in certain ways: the grouped observations apply only to white RNs who are married with husband present and live in SMSAs of over 250,000 population in 1970 (except Honolulu). The sample is further restricted so that each included observation (representing an SMSA average) is based upon an underlying pool of at least 15 individual nurses. This last restriction reduces the sample of SMSAs to 88 from 124. The coefficient on the nurse wage variable is positive and statistically significant with an implied wage elasticity of .40 at the means. These estimates are consistent with those observed using the analogous microcensus data on RNs. RN fertility has the predicted negative effect on nurse labor supply but is statistically insignificant, but the magnitude of the fertility coefficient is plausible. A 10% increase in nurse fertility within an SMSA (number of children ever born/1000 nurses ever married within an SMSA) is associated with a reduction in the SMSA nurse labor supply. The estimated coefficients of the husband-earnings and nonlabor-income variables are negative but only the former is statistically significant at the 90% level or above. The estimated effect of the nurse's earnings opportunities on her fertility are statistically insignificant, but the wage coefficient is negative as expected and implies an elasticity of nurse fertility with respect to the nurse wage rate of approximately -.2. The coefficient on the labor supply variable is negative and statistically significant, confirming the hypothesis that increased labor market activity increases the opportunity costs of children. Husband's earnings are not a significant determinant of RN fertility. The estimates suggest that nurse labor supply and fertility decisions are relatively unimportant factors in determining the nurse's market earnings.     

Marriage and labor market discrimination in Japan

"Many Japanese firms have engaged in the practice of compulsory retirement upon a female employee's marriage. In 1966, this practice was ruled as being contrary to provisions in Japan's Civil Code. [The authors] have specified and estimated a model of the economic determinants of age at marriage in order to analyze the effect that this discrimination has had on nuptiality in Japan. [The] results indicate that on average, after accounting for an upward trend, women who married after the 1966 court decision married about one year younger than women who married before 1966." It is also found that age at marriage is influenced by several socioeconomic variables, including wife's wage and educational level, husband's income and educational level, and wife's family background. Data are from a 1975 survey of women aged 20-59 who were living in the Tokyo metropolitan area.     

A new approach to household fertility behavior

A 1st step is taken in this discussion towards the explicit theoretical recognition that fertility decisions are made by pairs of individuals who conceivably have different preferences or are in different circumstances. The focus is on disagreements between spouses over desired family size. The discussion begins by identifying the costs and benefits of child services to each spouse, which involves consideration of the type of interdependency of the utility functions as well as the nature of the externality problem in the production of child service. Specific examples are included of situations in which disagreement is likely to occur. Using the National Fertility Survey of 1965, it is possible to test whether disagreements are more likely to occur in these identified cases. 2 types of fertility conflict are predicted: the wife desires fewer children than the husband and the reverse. The National Fertility Survey (NFS) data set contains 5617 interview records. A sample of 1559 women who were married once, husband present, nonmenopausal, aged 25-39 with valid answers to all questions were selected. Husband's schooling in excess of wife's increased the probability that conflict of the husband demanding fewer children type will arise and the probability was increased at higher levels of income. The demand for quality rose with income and placed additional pressure on a husband with more education to assist (via lost leisure time) in the creation of quality. The effects were highly nonlinear. Higher levels of status of the wife's (potential) job had the predicted effect of making wife demands fewer children conflict more likely, but only through intermediate levels of status. Another variable which had a significant influence on the probability of conflict was the husband's age, with higher husband's age leading to husband demanding fewer children than wife conflict.     

Tax evasion and intertemporal choice

It has often been argued that the misreporting of regular wage income is limited by third-party withholding and reporting requirements. However, income arising from savings investment is often not subject to such withholding requirements. This paper uses a simple dynamic model to examine the problem of tax evasion of investment income. Assuming that individuals can misreport investment income but not wage income, it is shown that alterations in the audit rate and penalty rates affect an individual's saving (or investment) decisions. This suggests that parameters traditionally used to control tax evasion impact the aggregate output of an economy and the rate of economic growth. This paper is based on the author's dissertation completed at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. The author is indebted to the dissertation committee, Helmuth Cremer (co-chair), Firouz Gahvari (co-chair), Catherine Eckel, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Richard Steinberg for their guidance and suggestions. All remaining errors are the author's responsibility.     

Four themes in fertility research

This study is concerned with four main themes that have been combined to describe U.S. fertility trends since 1920. These themes are identified as a time adjustment mechanism, income, the wife's labor force activities, and some intergenerational factor. "In order to obtain an unambiguous picture each theme will be represented by only one variable. After selecting the variables and estimating a model, an examination of the changing role these variables have had in explaining changes in fertility (the total fertility rate) throughout much of this century will be made. Finally, the implications these themes have for future fertility will be examined." The authors conclude that "in interpreting historical U.S. fertility rates, the results seem to indicate that much of the early decline in U.S. fertility was due to falling infant mortality. After the Second World War, fertility rose sharply as the age-structure variable declined and income rose. Eventually both women's labor force participation rates and the age-structure variable rose and, consequently, fertility fell." They also suggest that the age structure variable may cause a temporary upward swing in fertility in the near future.     

