Do Immigrant Groups Differ in Welfare Usage? Evidence from the U.S.

The study of welfare participation in the United States prior to the 1996 Welfare Reform Act and afterward has primarily focused on comparing native and immigrant households. Analyses that have gone beyond this broad classification have focused on comparisons across race, with particular focus on Hispanic immigrants. This paper moves away from the existing literature by investigating whether there is a difference in welfare usage among immigrant based on their birthplace. Using a probit model, we investigate this potential difference by testing two related hypotheses. Our results suggest that the probability of welfare usage for immigrants with similar characteristic, differ for some immigrant groups. We also find that for some immigrant groups, citizen and noncitizens differ with respect to welfare usage.     

Marriage,Divorce, and Social Safety Net Policy

I study the effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and welfare reforms of the 1990s on flows into and out of marriage. I use test scores to predict who is most likely to be affected by the policy changes, and employ a flexible functional form to estimate heterogeneous effects. I find that lower-earning married women are more likely to divorce as the EITC expands, but I find no effect of EITC generosity on marriage. I find little effect of welfare generosity on marriage or divorce flows for any group. My results suggest that there are nonsymmetric responses to policy on flows into and out of marriages.     

Gender differences in job search among young workers: A study using displaced workers in the United States

This article investigates gender differences in job search, job tenure, and wages, whether these differences vary over the early part of the life‐cycle, and whether they are associated with fertility decisions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youths on highly attached displaced workers aged 20 to 45, we find that 20‐ to 29‐year‐old women and women older than 40 experience longer spells of displacement than comparable men, but that time to a new job is similar by gender for those between 30 and 39 years of age. The age pattern in male–female wage differences in the post‐displacement job is similar, with the largest differences occurring at ages 20 to 29 and over 40. We find no gender differences in tenure in the post‐displacement job. We interpret the differences for the younger ages to be related to fertility and we provide evidence that supports this view.     

Determinants of HIV Knowledge and Condom Use among Women in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Matched Household and Community Data

Abstract: We estimate the determinants of HIV/AIDS knowledge and related behavior (use of condoms) among women in Madagascar, a country where prevalence remains low but conditions are ripe for a rapid increase in infections. In both rural and urban areas, more educated and wealthier women are more likely to know about means of preventing infection, less likely to have misconceptions about transmission, and more likely to use condoms. Community factors such as availability of health centers and access to roads also are associated with greater HIV knowledge. However, most of the large rural‐urban difference in mean knowledge is due not to location per se but to differences in schooling and wealth; rather than simply being geographically targeted, AIDS education efforts must be designed to target and be understood by uneducated and poor subpopulations.     

Hukou status,housing tenure choice and wealth accumulation in urban China

In Chinese cities, migrants with rural hukou, compared to residents with local urban hukou, face more uncertainty, have limited access to mortgage finance, and are less eligible for low-cost housing. A simple model demonstrates that for these reasons, rural-to-urban migrants are less likely to own housing units in cities and as a result accumulate less wealth. Our empirical analysis examines a nationally representative household survey from 2013 and uses mother's hukou status as an instrumental variable. We find that household heads with rural hukou are about 20 percentage points less likely to own housing units in cities than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. Consequently, the average household head with a rural hukou owns 315 thousand yuan less housing wealth and 226 thousand yuan less total wealth than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. The average household head with a rural hukou has 288 thousand yuan less in housing capital gains than comparable household heads with local urban hukou. Moreover, we find that these differences are much larger in the first- and second-tier cities, cities with more stringent hukou regulations, and among younger cohorts.     

Black women’s labor market status: Occupational segregation in the United States and Great Britain

An initial exploration of the comparative labor market situation of black women in the United States and Great Britain reveals that race and gender play similar roles in allocating people among broad occupations in both nations despite differences in historical circumstances. However, a closer examination based upon measures of occupational segregation shows that labor market dynamics are quite different. Public employment and education do not reduce racial segregation in Britain as they do in the United States, and the immigrant status of many black Britons does not explain these differences. Only youth is associated with reduced segregation in both countries.     

