Killing off cohorts: Forecasting mortality of non-extinct cohorts with the penalized composite link model

Mortality forecasting has crucial implications for insurance and pension policies. A large amount of literature has proposed models to forecast mortality using cross-sectional (period) data instead of longitudinal (cohort) data. As a consequence, decisions are generally based on period life tables and summary measures such as period life expectancy, which reflect hypothetical mortality rather than the mortality actually experienced by a cohort. This study introduces a novel method to forecast cohort mortality and the cohort life expectancy of non-extinct cohorts. The intent is to complete the mortality profile of cohorts born up to 1960. The proposed method is based on the penalized composite link model for ungrouping data. The performance of the method is investigated using cohort mortality data retrieved from the Human Mortality Database for England & Wales, Sweden, and Switzerland for male and female populations.     

Exploring the widening food gap: an international perspective

Using data for a long panel of 90 developed and developing countries, this article explores the effects of research and development (R&D) and fixed capital stock on agricultural land productivity over the period 1961–2012. Instruments are used for R&D to deal with feedback effects and measurement errors. The results show very high social returns to investment in R&D and to fixed capital stock, suggesting that increasing investment in these factors are promising ways of arresting the increasing food prices due to increasing demand for animal protein, population growth, desertification, salinization, soil erosion, climate change, and decreasing growth in land productivity.     

运用列克西斯图分布编制生命表-双死亡数线性方法

利用按年龄和死亡时间收集的死亡数据 ,本研究提供了一种新的生命表计算方法。该方法的优点是利用了原有的死亡分布模式     

Effects of cohort size on college premium: Evidence from China's higher education expansion

In this paper, we document the lesser-known heterogeneous trends of college/non-college earnings premium across age groups from 1995 to 2013 in China. Specifically, the college premium in 2013 for the younger group (age 25–34) was about 30 percentage points, similar to the level in 1995, while the college premium in 2013 for the older group (age 45–54) increased to 50 percentage points, nearly double that of 1995. To attribute these divergent trends of the college premium to the changes in the relative size of college workers, we use the model by Card and Lemieux (2001), which incorporates imperfect substitution between similarly educated workers in different age cohorts. Due to the distinctions of these trends in China, our identification is free of the overestimation issue that the existing studies suffer. Our results are similar to those in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Japan. Holding the age cohort and survey year constant, a one unit increase in log relative size of college workers is associated with about 10 percentage points decrease in college/non-college premium and about 18 percentage points decrease in college/high school premium. We further find that the negative effect is much more substantial among the new entrants (age 25–29) than experienced workers (age 30–54). By this pattern, we demonstrate that the new labor market entrants are more sensitive to their own cohort size and argue that the confounding ability composition effect should not be a serious issue.     

学历的年代效应与股票市场投资者参与

中国建国后的教育制度变迁使得不同年代的相同学历包含的信息有所不同,本文在控制了年代效应的基础上,研究了学历对投资者股票市场参与的影响。基于建国后教育制度变迁的不同阶段,本文将样本分成三个部分,并分别检验了每个子样本的学历对投资者参与的影响,研究发现第二阶段的学历对投资者参与的影响比较敏感,第一阶段和第三阶段的学历对投资者参与的影响比较弱。将学历对投资者股票市场参与的影响路径分为金融认知和收入稳定性两个方面,进一步解释了不同受教育阶段投资者的学历影响投资者股票市场参与的原因。通过对比不同年代的相同学历的投资者金融认知水平,发现一般性的金融普及方式未必可以有效提高投资者股票市场参与,对高学历的老年人和低学历的中青年人有针对性的分类普及可能效果更好。     

Overeducation,job mobility and earnings mobility among holders of first degrees

Overeducation has been researched extensively for nearly three decades, but some major issues in regard to it are still topics of ongoing debate. By using a panel data, that combines a survey of two cohorts of Israeli first-degree holders and data from administrative sources on jobs and wages, we examine the contribution of job turnover, cognitive abilities and continuing graduate studies to the likelihood of overeducation and wage dynamics. The study produces four main findings. First, rapid job-switching makes a negative contribution to the increase in employee’s wage and there is a negative correlation between two variables – an employee’s tenure and the number of past employers in the years after the completion of degree studies – and the probability of being overeducated. Second, the contribution of the individual’s cognitive abilities and quantitative reasoning skills to the likelihood of becoming overeducated is negative. Third, the wages of overeducated employees are some 11% lower and rise more slowly than the wages of those whose level of schooling corresponds to their jobs; this outcome may be interpreted as indicating that the ‘scars’ of being overeducated tend to be long-lasting. Fourth, the overeducated workers have lower propensity to continue to advanced academic studies.     

