In one of the first studies of service sector robotics using establishment-level data, we study the impact of robots on staffing in Japanese nursing homes, using geographic variation in robot subsidies as an instrumental variable. We find that robot adoption increases employment by augmenting the number of care workers and nurses on flexible employment contracts, and decreases difficulty in staff retention. Robot adoption also reduces the monthly wages of regular nurses, consistent with reduced burden of care. Our findings suggest that the impact of robots may not be detrimental to labor and may remedy challenges posed by rapidly aging populations.
{"title":"Robots and Labor in the Service Sector: Evidence from Nursing Homes","authors":"K. Eggleston, Yong Suk Lee, Toshiaki Iizuka","doi":"10.3386/W28322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28322","url":null,"abstract":"In one of the first studies of service sector robotics using establishment-level data, we study the impact of robots on staffing in Japanese nursing homes, using geographic variation in robot subsidies as an instrumental variable. We find that robot adoption increases employment by augmenting the number of care workers and nurses on flexible employment contracts, and decreases difficulty in staff retention. Robot adoption also reduces the monthly wages of regular nurses, consistent with reduced burden of care. Our findings suggest that the impact of robots may not be detrimental to labor and may remedy challenges posed by rapidly aging populations.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75434794","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper argues that the social nature of humans, absent from the standard economic model, is crucial for understanding our large modern social states and why concerns about inequality are so pervasive. A social solution arises when a situation is resolved at the group level (rather than the individual level) through cooperation and fair distribution of the resulting surplus. In human societies, childcare and education for the young, retirement benefits for the old, health care for the sick, and income support for those in need are resolved at the social level and through the social state in advanced economies. Social situations are pervasive even outside government and play a significant role in the distribution of pretax market incomes.
{"title":"Public Economics and Inequality: Uncovering Our Social Nature","authors":"Emmanuel Saez","doi":"10.1257/PANDP.20211098","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/PANDP.20211098","url":null,"abstract":"This paper argues that the social nature of humans, absent from the standard economic model, is crucial for understanding our large modern social states and why concerns about inequality are so pervasive. A social solution arises when a situation is resolved at the group level (rather than the individual level) through cooperation and fair distribution of the resulting surplus. In human societies, childcare and education for the young, retirement benefits for the old, health care for the sick, and income support for those in need are resolved at the social level and through the social state in advanced economies. Social situations are pervasive even outside government and play a significant role in the distribution of pretax market incomes.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73008137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The other side of the coin to post-reform success is often pre-reform failure, and the policy lessons are found on both sides. The paper estimates how much of China’s poverty rate around 1980—near the outset of Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market reforms—is attributable to the prior Maoist regime. Based on the history, it is argued that South Korea and Taiwan provide a relevant counterfactual. Then a difference-in-difference estimate using historical data indicates that about two thirds of China’s poverty in 1980 is attributed to the impact of the Maoist path since 1950. Further checks and tests suggest that (if anything) this is likely to be an underestimate. It took 10-20 years for China’s post-reform economy to make up the lost ground. The impact of the Maoist path had begun to fade in the 1970s, and half or more of the catch-up was in period up to 1990, under Deng’s rule.
{"title":"Poverty in China Since 1950: A Counterfactual Perspective","authors":"M. Ravallion","doi":"10.3386/W28370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28370","url":null,"abstract":"The other side of the coin to post-reform success is often pre-reform failure, and the policy lessons are found on both sides. The paper estimates how much of China’s poverty rate around 1980—near the outset of Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market reforms—is attributable to the prior Maoist regime. Based on the history, it is argued that South Korea and Taiwan provide a relevant counterfactual. Then a difference-in-difference estimate using historical data indicates that about two thirds of China’s poverty in 1980 is attributed to the impact of the Maoist path since 1950. Further checks and tests suggest that (if anything) this is likely to be an underestimate. It took 10-20 years for China’s post-reform economy to make up the lost ground. The impact of the Maoist path had begun to fade in the 1970s, and half or more of the catch-up was in period up to 1990, under Deng’s rule.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"65 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89449529","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While there is a large literature on gender differences in important childhood developmental inputs in developing countries, the evidence for developed countries is relatively limited. I investigate gender differences in some of these inputs in the US and Canada. In the US very low birthweight males face excess mortality compared to their female counterparts. I provide evidence that the previously documented increase in mortality with the withdrawal of critical care at the Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) threshold is primarily for boys. The fact that the critical care of both boys and girls changes discretely at this threshold suggests a possible misallocation of scarce hospital resources. In the US first born girls are breastfed longer than first born males, but the difference is so small that it is unlikely to have any consequence. Finally, mothers in the US and Canada are more likely to experience depression post birth when the first born child is a boy. Perhaps related, the parenting of first born boys in Canada in the first years of life is more likely to be confrontational.
{"title":"Gender Differences in (Some) Formative Inputs to Child Development","authors":"Michael Baker","doi":"10.3386/W28382","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28382","url":null,"abstract":"While there is a large literature on gender differences in important childhood developmental inputs in developing countries, the evidence for developed countries is relatively limited. I investigate gender differences in some of these inputs in the US and Canada. In the US very low birthweight males face excess mortality compared to their female counterparts. I provide evidence that the previously documented increase in mortality with the withdrawal of critical care at the Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) threshold is primarily for boys. The fact that the critical care of both boys and girls changes discretely at this threshold suggests a possible misallocation of scarce hospital resources. In the US first born girls are breastfed longer than first born males, but the difference is so small that it is unlikely to have any consequence. Finally, mothers in the US and Canada are more likely to experience depression post birth when the first born child is a boy. Perhaps related, the parenting of first born boys in Canada in the first years of life is more likely to be confrontational.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72678227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A rich literature finds that individuals avoid information and suggests that avoidance is driven by image concerns. This paper provides the first direct test of whether individuals avoid information because of image concerns. We build on a classic paradigm, introducing control conditions that make minimal changes to eliminate the role of image concerns while keeping other key features of the environment unchanged. Data from 6,421 experimental subjects shows that image concerns play a role in driving information avoidance, but a role that is substantially smaller than one might have expected.
