Health Policy and Equity of Health Care Financing in Australia: 1973–2010

Using data from Australian Taxation Statistics and Household Expenditure Surveys we analyze the distribution of health care financing in Australia over almost four decades. We compute Kakwani Progressivity indices for four sources of health care financing: general taxation, Medicare Levy payments, Medicare Levy Surcharge payments, and direct consumer payments, and estimate the effects of major policy changes on them. The results demonstrate that the first three of these sources of health care financing are progressive in Australia, while the distribution of direct payments is regressive. Surprisingly, we find that neither the introduction of Medicare in Australia in 1984 nor the Extended Medicare Safety Net in 2004 had significant effects on the progressivity of health care financing in Australia. By contrast, the Lifetime Cover scheme—introduced in 2000 to encourage people to buy and hold private health insurance—had a progressive effect on health care financing.     

The effect of private high school education on the college trajectory

We use the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS) to estimate the effect of private secondary schooling on the average college trajectory of a student in the United States, examining college enrollment and degree attainment across the private and public sectors. We provide the first estimates of the effect of private schooling on college degree attainment using the most recent NELS survey. To account for potential non-random selection we exploit the variation in the grade spans of the students’ middle schools. Results indicate that private schooling has a significant, positive effect on college enrollment and degree attainment. The effect on college enrollment diminishes with time, suggesting that private schools influence degree attainment by getting students to college sooner.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Education and Mediating Channels: Evidence from a Compulsory Schooling Reform in Germany

In this paper, I estimate the causal effect that an additional year of schooling for parents has on their children's education, by exploiting a compulsory schooling reform that was implemented in all West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicates that the reform had no effect on earnings, I find that an additional year of schooling for women strongly affects the education of their sons. There is no effect for the other parent–child gender pairs. I investigate numerous channels that might mediate the positive effect of the education of mothers. Most importantly, I find that individuals with more schooling value their children's educational success as more important.     

Monetary Policy Announcements,Communication, and Stock Market Liquidity

Using the high‐quality intraday transaction data from 2001–2012, we investigate changes in stock market liquidity in response to the monetary policy announcements of the Bank of Korea (BOK). We find that liquidity impairment associated with informed trading occurs prior to the announcements but it disappears subsequent to the global financial crisis. In addition, liquidity impairment appears to become more severe with insufficient experts' predictability and accuracy rather than with policy rate change itself and unscheduled announcements. Finally, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements, changes in the Volatility Index (VIX), and trading by foreign investors play a limited role in explaining stock market liquidity changes. Overall, results indicate that central bank communication plays a significant role in reducing liquidity impairment by enhancing the predictability of policy actions, and therefore, mitigating information asymmetry.     

Propuesta de un modelo de medición de la competitividad mediante análisis factorial

This article presents a proposal of a model to measure competitiveness at the three geographical levels simultaneously: country, states, and municipalities by using a multivariate factor analysis resulting in the identification of five factors, seven subfactors and thirty variables used to measure and to present the results of an empirical study of several entities: the country, the state of Sonora and nine municipalities that represent 80% of the population and 80% of its Total Gross Production (PBT). The results show that the municipality of Hermosillo was the most competitive in 2010.     

Ticket Scalping as a Means of Managing Risk

Ticket scalping (known as touting in the UK) is often criticised for raising prices to consumers and producing unjustified profits. Conventional economic theory, however, shows that ticket scalping allows tickets to be reallocated in a more optimal manner with regard to the utility of consumers. This article points to an additional benefit from ticket scalping: by providing a secondary market it acts as a potentially powerful tool of risk management for event organisers. It is argued that curtailing ticket scalping may in the long run lead to a decline in the supply of privately provided events and concerts, especially lesser‐known ones. This in turn may stimulate a demand for public subsidy.     

School district consolidation: Market concentration and the scale‐efficiency tradeoff

Consolidation is often proposed as a strategy for increasing school district quality without increasing educational funding. However, if consolidation reduces competition in the local school market and reduces efficiency, any savings from exploiting economies of scale may be lost to increased inefficiency. We use a stochastic cost function to investigate these effects for districts in Texas. We find important economies of scale, but we also find that increased market concentration leads to increased cost inefficiency. Finally, we illustrate the practical importance of these two potentially offsetting factors in a simulation that considers consolidating Texas school districts to county‐level districts. We find that failure to consider the effect on competition can lead to large overestimates of the benefits of consolidation.     

The Hidden Educational Costs of Intensified Immigration Enforcement

The past two decades have witnessed an unprecedented increase in interior immigration enforcement that may have adversely impacted the children of unauthorized migrants—the vast majority of whom are U.S.‐born citizens. Using 2000 through 2013 data from the Current Population Survey, we gauge the impact that intensified interior immigration enforcement in the United States is having on the schooling progression of Hispanic youth with likely unauthorized parents. Intensified enforcement raises the probability of repeating a grade for children ages 6–13 by 14%, and the likelihood of dropping out of school for youth ages 14–17 by 18%. Furthermore, younger children are more responsive to police‐based enforcement, whereas older youth are more responsive to employment‐based enforcement. Awareness of the impacts that current immigration policies have on the children of immigrants is critical in informing the policy debate and in protecting the well‐being of children.