Equity and the environment: An application of the Berliant–Strauss vertical and horizontal equity framework to measuring the distributional effects of air quality regulation

The distributional effects of a major air regulation in the United State in 2015 were analyzed using Berliant and Strauss Index Numbers, a set of theoretical and empirical equity metrics, and reduced‐form models that estimate the mortality effects of air pollutant emissions and their source contributions. By viewing the effects of pollution on human mortality as an implicit tax, we found progressivity in 54% to 56% of vertical comparisons and inequity in 92% to 94% of horizontal comparisons. The introduction of the proposed policy made 58% of vertical comparisons more progressive and was equitable to 70% of horizontal comparisons.     

Children as income-producing assets: the case of teen illegitimacy and government transfers

This paper develops a classical model of the teen fertility decision in the presence of public income transfers. The theoretical model predicts that welfare payments will encourage fertility, holding constant other economic opportunities, and that better economic opportunities will discourage fertility. Considering the possible simultaneity of illegitimacy rates and benefit levels, due to the collective choice process, the authors confirm the theoretical model's predictions with state-level data from 1980 through 1990. The authors find that including fixed effects in the regression to control for unobserved differences between states does not sufficiently control for endogeneity. After controlling for endogeneity, real welfare benefits are strongly and robustly related to teen illegitimacy. The point estimates of the elasticity with respect to changes in the illegitimacy rate are around +1.3 for White teens and +2.1 for Black teens. Real wages for women with a high school education or less are negatively related to teen illegitimacy for White teens, with an elasticity of around -0.4. Finally, male wages appear to have little effect on the illegitimacy rate for White teens but appear negatively correlated with the illegitimacy rate for Black teens in some model specifications.     

Methods Matter: Changes in Industrial Relations Research and their Implications

An analysis of leading industrial relations journals suggests that there have been substantial changes in IR research, particularly a shift from inductive, qualitative and policy-oriented research to deductive, quantitative and discipline-oriented research. This is seen to reflect a change in the pressures under which IR research is conducted and the increased availability of computer technology and extensive IR data sets. Important differences remain in research methodology among countries, with US-based journals being the most quantitative and deductive.     

The Linkage between Prices,Wages, and Labor Productivity: A Panel Study of Manufacturing Industries

This article investigates the long-run relationship between prices and wage-adjusted productivity as well as between real wages and average labor productivity at the industry level for a panel of 459 U.S. manufacturing industries over the period 1956-1996. Panel reintegration test results strongly reject the null of no reintegration in the panel between both prices and wage-adjusted productivity and between labor productivity and real wages for many (but not all) industries. Granger-causality tests show that prices are weakly exogenous and cause movements in unit labor cost. Bidirectional Granger causality is found between real wages and productivity; however, a one-to-one relationship is strongly rejected between real wages and productivity. Increases in labor productivity are associated with a less than unity increase in real wages.     

Cutting the costs of attrition: Results from the Indonesia Family Life Survey

Attrition is the Achilles heel of longitudinal surveys. Drawing on our experience in the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), we describe survey design and field strategies that contributed to minimizing attrition over four waves of the survey. The data are used to illustrate the selectivity of respondents who attrit from the survey and, also the selectivity of respondents who move from the place they were interviewed at baseline and are subsequently interviewed in a new location. The results provide insights into the nature of selection that will arise in studies that fail to track and interview movers. Attrition, and types of attrition, are related in complex ways to a broad array of characteristics measured at baseline. In addition, the evidence suggests attrition may be related to characteristics that are not observed in our baseline. Integrating IFLS with data from a Survey of Surveyors, we describe characteristics of both the interviewers and the interview that predict attrition in later waves. These characteristics point to possible strategies that may reduce levels of attrition and may also reduce the impact of attrition on the interpretation of behavioral models estimated with longitudinal data.     

Prices,infrastructure, household characteristics and child height

A Brazilian household survey, ENDEF, in 1974-75 and the 1974 Informacoes Basicas Municipais (IBM) provided data for the analysis of the impact of community services and infrastructure and household characteristics on the logarithm of child height, standardized for age and gender. The sample was comprised of 36,974 children stratified by residential location, the child's age, and the educational level of the mother. Variance and covariance matrices were estimated with the jackknife developed by Efron (1982). Household characteristics included the logarithm of per capita expenditure as a measure of household resource availability, income, and parental education. Community characteristics were local market price indices for 6 food groups (dairy products, beans, cereals, meat, fish, and sugar), level of urbanization, buildings with sewage, water, and electricity connections per capita, per capita number of buildings, and population density. Health services were measured as per capita number of hospitals and clinics and doctors and nurses, and the number of beds are hospital. Educational services include a measure of student teacher ratios, elementary school class size, and per capita number of teachers living in the community. the results show that expenditure had a positive, significant effect on the height of children 2 years and older. Expenditure was a significant determinant for literate and illiterate mothers, and not well educated mothers. The impact of maternal education was largest on the length of babies and declined with the age of the child. Father's education had not impact of length of babies. The effect of parents' education was complementary. The effect of father's education was largest when mothers had some education. Better educated parents had healthier children. Maternal rather than paternal height had an impact of the length of a baby. In the community models, prices had a significant effect on child height, in both urban and rural areas, in all age groups, and for all levels of maternal education. Higher prices were associated with shorter children. Joint price and expenditure interactions were significant. Children at the top of the expenditure distribution were more affected by some prices than by others. Capital building improvements alone and with expenditures were all positively associated with child height. Only nurses per capita impacted on child height.