Socioeconomic equity and fertility in developing countries: A block-recursive model

Summary This paper explores the interrelationships among fertility and three measurable aspects of socioeconomic equity: life expectancy, schooling, and income distribution. A block-recursive model of interaction among these variables is tested on cross-sectional data for developing countries. The structural results validate the initial hypotheses, with an important exception: income distribution does not act directly on fertility. Taking indirect effects into account, by deriving the reduced form of the system, shows life expectancy and schooling as major determinants of fertility, and income distribution as a lesser influence. The feedback from fertility to income equity considerably exceeds the net effect in the other direction.This paper was completed while the author was a visiting scholar at The Carolina Population Center and Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Richard Bilsborrow, Boone Turchi, and 7. Richard Udry provided helpful comments on an earlier version. Sang E. Lee and V. Panoutsopoulos kindly made available unpublished data from World Bank files.     

Was Malthus right? The relationship between population and real wages in Italian history, 1320 to 1870

In this article we investigate the relation between population and real wages in the Italian economy during the period 1320–1870. The main result is that the positive check is strong and statistically significant but the other equilibrating mechanism in the Malthusian model – the preventive check – based on the positive relationship between fertility and real wages does not operate in pre-industrial Italy. In contrast to the Malthusian hypothesis, we find a negative feedback from wage to population. The empirical result is clearly consistent with the theoretical framework of the “old age security motive”. We show, with a simple overlapping-generation model, that by allowing for substitution in a pre-industrial economy between child quantity and other assets (such as new seeds, better soybean quality, and new cultivation and irrigation methods) fertility may be negatively affected whenever income rises.     

Little emperors in the workplace: Labor market consequences of China's one-child policy

What is the impact of China's One-Child Policy on the labor market outcomes of the only children that it engendered? This paper quantifies the wage income gap between only children and their peers (i.e. those with siblings), and uncovers the channels that underlie it. While only children receive higher wage income on average, we find that this only-child premium disappears completely once their superior schooling attainment and family background are accounted for. Moreover, we learn that the One-Child Policy resulted in a negative only-child effect on wage income, after conditioning on pre-determined characteristics; this may be due to only children lacking socio-emotional attributes that are valued in the labor market. Our results deliver important insights for China as only children continue to dominate its labor force at a rapid pace.     

我国农业机械化演进轨迹与或然走向

基于诱致性技术变迁的视角,运用1990～2009年时间序列数据分析农村居民的工资性收入对农户采用农业机械决策的影响。结果表明,工资性收入对农户采用农业机械的决策具有显著效应,工资性收入增加,农业机械采用水平也会增加。20世纪90年代以来我国农业机械使用水平的大幅上升主要是因为农业劳动力相对稀缺导致的,因此要改变优先发展农业生物化学技术的观点,而应注重农业机械技术与生物化学技术并重发展。     

我国农村居民收入与支出结构的实证分析

农村居民的收入与支出问题是我国"三农"问题所关注的焦点。本文运用了典型相关分析的方法就全国31个省市自治区的农村居民收入与支出做了深入研究。研究表明,农村居民的工资性收入与农村居民的生活消费支出关系尤为密切。在此基础上本文提出了提高农村居民收入,刺激农村消费需求的相关政策建议。     

Real Wages in Australia and Canada, 1870–1913: Globalization versus Productivity

Australia's and Canada's real wage experiences between 1870 and 1913 were distinctive. Faster productivity growth underpinned Canada's overtaking of Australia's wage levels. The globalization forces of migration and trade also shaped their comparative wages, principally by reducing wage growth in Canada. Immigration increased slightly Australia's real wages, but reduced wage levels in Canada, and tempered there the beneficial effects of rising productivity and improving terms of trade. In contrast, wage earners' share of national income rose after 1890 in Australia, with the productivity slowdown hitting chiefly rents and profits. Distributional shifts favouring wage earners in Australia, and the depressing effects of mass immigration on wages in Canada, limited Canada's wage lead before 1914, despite her faster productivity growth.     

Productivity and distribution under cropsharing tenancy

This paper develops a model of sharecropping assuming tenant autonomy, competitive behavior of landlords and laborers and endogenously determined wage and share-rental rates. The coexistence of wage labor and sharecropping is explained in terms of their incentive, labor process and risk-sharing characteristics. Sharecropping serves as a surrogate for the direct supervision of the labor process. Its incidence is shown to rise in the presence of unemployment at a subsistence wage. The model implies that the abolition of tenancy will raise output, raise labor income and reduce land income.     

