Labor-dependent capital income taxation

Capital taxation which is negatively correlated with labor supply is proposed. This paper uses a life-cycle model of heterogeneous agents that face idiosyncratic productivity shocks and shows that the tax scheme provides a strong work incentive when households possess large assets and high productivity later in the life-cycle, when they otherwise would work less. The system also adds to the saving motive of prime-age households and raises aggregate capital. The increased economic activities expand the tax base and the revenue neutral reform results in a lower average tax rate. The negative cross-dependence generates a sizable welfare gain in the long-run relative to the tax system that treats labor and capital income separately as a tax base. The reform, however, can hurt the elderly during the transition with a high marginal tax on their capital income.     

Social Transfers and Labor Force Participation Relation in Turkey: A Bivariate Probit Analysis

This study explores the association of labor force and social assistance program participation decisions in Turkey by employing the 2011 household budget survey (HBS) data. The issue is investigated in a bivariate probit framework, where the two incidences are jointly modeled. The differences in rural and urban behavior are also explored. Empirical results indicate that the more one works, the less one participates in social transfer program, and vice versa. Additionally, age, gender, household type and composition impact decision-making process of individuals both in urban and rural areas. The negative association between labor force participation and social transfer program participation is more pronounced in urban areas compared with the rural areas.     

La participación laboral femenina y el uso del tiempo en el cuidado del hogar en México

This paper presents empirical evidence showing that women's time assigned to non-paid household work constrains their workforce supply in the formal labor market in México, where household duties and child and elderly care activities are mostly undertaken by women. Heckman's selection model is used in the paper to fix the potential selection bias in the sample as the latter does not directly measure female conditions in the labor market. Our results are based on data from the 2009 Time Use National Poll for the 32 states of the Mexican Republic.     

农村失独家庭养老需求的差异性与精准扶助——基于四川省H县调查

农村失独家庭是农村弱势群体中的“弱势群体”。准确识别失独家庭的养老需求并做出相应的策略安排,是养老资源有限条件下的理性选择。本文基于对四川省H县8个镇302户失独家庭的问卷调查,通过建立模型和访谈方式分析农村失独家庭养老需求的差异性。结果表明:老年失独家庭的养老需求比非老年失独家庭明显更高;收入和健康状况是影响农村老年失独家庭和非老年失独家庭养老需求的重要因素;性别、文化程度、婚姻状况以及有无积蓄对老年失独家庭和非老年失独家庭的各类养老需求类的影响有所不同;养老保险对两类家庭的养老需求均无显著影响。因此,本文从注重养老资源供给的侧重性、提高失独家庭收入水平、重点关注失独家庭的健康保障和提供菜单式的养老服务等方面对农村失独家庭的养老保障提出了精准扶助的政策思考。     

新农保对农村中老年人劳动供给时间的影响——基于年龄与家庭收入的异质性分析

依据CHARLS数据，采用PSM-DID方法，考量新农保对农村中老年人劳动供给时间的影响。结果显示：在考虑时滞效应的情况下，新农保对农村中老年人，特别是60岁以下中老年人的劳动供给具有显著负向影响，同时对家庭收入较高群体的劳动力供给负向影响更为显著。     

Aggregate Implications of Heterogeneous Households in a Sticky‐Price Model

This paper analyzes the role of heterogeneous households in propagating shocks over the business cycle by generalizing a basic sticky‐price model to allow for imperfect risk sharing between households that differ in labor incomes. I show that imperfectly insured household consumption distorts household incentive to supply labor hours through an idiosyncratic income effect, which in turn generates strategic complementarities in price setting and thus amplifies business cycle fluctuations. This mechanism diminishes the role of nominal rigidities and makes sticky‐price models more consistent with microeconomic evidence on the frequency of price changes.     

Contingent Valuation and Actual Behavior: Predicting Connections to New Water Systems in the State of Kerala, India

In 1988, families in Kerala State in India were surveyed toascertain their willingness to pay for household connectionsto a piped water supply system. In 1991 the families in thesecommunities were surveyed again and their actual decisions recorded.This article explores the validity of the findings of the 1988study on the basis of actual behavior. It looks at the questionof benefit revelation: did people behave as they said they would?And it looks at the question of benefit transfer: did peoplein one site behave as they were predicted to behave, on thebasis of the predictions of a behavioral model for a differentsite? The data were also used to analyze the policy relevanceof behavioral modeling.     

Elderly empowerment,fertility, and public pensions

The economic role of elderly people is underestimated in the context of the debate on pension reforms. This is because, as healthy life expectancy increases, the elderly become more active not only in the labor market but also in household production. Using a three-period overlapping-generations model in which grandparents allocate time between labor and informal childcare (“grandparenting”), we analyze the interaction among grandparenting, fertility, elderly labor, and public pensions. We obtain two analytical results. First, increasing the pension contribution rate increases grandparenting. Second, elderly labor force participation rates are negatively (positively) related to the fertility rates among countries with small (large) public pensions. The nonlinear relationship between elderly labor and fertility is empirically supported.

