Reinterpreting the performance of immigrant wages from panel data

Immigrants differ from the native born in terms of unobserved factors, such as motivation, and observed factors, including those related to the interruption of labour market activity and earning capacity, which may bias estimates of immigrant integration. Using panel data from the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics, we show that using potential experience, rather than actual experience, exaggerates estimates of the disruption and recovery caused by immigration. More importantly, we find support for omitted variables bias, arising from unobserved fixed effects. Instrumental variable estimates for both pooled and separate samples of immigrant and native born men demonstrate a wage disadvantage for immigrants upon entry that persists through their lifetime. Standard estimates of a modest wage advantage for the children of immigrants also suffer from omitted variables bias arising from unobservables. Contrary to most of the literature to date, our instrumental variable estimates which allow for unobservable fixed effects suggest that immigrants never catch up to otherwise comparable native born workers, but their children do just as well. We would like to thank Statistics Canada for permitting access to the data and solving associated technical problems, the Prairier Centre for Research on Immigration and Integration for financial assistance, and Peter Schnabl for excellent research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the 10th International Conference on Panel Data in Berlin, July 5–6, 2002. The authors take sole responsibility for errors, omissions and interpretation of the data.     

Enforcing Emissions Trading when Emissions Permits are Bankable

We propose enforcement strategies for emissions trading programs with bankable emissions permits that guarantee complete compliance with minimal enforcement costs. Our strategies emphasize imperfect monitoring supported by a high unit penalty for reporting violations, and tying this penalty directly to equilibrium permit prices. This approach is quite different from several existing enforcement strategies that emphasize high unit penalties for emissions in excess of permit holdings. Our analysis suggests that a high penalty for excess emissions cannot be used to conserve monitoring effort, and that it may actually increase the amount of monitoring necessary to maintain compliance.The authors are grateful to Anthony Heyes and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments. Partial support for this research was provided by the Cooperative State Research Extension, Education Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Massachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station under Project No. MAS00871.     

Efficiency wages and union-firm bargaining with private information

We consider efficiency wage effects in a union-firm bargaining model with private information. We show that an increase in the efficiency wage effects does not necessarily increase the wage level at equilibrium, even when the wage bargaining with private information is close to one with complete information. However, if it is commonly known that the firm is stronger than the union and the demand is sufficiently elastic, then an increase in the efficiency wage effects increases for sure the wage at equilibrium.JEL Classification: J41, J50, J52We thank Juan Dolado and two anonymous referees for valuable comments. Vincent Vannetelbosch is Chercheur Qualifié at the Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique. The research of Ana Mauleon has been made possible by a fellowship of the Fonds Européen du Développement Economique Régional (FEDER). Financial support from the Belgian French Communitys program Action de Recherches Concertée 99/04-235 (IRES, Université catholique de Louvain) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Provision Point Mechanisms and Field Validity Tests of Contingent Valuation

Past field validity tests of contingent valuation have relied on voluntary contribution mechanisms to elicit actual willingness to pay, and may overestimate hypothetical bias because of free riding in the actual contributions. This paper argues that provision point mechanisms are a preferred alternative for field validity tests of contingent valuation because they increase the proportion of demand revealed in cases in which public goods can be provided in a step function. The results of a contingent valuation validity study of participation in a green electricity pricing program that uses a provision point mechanism are reported, and hypothetical open-ended and dichotomous choice responses are compared to actual participation. Calibration of hypothetical responses is also explored.     

Coping with Technological Change: The Role of Ability in Making Inequality so Persistent

This study provides an explanation to the evolution of wage inequality over the last 30 years and supports this explanation with evidence. A faster rate of technological progress introduces new unknown elements at the workplace. The need to cope with the unknown accentuates the role of ability and thus increases wage inequality within and between education groups. Inasmuch as education is an irreversible investment project the rise in within group inequality BOOSTS UP the rise of between group inequality. Guided by this theory we turn to the PSID for evidence. Using parents' education to approximate child's ability we show the following set of results: (a) Controlling for education of the child, parents' education contributed much more in the 1980s to his wage growth than in the 1970s. (b) The correlation between the parents' and the child's education increases from the 1970s to the 1980s. (c) The return to college education for an individual with no ability rents did not change—it remains steady at the 23 percent. (d) Facts (a)–(c) CANNOT be attributed to the impact of parent's income. It is parents' education and not parents' income that is more relevant for son's economic outcomes in the 1980s.     