Lending Rate Spread Shock and Monetary Policy Arrangements: A Small Open Economy Model for ASEAN Countries

We investigate the welfare implications of monetary policy arrangements in a small open economy, considering firms' bank‐based finances that are widely observed in emerging ASEAN countries. The impact of an unexpected change in the lending rate spread, or a lending rate spread shock, depends on the presence of banking activity in the economy. This presence is important in Malaysia and Vietnam, where welfare effects of this type of shock are at least comparable to those of foreign monetary policy shocks. We also find that a rigid exchange rate arrangement amplifies the effect of a shock.     

Food Stamp Program Participation of Refugees and Immigrants

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) dramatically changed the availability of food stamps to immigrants, but not to refugees. However, refugee usage of food stamps in the post-reform era has declined more than usage of either other immigrants or native citizens. We investigate food stamp program participation of immigrants and refugees to ascertain if the resulting decline was an unintended effect of the reform or is due to some other phenomena. We use data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service to construct an instrument for refugees. We find that refugees are more likely than other immigrants to use food stamps. While PRWORA clearly reduced non-refugee immigrant food stamp participation, the post-reform era decline in refugee usage is fully attributable to a strong refugee response to changing labor market conditions. We also find that refugees' use of food stamps declines rapidly with time in the United States, unlike that of other immigrants.     

Firm agglomeration and local poverty reduction: evidence from an economy in transition

We examine the linkages between firm agglomeration and the welfare of households in Vietnam. We measured firm agglomeration by per capita firm output at the district level and household welfare by per capita income, expenditure, and poverty. We find that firm agglomeration helps households move from the informal sector to the formal sector. As a result, there is a positive effect of firm agglomeration on per capita income, per capita expenditure, and poverty reduction, albeit of a small and time‐decreasing magnitude. The effect of firm agglomeration on per capita expenditure tends to be higher for households with men, younger, and more educated heads than households with women, older, and less educated heads. Households in rural areas and those that do not have crop land are more likely to benefit from firm agglomeration than those living in urban areas and having crop land.     

Welfare Program Reentry among Postreform Leavers

The dramatic welfare reforms of 1996 affected public assistance usage patterns, possibly leading to more cycling on and off welfare as opposed to long-term continuous participation. We examine 128,775 Tennessee families that left welfare between October 1996 and April 2001. Of these, about one-third returned to the program at least once during this period. We provide statistical portraits of these families and compare reentrants with those who remained off public assistance. We conclude with a multivariate analysis of the determinants of reentry, Results suggest that families with younger, female, or black caretakers and those with more children are more likely to return. Those less likely to return include families whose caretakers were married or who had more education or were not working as of case closure. Families who left because of a time limit or who accumulated more months of program participation were also more likely to return.     

Effects of Child Health on Sources of Public Support

We estimate the effects of having a child in poor health on the mother's receipt of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and public support in the form of food (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children [WIC] or food stamps), health insurance (Medicaid), and housing. We find that mothers with unhealthy children are between 2 and 8 percentage points (8-33%) more likely to rely on TANF than those with healthy children. There are stronger effects for mothers with older children than for those having first births. Mothers of children in poor health are also more likely than those with healthy children to receive SSI, Medicaid, and housing assistance but not WIC or food stamps. Given the restrictive new welfare environment, mothers who rely on TANF to cope with the burden of caring for unhealthy infants may soon encounter difficulties making ends meet and have insufficient resources to invest in their children's health.     

The effect of health insurance reform: Evidence from China

This paper estimates the impact of a health insurance reform on health outcomes in urban China. Using the China Health and Nutrition Survey¹ we find that this reform increases the rate of health insurance coverage significantly among workers in Non-State Owned Enterprises. The double difference (DD) estimations show that the reform also leads to better health outcomes: workers are less likely to get sick and more likely to use preventive care. Using an instrumental variable (IV) approach to look at the causal effect of health insurance, we find those with health insurance use more preventive care but do not report significantly better health outcomes, an increase in health care utilisation, or an increase in out-of-pocket medical expenditure.     

Can Import Tariffs Deter Outward FDI?