     

Balancing Retirement Security With the Needs of Frail Parents

Abstract

Caring for frail elderly parents can interfere with work responsibilities. People who provide care to their parents may need to take time off from work or retire altogether. However, reductions in labor supply at midlife can have serious implications for retirement wealth and, as a result, on economic well-being in later life. This paper examines how family support for the elderly can affect retirement savings by examining the relationship between labor supply, time help to parents, and financial assistance to parents. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study on a nationally representative sample of women ages 53–63, we found that women who helped their parents with personal care assistance worked significantly fewer hours than did those who did not help their parents, whereas those who provided financial assistance worked significantly more hours. Although few persons at midlife presently spend substantial amounts of time helping their elderly parents in any given year, for those who do, the costs can be high. Pressures on families are likely to mount in the near future as falling mortality and fertility rates continue to increase the proportion of the population that is very old and as women continue to play more important roles in the labor market.     

延迟退休年龄、内生生育率与养老金

本文通过构建内生生育率的OLG模型,从微观视角考察了延迟退休年龄对生育率、养老金替代率及其个人养老金收入的影响。研究表明:(1)延迟退休年龄会提高均衡时的生育率水平,但提高幅度非常有限。(2)生育率的提高会增加未来劳动力供给,促进养老金替代率上升和养老金收入增加,而延迟退休年龄延长了养老保险缴费期限,也会促进养老金替代率上升和养老金收入增加;但同时,延迟退休年龄将使得预防性储蓄下降,资本积累降低,工资收入下降,养老金收入降低。因此,延迟退休年龄会使养老金替代率上升。当资本产出弹性大于或等于0.5时,延迟退休年龄会使得养老金收入降低;当资本产出弹性小于0.5时,在平均预期寿命较大或养老保险缴费比例较高的情形下,养老金收入会随着退休年龄的延迟而增加,反之,其会随着退休年龄的延迟而降低。进一步地,将模型拓展到包含人力资本的情形,延迟退休年龄仍会提高均衡时的生育率与养老金替代率。     

Second-best income taxation and education policy with endogenous human capital and borrowing constraints

We formulate a two-period life cycle model of saving, labor supply, and human capital investment when individuals differ in their ability and initial wealth. Borrowing constraints result in sub-optimal choices for consumption and investments in human capital. We analyze optimal linear income taxes and education subsidies. The optimal income tax is shown to be positive—even in the absence of any redistributional concerns. A redistributive income tax relaxes borrowing constraints by redistributing resources from the unconstrained to the borrowing constrained stages of the life cycle. The income tax thus alleviates preexisting non-tax distortions in the capital market. Human capital is subsidized on a net basis in the absence of redistributional concerns. Education subsidies help to relax credit constraints and to reduce distortions from explicit and implicit taxes on human capital formation. When redistributional concerns are present, education is subsidized more if this helps to alleviate distortions on labor supply, but is subsidized less if education subsidies have a very regressive incidence. Simulations demonstrate that optimal income taxes are substantially higher when credit constraints are present. Education is generally subsidized on a net basis, and the more so if credit constraints are more severe.     

Global work force 2000: the new world labor market

Just as there are global markets for products, technology, and capital, managers must now think of one for labor. Over the next 15 years, human capital, once the most stationary factor in production, will cross national borders with greater and greater ease. Driving the globalization of labor is a growing imbalance between the world's labor supply and demand. While the developed world accounts for most of the world's gross domestic product, its share of the world work force is shrinking. Meanwhile, in the developing countries, the work force is quickly expanding as many young people approach working age and as women join the paid work force in great numbers. The quality of that work force is also rising as developing countries like Brazil and China generate growing proportions of the world's college graduates. Developing nations that combine their young, educated workers with investor-friendly policies could leapfrog into new industries. South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, and Hungary are particularly well positioned for such growth. And industrialized countries that keep barriers to immigration low will be able to tap world labor resources to sustain their economic growth. The United States and some European nations have the best chance of encouraging immigration, while Japan will have trouble overcoming its cultural and language barriers.     

The great moderation in micro labor earnings

Between 1980 and the early 1990s the variability of labor earnings growth rates across the prime-age working population fell significantly. This decline and timing are consistent with other macro and micro observations about growth variability that are collectively referred to as the “Great Moderation.” The variability of earnings growth is negatively correlated with age at any point in time, and the U.S. working age population got older during this period because the Baby Boom was aging. However, the decrease in variability was roughly uniform across all age groups, so population aging is not the source of the overall decline. The variance of log changes also declined at multi-year frequencies in such a way as to suggest that both permanent and transitory components of earnings shocks became more moderate. A simple identification strategy for separating age and cohort effects shows a very intuitive pattern of permanent and transitory shocks over the life cycle, and confirms that a shift over time in the stochastic process occurred even after controlling for age effects.     

