The human capital consequences of civil war: Evidence from Guatemala

We combine data from the 2002 National Population Census and the distribution of the number of human rights violations and victims across 22 departments to examine how Guatemala's 36-year-long civil war affected human capital accumulation. The year of birth and the department of birth jointly determine an individual's exposure during school age to three different periods of the civil war, namely the initial period (1960-1978), the worst period (1979-1984), and the final period (1985-1996). We find a strong negative impact of the civil war on the education of the two most disadvantaged groups, namely rural Mayan males and females. Among rural Mayan males, those who were school age during the three periods of the civil war in departments where more human rights violations were committed completed 0.27, 0.71, and 1.09 years less of schooling respectively whereas rural Mayan females exposed to the three periods of the war completed 0.12, 0.47, and 1.17 years less of schooling respectively. Given an average of 4.66 and 3.83 years of schooling for males and females, these represent declines of 6, 15, and 23% for males and 3, 12, and 30% for females. Our results are robust to the inclusion of indicators for department of residence, year of birth, and controls for different trends in education and human development in war-affected and peaceful departments of Guatemala and suggest that the country's civil war may have deepened gender, regional, sectoral, and ethnic disparities in schooling.     

New facts on infidelity

We establish new empirical facts, in line with the recent theoretical literature on infidelity. Infidelity displays seasonality and state dependence. In the US socioeconomic status is not a driver of infidelity and females and males are equally likely to be unfaithful.     

Stochastic stability in networks with decay

This paper considers a stylized model of network formation in which relations among agents are subject to frictions, as described in Bala and Goyal [A non cooperative model of network formation, Econometrica 68 (2000) 1181-1231]. We analyze the process of network formation in a dynamic framework where self-interested individuals can form or delete links and, occasionally, make mistakes. Then, using stochastic stability, we identify the network structures to which the formation process will converge.     

A DYNAMIC DECISION MODEL OF MARRIAGE,CHILDBEARING, AND LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION OF WOMEN IN JAPAN*

This paper empirically examines marriage, child bearing and labour force participation behaviour of fertile‐aged women in Japan, applying an estimable dynamic model of dis‐crete choice. Using microdata from the 1994–1999 Japanese Panel Survey of Consumers, the structural estimation result suggests that, overall, women are worse off with marriage and part‐time work without financial benefits. Women are better off having two or more children, but considerably worse off because of the burden of raising infants. In addition, probabilities of finding full‐time work after career interruption are estimated at about 18% for university educated women and 12–13% for less educated women.     

Reservation wages, market wages and unemployment: Analysis of individual level panel data

Using individual level panel data, we analyse the divergence between the reservation wages of individuals who are out of work and their predicted market wages, focusing upon identifying the factors that influence the potential divergence. In addition, using propensity score matching techniques, we explore the implications of such divergences for future employment and wages. Our findings suggest that having reservation wages that are high relative to the predicted market wage influence both future employment and future wages.     

The Impact of Placing Adolescent Males into Foster Care on Education,Income Assistance,and Convictions

Understanding the causal impacts of taking at‐risk youth into government care is part of the evidence base for policy. Two sources of exogenous variation affecting alternative subsets of the at‐risk population provide causal impacts interpreted as local average treatment effects. Placing 16‐ to18‐year‐old males into care decreases or delays high school graduation, increases income assistance receipt, and has alternative effects on criminal convictions depending upon the instrument employed. This suggests that asking whether more or fewer children should be taken into care is insufficient; it also matters which, and how, children are taken into care.     

Quality-enhancing trade liberalization

This paper examines the effect of trade liberalization on the quality of industrial goods produced by a developing country. The intermediate goods used as inputs to industrial production are assumed to be non-traded and produced by firms with market power. It is shown here that for a certain range of human capital levels, exposure to free trade, instead of resulting in de-industrialization, can raise welfare through an improvement in the quality of domestically produced industrial goods.     

The Age of Hiring and Deferred Compensation: Evidence from Australia

The factors affecting age of hiring are estimated using Australian establishment data. Lower ages of new hires are associated with training and with workplaces using steeper tenure–wage profiles. Lower ages of hires are associated with steeper profiles throughout the age of hire distribution, whereas lower ages of hires are associated with the provision of training only among younger hires. Moreover, the evidence confirms that larger employers are more likely to hire younger workers but that lower ages of hire continue to be associated with steeper tenure–wage profiles even among larger employers. The robust role of the tenure–wage profile suggests that it is too early to conclude, as some have, that specific training is the paramount reason for the reduced hiring prospects of the old.     

Networks of knowledge among unionized firms

Abstract.  We develop a model of strategic networks in order to analyze how trade unions will affect the stability of R&D networks through which knowledge is transmitted in an oligopolistic industry. Whenever firms settle wages, the partially connected network is likely to emerge in the long run if and only if knowledge spillovers are large enough. However, when unions settle wages, the complete network is the unique stable network. In other words, the stronger the union bargaining power is, the more symmetric stable R&D networks will be. In terms of network efficiency, the partially connected network (when firms settle wages) does not Pareto dominate the complete network (when unions settle wages) and vice versa.     

Hidden consequences of a first-born boy for mothers

Women whose first child is a boy work less than women with first-born girls. After a first-born boy the probability that women have more children increases. Higher fertility is a possible explanation for the lower labor supply of mothers.     

The gender reservation wage gap: Evidence from British Panel data

Our findings suggest the existence of a gender reservation wage gap. The presence of children, particularly pre-school age children, plays an important role in determining the proportion of this gap that can be explained by individual characteristics.     

The Impact of Lifecycle Events on Women's Labour Force Transitions: A Panel Analysis*

This panel study explores the impact of different lifecycle events on women's labour force transitions. We explicitly investigate whether the factors that determine entry into the labour force differ from the factors that determine withdrawal from the labour force. The results demonstrate that labour force transitions – entry and withdrawal – occur more frequently among young women. The event of childbirth is strongly associated with labour force withdrawal, while marital separation and reductions in family earnings are strongly associated with labour force entry. Moreover, labour force transition probabilities are more sensitive to income‐reducing events than to income‐supplementing events.     

Who values the family‐friendly aspects of a job? Evidence from the Japanese labour market

Women with family responsibilities such as child‐rearing generally prefer jobs with flexible working conditions. According to the theory of compensating wage differentials, women working in such family‐friendly jobs are paid less than those working in family‐unfriendly jobs. The present paper investigates whose wages are more greatly affected by the family‐(un)friendly aspects of their jobs. Based on a longitudinal survey of Japanese women, we found that among several family‐(un)friendly attributes of a job, only commuting time requires a wage premium, and most of the premium is associated with job changes made by part‐time‐working married women.     

Tolerance of Cheating: An Analysis Across Countries

Cheating is a serious problem in many countries. The cheater gets higher marks than deserved, thus reducing the efficiency of a country's educational system. In this study, the authors did not ask if and how often the student had cheated, but rather what the student's opinion was about a cheating situation. They investigated whether attitudes differ among students in Russia, the Netherlands, Israel, and the United States and conclude that attitudes toward cheating differ considerably between these countries. They offer various explanations of this phenomenon. In addition, they find that the student's attitude toward cheating depends on the student's educational level (high school, undergraduate, postgraduate). Finally, they show that the data from the sample can be aggregated in a natural and elegant way, and they suggest a tolerance-of-cheating index for each country.