In this paper we analyze a country's optimal trade policy when its labor market is unionized and firms are footloose. We show that an important objective for governments to use import protection is to prevent their domestic multinationals to go to a non-unionized location abroad and to serve their country from a distance. A domestic government will set a positive tariff to dissuade its multinational from engaging in outward FDI when the additional profits it repatriates, do not compensate for the loss of domestic union rent. To put it differently, we show that when the domestic labor market is unionized, trade liberalisation between countries with similar wage levels is likely to result in domestic welfare losses as a result of outward FDI. Only when wage differences between countries are large enough, can outward FDI improve domestic welfare and optimal tariffs will be zero. JEL Classification Numbers: L13, F23     

Smokeless Tobacco Use Following Smoking Bans in Bars

We test for a unique form of compensatory behavior among smokers who wish to continue their nicotine consumption following the smoking bans placed on bars. We find a substantial increase in smokeless tobacco use among smokers, particularly those who drink and are of typical bar‐going age. We also find that everyday smokers, who clearly have the strongest nicotine dependence, are more likely to increase smokeless‐tobacco use than occasional smokers are.     

Moments of Disparate Peaks: Race-Gender Wage Gaps Among Mature Persons, 1965–2007

This paper examines intertemporal changes in racial disparity among mature Americans during the post-Jim Crow era, that is, 1965–2006. For a large nationally representative sample of American households, we pay special attention to differences between the South and other national regions, as the majority of African Americans do now and always have resided in the South. Historically, periods of progress in African American wellbeing have been followed by periods of regress that are often initiated by some combination of social change, government policy, and macroeconomic instability. Accordingly, we construct an overlapping series of five synthetic intertemporal cohorts of new seniors (ages 50–64). Cohorts are separated by the troughs of recessions. Finally, we note that regardless of race, men and women experience dissimilar opportunities in the market and in society; hence, gender dissimilarity is incorporated into our analysis. We find 1) large reductions in Post-Jim Crow contemporary disparity; 2) we also find large continuing disparity among the most recent cohorts; and, 3) changes in Southern racial weekly wage inequality (especially among men) have been especially important for determining the national pattern.     

THE EFFECT OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN OLD AGE PENSION ON LABOUR SUPPLY OF THE ELDERLY

In this paper, we estimate the effect of the means tested South African Old Age Pension on labour supply amongst the elderly African subpopulation in South Africa. We find significant decreases in employment rates and labour supply. Those who remain employed beyond the pensionable age are more likely to work in jobs with flexible hours of work, and work even fewer hours than people in similar jobs who are not pension age‐eligible. Our results suggest that governments do need to consider the labour supply related incentives provided via its various welfare programmes.     

Re-estimating gender differences in income in South Africa: The implications of equivalence scales

Most studies of poverty and inequality in South Africa measure individual welfare by deflating total household resources, such as income, by household size. This per-capita method makes no adjustments for the different consumption needs of children or for household economies of scale. However, in addition to being more likely to live in households where average per-capita household income is lower compared with men, we show that women in South Africa also live in significantly larger households which include more children. These gendered differences in household composition are driven to a large degree by low rates of co-residency between men and women. We therefore investigate how adjusting household resources for the presence of children and economies of scale affects measures of the gender gap in income.     

Sources of spatial welfare disparities in Indonesia: Household endowments or returns?

This article investigates (i) the extent to which the differences in the standard of living among districts in Indonesia are due to differences in the marginal welfare gains (returns) associated with household mobile endowments or differences in household endowments themselves; and (ii) whether the current allocation of fiscal expenditures by the central authorities is related to the main determinants of the spatial disparities in welfare among districts. Differences in the returns to household mobile characteristics are found to be the primary explanation of the welfare differences. The allocation of fiscal transfers to districts is found to be based on “needs” defined as low returns to household mobile endowments. This also suggests that the design of the fiscal transfer system is consistent with promoting the opportunities for welfare across districts as opposed to equalizing the level of welfare itself. Finally, the marginal welfare gains of most household mobile endowments are found to be higher in districts with more roads.