退休人口再就业决策的影响因素研究 ——基于中国健康与养老追踪调查数据

夯实财富储备,改善劳动力有效供给是积极应对人口老龄化的重要措施。本文基于中国健康与养老追踪调查数据,全面考察了退休人口再就业的动因,着重分析享受养老待遇和养老待遇水平对退休人口再就业决策的影响。实证结果表明:享受养老待遇对退休人口再就业产生负激励效应;养老待遇水平提高会明显降低退休人口再就业的可能性;个人负债占资产比重越大,退休老年人再就业概率越高;配偶退休、年龄增大、健康状况差会显著降低退休人口再就业概率。对此,本文提出以下建议:适当延迟退休年龄,增加老年人口经济收入;养老保险制度应兼顾保障性和劳动力市场功能;构建老年就业服务体系,保障老年就业权利。     

社区居家养老服务的多元体系建构

社区居家养老服务体系是我国未来养老服务的重要发展方向之一,对于应对人口老龄化和构建社会主义和谐社会有着重要意义.多元体系中,家庭居于基础地位,承担基本物资供给和精神养老功能;社区处于依托性地位,承担老年人社会参与、对于社会参与、娱乐休闲、心理调适、学习咨询等方面的需求;市场处于补充性地位,主要满足老年人更高、更专业层面的需求.只有将三者结合基础上,建构相互支持的多元服务体系,才能真正实现居家养老服务事业可的持续发展.     

Understanding the Distributional Impact of Long‐Run Inflation

The impact of fully anticipated inflation is systematically studied in heterogeneous agent economies with an endogenous labor supply and portfolio choices. In stationary equilibrium, inflation nonlinearly alters the endogenous distributions of income, wealth, and consumption. Small departures from zero inflation have the strongest impact. Three features determine how inflation impacts distributions and welfare: financial structure, shock persistence, and labor supply elasticity. When agents can self‐insure only with money, inflation reduces wealth inequality but may raise consumption inequality. Otherwise, inflation reduces consumption inequality but may raise wealth inequality. Given persistent shocks and an inelastic labor supply, inflation may raise average welfare. The results hold when the model is extended to account for capital formation.     

How important is intra-household risk sharing for savings and labor supply?

While it is recognized that the family is a risk-sharing institution, little is known about the quantitative effects of this source of insurance on savings and labor supply. In this paper, we present a model where workers (females and males) are subject to idiosyncratic employment risk and where capital markets are incomplete. A household is formed by a female and a male, who decide on consumption, savings and labor supplies. In a calibrated version of our model we find that intra-household risk sharing has its largest impact among wealth-poor households. While the wealth-rich use mainly savings to smooth consumption across unemployment spells, wealth-poor households rely on spousal labor supply. For instance, for low-wealth households, average hours worked by wives of unemployed husbands are 8% higher than those worked by wives of employed husbands. This response in wives’ hours makes up 9% of lost family income. We also study consumption losses upon an unemployment spell, precautionary savings and the crowding out effects of the public unemployment insurance program on the extent of risk sharing within the household.     

Gender-based and couple-based taxation

In this paper, I explore the optimal taxation of singles and couples in an economy with bargaining couples. The government is concerned with the redistribution of income from individuals with high utility to individuals with low utility, recognizing that some individuals live in couple households where resources are unevenly distributed. I analyze how redistributive linear income taxes, which depend on either gender or household composition (or both) impact the distribution of utility within and across households. An interesting implication arising from the interaction between the model elements is that even though between-group lump-sum transfers always favor women, when the bargaining power of men is high, women are subject to a higher tax rate; this in contrast to previous analyses of gender-based taxation. My quantitative analysis demonstrates that the welfare effects of gender-based taxation are sizable and even larger when taxes depend on the composition of the household.     

地权稳定与农业生产

本文以《农村土地承包法》在省一级层面的实施作为政策冲击,研究稳定的农村土地承包经营权对农业生产效率等的影响及其作用机制。主要研究结论如下:第一,稳定的农地承包经营权能够增强经营主体对未来的确定性预期,保障各方市场主体的合法权益,活跃土地流转并有效提升农业生产效率;第二,《农村土地承包法》的实施促进了农户转出而非转入土地,农业生产效率提升主要源自稳定产权的直接激励效应以及由此带来的资源配置效率改进,稳定的农地产权能够促进土地有效流转,优化农户农业生产与劳动配置决策;第三,地权稳定性改革有效缓解了因人口流出与区位劣势造成的农业生产效率损失,显著提高了农户的务工收入以及整体收入水平。本文研究结论表明,合理的制度设计能够提升农业生产效率,提高农村土地和劳动力资源的配置效率。清晰的产权设计、合理的预期管理是实现市场化资源配置的必要条件。     

我国农村剩余劳动力转移途径及对策选择

我国农村剩余劳动力转移是解决三农问题的重中之重.现行土地制度、户籍管理制度、城市化进程以及农村剩余劳动力素质是制约农村剩余劳动力转移的主要因素.农村剩余劳动力在第一产业内部的转移和劳动力向二、三产业的转移,是我国农村劳动力转移的基本途径.坚持走农业产业化道路、推进乡镇企业二次创业、完善农村金融体系、推进城市化进程、建立和完善社会保障体系等,是推动农村劳动力转移的必然选择.