Inequality,poverty and prospects for redistribution

This paper demonstrates that poverty and inequality trends can diverge. It then discusses inequality trends and shows that, despite measurement issues, there is consensus that inequality is very high and has been rising over much of the post-transition period. Due to rising inequality within all groups, and particularly the black population, and lower inequality between race groups, within-group inequality has become the dominant form of inequality. That does not, however, detract from the fact that inequality between groups is still very large. High income inequality largely stems from inequality in access to wage income, due more to wage inequality than to unemployment. A Gini coefficient for wage income amongst the employed of above 0.60 effectively sets a floor to overall income inequality. The high wage premium to educated workers derives from a combination of a skills shortage at the top end of the educational spectrum, driving up their wages, and a surfeit of poorly-educated workers competing for scarce unskilled jobs dampening unskilled wages; if the unemployed were to find jobs, it would be in this bottom part of the wage distribution, and consequently this would not much reduce wage inequality. A continuation of the historical pattern whereby only a small segment of the population obtained good schooling would leave the structures underlying the large wage premium unaltered. The time frame for substantial inequality reduction is thus necessarily a long one, while poverty reduction efforts should not wait for this to occur.     

A Tale of Two Peripheries: Real Wages in Denmark and New Zealand 1875–1939.

Abstract

Denmark achieved dramatic real wage growth after 1870, compared to other European economies and to those of the New World. The ingredients of Denmark's success are gauged by comparison with one its major competitors in the British food-products markets, New Zealand. Faster Danish productivity growth explains only part of Denmark's faster real wage growth. Open economy forces, chiefly international capital flows before 1913, and especially Danish trade union militancy around the end of World War I, influenced income distribution and especially favoured wages over property income in Denmark. Denmark's GDP per capita equalled New Zealand levels between the world wars but her real wages surged past those of New Zealand as distributional shifts favoured Denmark's wage earners.     

去工业化对收入不平等的影响:机制分析与实证检验

基于126个国家1991-2017年的面板数据,考察了去工业化对收入不平等的影响。研究发现,去工业化会显著加剧收入不平等程度,这在发展中经济体尤为显著。从传导机制看,去工业化既可以通过劳动力就业转移直接影响收入不平等,也可通过非熟练劳动力就业和服务业部门就业分化间接影响收入不平等。一方面,去工业化导致非熟练劳动力受到更大冲击,致使该部分劳动力失业,加剧收入不平等;另一方面,去工业化导致非熟练劳动力的就业从工业的高薪部门转移至服务业的低薪部门,最终影响收入不平等。进一步研究发现,在可能存在"过早去工业化"的国家去工业化对收入不平等的作用更加明显。因此发展中经济体要着重预防由于去工业化可能带来的收入不平等程度恶化。     

人力资本、社会资本与流动人口就业收入 —基于流动人口正规就业与非正规就业的比较分析

文章通过建立OLS回归方程以及Oaxaca—Blinder的分解方法,实证分析了人力资本、社会资本与我国流动人口就业收入的关系,研究发现：人力资本对流动人口正规就业收入有明显影响而对非正规就业收入影响很小,社会资本是影响流动人口非正规就业收入的主要因素但对正规就业收入影响不大。 Oaxaca—Blinder 的分解表明：流动人口非正规就业者和正规就业者收入差距的50.69％归结于流动人口内部特征上的差异,受教育程度差异是造成其工资收入差异的主要原因。     

A note on the apparent constancy of the racial wage gap in New Jersey manufacturing, 1902 to 1979

Conclusion This discussion around the black-white wage gap will continue. Inadequate data alone will make it difficult to distinguish recent fluctuations and once-only changes from long-term trends. For those who believe the racial wage gap is narrowing, the 1902 New Jersey survey of blacks in manufacturing presents a puzzle. Why at the outset of black entry into this sector of the economy do we find a racial wage gap as narrow as the one observed for New Jersey manufacturing in 1969, a year at the top of the post-World War II business cycle? Michael Reich argues that “in every region but the South the relative income of non-white males shows substantial cyclical fluctuations… but shows no upward trend over time.” The baseline established by the 1902 New Jersey survey is compatible with Reich’s conclusion.     

政府推动的就近城镇化能够消除工资歧视吗

随着大中城市城镇化空间的逐渐饱和以及农民工回流现象的出现,就近城镇化成为推进我国新型城镇化进程的重要模式。文章基于2017年中国流动人口动态监测调查(CMDS)数据,研究政府推动的就近城镇化对农村劳动力工资收入的影响发现:政府通过征地、户口改革方式推动的就近城镇化并不能够消除工资歧视,实现就近城镇化的农村劳动力在其他条件相同的情况下其工资水平仍然低于城镇本地职工,这一结论在纠正自选择偏差和样本选择偏差后仍然成立。机制分析发现,城镇劳动力市场针对实现就近城镇化的农村劳动力在就业机会方面的歧视与隔离已不明显,同工不同酬成为实现就近城镇化者面临的主要歧视形式,而城乡劳动力之间教育回报率的差异是导致同工不同酬的主要原因。进一步讨论发现,就近城镇化对于农村劳动力参保城镇职工保险具有显著的提升作用,而自我雇佣的就业形式则有助于打破城镇劳动力市场对农村劳动力的收入歧视。文章拓展研究了就近城镇化对农村劳动力工资收入的影响,为政府进一步推进以县域城镇化为主要形式的就近城镇化提供了研究参考。未来应持续推进城乡基本公共服务均等化,进一步缩小城乡教育质量差异,加强农村劳动力"同工同酬"的保护力度,稳步推进农村劳动力的就近城镇化。