Forecasting Travel Patterns Using Palmore's Cohort Analysis

Summary

The purpose of this study was to introduce Palmore's (1978) method of cohort analysis and illustrate its potential application to tourism forecasting. Results suggested that (a) older cohorts participate less frequently in international travel than younger cohorts, (b) decrease in participation continues as one ages, and (c) changes in travel behavior are due primarily to period effects. With respect to the impact these findings may have on the tourism industry, the results suggest that marketers should monitor the aggregate changes taking place within targeted cohorts, and strategic planning should not be based on an assessment of differences between cohorts at one point in time.     

The death of firms: exploring the effects of environment and birth cohort on firm survival in Sweden

This paper investigates the death of firms and seizes a long-term perspective. It investigates the life spans of nearly 2,200 firms in seven birth cohorts of Swedish joint-stock companies, founded during seven separate years between 1899 and 1950. Research has traditionally emphasized individual- and micro-oriented factors in explaining post-entry performance, or has often focused on the influence of firm-specific structural factors (firm age and size). A less attended field recognizes environmental forces. This paper focuses on the interaction between the micro and macro levels, and combines structural and environmental factors. Employing a cohort approach, it relates firm survival to firm age and size, as well as to the effect of cohort affiliation and environmental change over time (period effects). During macroeconomic expansion, the risk of death decreases. Cohort effects are also evident. Firms founded during times of economic crisis exhibit lower survival rates. Consequently, cohort affiliation and environmental forces, i.e. period effects, can explain differences in death rates in different firm populations.

Immigrant earnings differentials in Canada: A more general specification of age and experience effects

This paper investigates empirically the role of age and arrival cohort effects on immigrant earnings differentials. The dataset used consists of a sample of 5,069 adult Canadian male employees from the 1973 Job Mobility Survey, a non-census dataset that provides information on actual work experience, language attributes, and numerous parental family background characteristics. It thus allows a more general specification of foreign-born/native-born earnings differentials, particularly the effects of age, work experience and years since immigration. The results confirm the importance of cross-sectional age cohort effects and refine previous findings on arrival cohort effects. Sample selectivity bias is investigated and found to be significant only when respondent's occupation is not controlled for. Adjustment for sample selection bias leaves essentially unchanged the main findings.For their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper presented at a Labour Economics Conference at The University of Western Ontario, the authors would like to thank Martin Dooley, John Vanderkamp, Hank Farber, David Card and John Abowd. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the useful comments offered by members of the Labor Economics/Institute for Research on Poverty Workshop at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an anonymous referee. The authors, of course, retain full responsibility for all remaining errors and shortcomings. The first version of this paper was written while the second author was visiting the Industrial Relations Section at Princeton University and the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

中国城市失业率--从出生组分析经济转型的影响

中国城市的失业率存在显著的差异,如果比较不同的教育群体,不同性别和不同出生组别的话。相对而言,在所有教育组内,年轻群组内存在比年老群组更高的失业率。年老群组在他们劳动生涯内,失业率长期维持在接近零的水平。然而对于年轻群组,情况大相径庭:失业率差异增大。对于年轻群组而言,失业率和教育程度呈现反向关系:大学以上教育依然维持最低失业率水平。性别的失业率差距随着教育程度的降低而扩大:最大差距出现在低等教育组。除此以外,出生组别之间的失业率差异随着年龄增加而扩大,而且这种差距也是在低等教育女性组最为明显,这也意味着低等教育女性在劳动力市场的需求处于极为不利的地位。我们对于这种群组之间的失业率差距提供了解释:国有企业高度集中导致了非常低的失业率,而经济转型过程中国有企业比重的下降伴随着劳动力市场自由化程度的提高, 带来了较高的失业率。