An Empirical Assessment of the Swedish Bullionist Controversy*

In the 18th century, a fierce political debate broke out in Sweden about the causes of an extraordinary depreciation of the currency. More specifically, the deteriorating value of the Swedish currency was blamed arbitrarily on monetary causes (e.g., the overissuing of banknotes) and on non-monetary causes (such as balance-of-payments deficits). This paper provides a comprehensive empirical assessment of this so-called “Swedish Bullionist Controversy”. The results of vector autoregressions suggest that increasing amounts of paper money did give rise to inflation and a depreciation of the exchange rate. Conversely, non-monetary factors were probably less important for these developments.     

Will elders provide for their grandchildren? Unconditional cash transfers and educational expenditures in Bolivia

We take advantage of repeated cross‐sectional household surveys and a sharp discontinuity created by the introduction of an unconditional cash transfer to elders in Bolivia, to evaluate its impact on educational expenditures on children within a household. We find positive and significant impacts of the program at the aggregate level. We also find that the program has stronger effects on indigenous populations as well as on female and rural populations. Our results are robust to a series of falsification tests, survey structure, model specification, and estimation methods.     

Balancing health,harmony and hegemony: Parents' goals and strategies in children's food related consumer socialization

Parents play a pivotal role in socializing their children for healthy eating. The objectives of the present study were (1) to identify food socialization outcomes valued by parents, and (2) to study how parents socialize their children for (healthy) eating at home and during food shopping. Including both parents' perceptions of valued food socialization outcomes and associated processes addresses a significant gap in the food socialization literature. The study used semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews with parents of young children. Data were subsequently analysed by interpretive, thematic procedures. The sample consisted of middle‐ to high‐income families from two cities in Denmark. Findings reveal four main food socialization goals valued by parents: (1) Nutrition and Health, (2) Healthy Relationship with Food, (3) Food Assimilation and (4) Self‐Regulation and Autonomy. Parents prioritized children's acquisition of a healthy relationship with food which included preserving family relations and harmony, more than strictly attending a nutritious diet, contrasting the focus on the nutritional value of diet usually emphasised by public health authorities. The study therefore concludes that parents' notions of what constitutes healthy diets for their children is not completely aligned with common nutrition‐oriented recommendations. Also, fathers were found to play a very active role in their children's food‐related consumer socialization. The findings underline the importance of addressing the priorities and strategies of both mothers and fathers when marketers and policy makers target contemporary families regarding children's food socialization.     

Cash transfer program and child underweight—Empirical evidence from a causal mediation analysis

Despite the existence of a voluminous literature on cash transfer programs, little is known about their impacts on the underweight of children. To fill the knowledge gap, this study uses a unique individual panel data set to analyze how participation in the Children Sponsorship Program (CSP) improves underweight status among needy children and adolescents in Taiwan. This study examines not only the program effect on children's underweight, but also underscores the potential pathways behind the program effect by employing a causal mediation analysis. Our analysis finds that exiting the CSP has a negative impact on the improvement of underweight status. Moreover, eating breakfast every day and receiving pocket money from parents can be two significant mediators that link the effect of exiting the CSP and the change in underweight status among children and adolescents.     

Ecological self-image and behaviours for children living on the streets of Harare

ABSTRACT

The present study sought to explore the relationship between street childhood and adolescent ecological self-image. The research objectives were to investigate the nature of ecological self-image for street children and to determine the ecological behaviours for street children in Harare. A psycho-ethnographic research design was employed. The participants were 16 street-living adolescent children aged between 12 and 18 years and six key informants, all in Harare, Zimbabwe. A total of 22 participants took part in this study. Snowballing was used to recruit key informant interviewees, while purposive sampling was used to recruit participants for focus group discussions, in-depth interview, and participant and non-participant observations. Thematic content analysis was used for analysing the data. Data analysis revealed that the adolescent street children's ecological self-image is largely negative. These street children seemed to have estranged from their biological families to identify with the streets.     

人力资本、社会资本与流动人口就业收入 —基于流动人口正规就业与非正规就业的比较分析

文章通过建立OLS回归方程以及Oaxaca—Blinder的分解方法,实证分析了人力资本、社会资本与我国流动人口就业收入的关系,研究发现：人力资本对流动人口正规就业收入有明显影响而对非正规就业收入影响很小,社会资本是影响流动人口非正规就业收入的主要因素但对正规就业收入影响不大。 Oaxaca—Blinder 的分解表明：流动人口非正规就业者和正规就业者收入差距的50.69％归结于流动人口内部特征上的差异,受教育程度差异是造成其工资收入差异的主要原因。     

我国环渤海地区人口流动与社会经济的协调发展

流动人口与区域经济社会协调发展成为当前我国流动人口管理的重要问题。在经济快速发展和流动人口规模持续增长的过程中,环渤海地区正面临着流动人口如何与经济社会发展相协调的严峻挑战,因而在＂十二五＂时期应该通过深化城乡体制改革、加快产业结构调整等措施,积极促进流动人口更好地服务于区域经济社会发展。     

城市规模对流动人口幸福感的影响——来自RUMIC(2009)的经验证据

城市规模对流动人口幸福感影响可谓是一把"双刃剑"。基于RUMIC(2009)微观数据,采用工具变量法系统研究我国城市规模对流动人口幸福感的影响及其传导机制。研究发现,我国城市规模对流动人口幸福感影响效应呈显著的"U型曲线"关系,城市市辖区人口规模约在340万人时,城市规模对流动人口幸福感的影响效应出现拐点。其中,收入是城市规模影响流动人口幸福感的主要传导路径,测算得出,城市规模通过影响个体收入而对流动人口幸福感影响的间接效应约占总效应的64%。同时,城市规模通过提高城市生产率和降低失业率而影响流动人口幸福感的间接效应分别占总效应的6.1%和9%左右。     

“以房管人”:流动人口管理的基础

"以房管人"作为社会管理的一项重要基础性工作,在保护流动人口的合法权益、提高流动人口生活质量、调控城市流动人口规模等方面,可以起到较好的效果.目前北京市房屋出租和流动人口管理方面仍存在不少问题,这些问题将阻碍"以房管人"的有效实施.通过改善流动人口的生活条件,引导流动人口从无序流动变为有序流动,最终形成流动人口的理性流动,既保证流动人口生活质量的提高,又能有效调控首都流动人口规模.     

孩子教育中的边际效用递减现象分析及对策

边际效用递减是现代西方经济学研究消费者行为时用来解释需求规律的一种理论观点,也是关于消费者行为的一条基本规律。本文将边际效用递减规律引入孩子的教育过程中,揭示了家长的教育行为中所存在的边际效用递减现象。据此提出家长从教育内容上,不要过度的片面的强调物质保障或精神教育,应把物质教育和精神教育进行有机的结合;二是从教育方式上,不要过度的片面的强调批评责骂和鼓励表扬。