HUSBAND—WIFE DIVISION OF LABOUR AND QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE*

This paper reports data on the relationship between how couples perceive their family life quality and the division of household work. The sample consists of 210 Wisconsin couples. Time diaries and face-to-face interviews were used. Analyses indicate that the division of familiwork is not an important correlate of the congruency that the spouses hold concerning their family life quality. The one exception is that less traditional couples tend to be more dissatisfied with the work each does around the home.     

COMPUTER SKILLS AND WAGES*

Data from the 1993 Survey of Training and Education show that 52 per cent of males and 60 per cent of females had at some time used a computer. An analysis using earnings functions reveals that computer usage is associated with a wage premium of between 12 and 16 per cent. Experiments show that omission of a variable recording computer usage from a wage equation will result in a bias of between 10 and 15 per cent in the estimated return to a year of schooling and similar distortion to the estimated return to experience.     

Call and Continuous Trading Mechanisms Under Asymmetric Information: An Experimental Investigation

I examine the relative performance of call and continuous auctions under asymmetric information by manipulating trading rules and information sets in laboratory asset markets. I find significant differences in an environment that extends the Kyle (1985) framework to permit the exogenous liquidity trading motive to have a natural economic interpretation. The adverse selection costs incurred by noise traders are significantly lower under the call auction, despite no significant reduction in average price efficiency. This result suggests that discussions of the costs and benefits of insider trading should take place within the context of a specific trading mechanism.     

TAXING HEALTH INSURANCE: HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?

The Reagan administration has again proposed in 1984 to limit the tax exemption on health-insurance premiums. Objectives of the proposal are to curtail rising health costs by reducing insurance coverage—and hence medical-care use—and to raise revenues to offset the large federal deficit. The change would have little effect on either dimension. Most likely, consumer response would reduce dental, drug, and eyeglass insurance, but would leave coverage for hospital and doctor care—the most bothersome health-cost sectors—essentially unaffected. Larger tax changes which are structured differently possibly could reduce health costs dramatically and raise up to $27 billion a year in new tax revenues.     

The effects of liberalization of Austrian quantitative restrictions on imports from CMEA countries

Zusammenfassung In dieser Studie wird untersucht, ob die Oststaaten (RGW-Länder) imstande gewesen sind, aus der Importliberalisierung in Österreich in den Jahren 1967 bis 1972 Vorteile zu ziehen. Österreich hat in dieser Periode die quantitativen Importbeschränkungen (QR) für Industriewaren und Rohstoffe aus den Oststaaten in einem bedeutenden Ausmaß abgebaut.Als Maßstab dienen in dieser Studie Angaben über die Kontingentausweitung sowie über die Veränderung der Marktanteile der Oststaaten in Österreich. Es wird auch ein Selektivitätsindex für die österreichische Liberalisierungsstrategie gegenüber den Oststaaten konstruiert.Von besonderem Interesse ist die Schlußfolgerung, daß einige Oststaaten — besonders die CSSR — bei ihren Bemühungen um Steigerung der Deviseneinnahmen, aus der Importliberalisierung systematisch Vorteile gezogen haben.Da noch wichtige Exportwaren der Oststaaten innerhalb der Untersuchungsperiode nicht liberalisiert gewesen sind, hat Österreich als Folge der weitgehenden Importliberalisierung aus dem Jahr 1975 mit hohen Importsteigerungen aus mehreren Oststaaten zu rechnen. Diese Entwicklung kann vorübergehend durch den Konjunktureinbruch verdeckt werden.