The optimal portfolio for the two-pillar mandatory pension system: the case of Poland

In the recent decade, there has been observed across the Central and Eastern European states the regulatory trend towards the increase of the non-financial (first) pension pillar size at the expense of the financial (second) pillar. It tends to question the consequences of this shift for the future retirement benefits. Applying the portfolio approach we address this issue by running a series of simulations to find out how to allocate pension contributions between both pillars in an optimal way. Our study contributes to the existing literature as follows. First, we do not perform the assessment of the predetermined regulatory solutions, but we look for an optimal one. Moreover, we allow our optimal rule to be time-varying, if necessary, which would be a true novelty in this research area. Second, we do not base our estimates on historical trends; rather, we apply the long-term economy’s projection to account for the society’s ageing impact, which is a crucially important factor for the solvency of the pension system. Adapting some of the simulation assumptions to fit the Polish case, our results confirm that current regulations underestimate the role of the capital pillar and the optimal allocation between both pillars should be time-varying.     

Calculation of Self-Interest and Constitutional Consensus: The Role of Ideology

Constitutional political economy's veil of uncertainty prevents citizens from identifying their specific interests under political rules and facilitates agreement on rules by moving all individuals to an average position. But the calculation of self-interest in such settings is not straight-forward; citizens require a model of how the economy works to predict the effect of rules on welfare. Political ideologies typically supply such models. Citizens subscribing to different ideological models anticipate differential treatment under a given constitutional rule, breaking down the ability of the veil of uncertainty to achieve consensus. Constitutional consensus is unlikely in the absence of ideological consensus.     

Hitting the Jackpot or Hitting the Skids: Entertainment, Poverty, and the Demand for State Lotteries

A bstract .   State-sponsored lotteries are a lucrative source of revenue. Despite their low payout rates, lotteries are extremely popular, particularly among low-income citizens. State officials laud the benefits of lottery proceeds and promote the fun and excitement of participation. This entertainment value is one explanation for lottery demand by the poor: individuals with lower incomes substitute lottery play for other entertainment. Alternatively, low-income consumers may view lotteries as a convenient and otherwise rare opportunity for radically improving their standard of living. Bad times may cause desperation, and the desperate may turn to lotteries in an effort to escape hardship. This study tests these competing explanations. We examine lottery sales data from 39 states over 10 years and find a strong and positive relationship between sales and poverty rates. In contrast, we find no relationship between movie ticket sales, another inexpensive form of entertainment, and poverty rates.     

Analysis of Visitor Decision Making System When Visiting Natural Recreation Sites by Multinomial Logit Model

Multinomial Logit Model has analyzed the relationship between the frequency of visits to recreation areas and the motivational factors affecting the visits. Kastro Environment Preserving Site that is located in the Black Sea coast of Marmara region in Turkey, has been chosen as the site for this study. Kastro bay is a natural park that is visited only for recreational visits. The study has been conducted on a photogenic study group due to the proximity factor of Kastro bay close to Istanbul. Kastro bay is a popular recreational park due to its characteristic advantages such as a 200 m wide and approximately 2.5 km long beach and with its high quality vegetation. The vegetation type includes ash tree, oak tree, black pine, sand lily etc. Kastro bay is also the site for the Mediterranean seals (Monachus-monachus) which are at the level of extinction. Approximately 50,000 visitors visit the region during the months of July and August. It has been concluded that there is high direct correlation between the frequency of visits and the motivational factors. It has been determined that the visits are mostly based on the sea and the ecological tourism.Jel: O13, Q20, Q26, Q51, Q56, Q57     

Government Consumption and Industrial Productivity: Scale and Compositional Effects

Within a production function framework in which government spending produces public goods which enter firms production functions, empirical tests using time series data spanning eleven countries and thirty industries find both the scale and the composition of government consumption spending to affect the level and the rate of growth of total factor productivity at the industry level.Jel Classification: H50, D24