{"title":"Information Avoidance and Image Concerns","authors":"C. Exley, Judd B. Kessler","doi":"10.3386/W28376","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28376","url":null,"abstract":"A rich literature finds that individuals avoid information and suggests that avoidance is driven by image concerns. This paper provides the first direct test of whether individuals avoid information because of image concerns. We build on a classic paradigm, introducing control conditions that make minimal changes to eliminate the role of image concerns while keeping other key features of the environment unchanged. Data from 6,421 experimental subjects shows that image concerns play a role in driving information avoidance, but a role that is substantially smaller than one might have expected.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"81 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83888184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Recent growth accelerations in Africa are characterized by increasing productivity in agriculture, a declining share of the labor force employed in agriculture and declining productivity in modern sectors such as manufacturing. To shed light on this puzzle, we disaggregate firms in the manufacturing sector by size using two newly created panels of manufacturing firms, one for Tanzania covering 2008-2016 and one for Ethiopia covering 1996-2017. Our analysis reveals a dichotomy between larger firms that exhibit superior productivity performance but do not expand employment much, and small firms that absorb employment but do not experience any productivity growth. We suggest the poor employment performance of large firms is related to use of capital-intensive techniques associated with global trends in technology.
Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
{"title":"Africa&Apos;S Manufacturing Puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian Firms","authors":"X. Diao, Mia Ellis, M. McMillan, D. Rodrik","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3772595","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3772595","url":null,"abstract":"Recent growth accelerations in Africa are characterized by increasing productivity in agriculture, a declining share of the labor force employed in agriculture and declining productivity in modern sectors such as manufacturing. To shed light on this puzzle, we disaggregate firms in the manufacturing sector by size using two newly created panels of manufacturing firms, one for Tanzania covering 2008-2016 and one for Ethiopia covering 1996-2017. Our analysis reveals a dichotomy between larger firms that exhibit superior productivity performance but do not expand employment much, and small firms that absorb employment but do not experience any productivity growth. We suggest the poor employment performance of large firms is related to use of capital-intensive techniques associated with global trends in technology.<br><br>Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at <a href=\"http://www.nber.org/papers/w28344\" TARGET=\"_blank\">www.nber.org</a>.<br>","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"44 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86929294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Gaubert, Patrick M. Kline, Dami'an Vergara, Danny Yagan
We use Bureau of Economic Analysis, census, and Current Population Survey data to study trends in income inequality across US states and counties from 1960-2019. Both states and counties have diverged in terms of per capita pretax incomes since the late1990s, with transfers serving to dampen this divergence. County incomes have been diverging since the late 1970s. These trends in mean income mask opposing patterns among top-and bottom-income quantiles. Top incomes have diverged markedly across states since the late 1970s. In contrast, bottom-income quantiles and poverty rates have converged across areas in recent decades.
{"title":"Trends in U.S. Spatial Inequality: Concentrating Affluence and a Democratization of Poverty","authors":"C. Gaubert, Patrick M. Kline, Dami'an Vergara, Danny Yagan","doi":"10.1257/PANDP.20211075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/PANDP.20211075","url":null,"abstract":"We use Bureau of Economic Analysis, census, and Current Population Survey data to study trends in income inequality across US states and counties from 1960-2019. Both states and counties have diverged in terms of per capita pretax incomes since the late1990s, with transfers serving to dampen this divergence. County incomes have been diverging since the late 1970s. These trends in mean income mask opposing patterns among top-and bottom-income quantiles. Top incomes have diverged markedly across states since the late 1970s. In contrast, bottom-income quantiles and poverty rates have converged across areas in recent decades.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80821293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Marco Del Angel, Caroline M. Fohlin, Marc Weidenmier
We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. We use the death rate to control for the impact of the global pandemic and war news reported in the New York Times to capture the positive effects of the end of World War I on stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected NYSE stock price index, we show that there is a -.73 correlation between the aggregate stock market and the death rate. Furthermore, vector autoregressions demonstrate that the death rate can explain up to 24 percent of the forecast error variance in the aggregate stock index from September 1918 until the end of the pandemic in March 1920. We also find that the flu had a significant, but varied impact on nine NYSE sectors. The empirical analysis indicates that pandemics can matter big time for stock prices.
{"title":"Do Global Pandemics Matter for Stock Prices? Lessons from the 1918 Spanish Flu","authors":"Marco Del Angel, Caroline M. Fohlin, Marc Weidenmier","doi":"10.3386/W28356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28356","url":null,"abstract":"We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. We use the death rate to control for the impact of the global pandemic and war news reported in the New York Times to capture the positive effects of the end of World War I on stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected NYSE stock price index, we show that there is a -.73 correlation between the aggregate stock market and the death rate. Furthermore, vector autoregressions demonstrate that the death rate can explain up to 24 percent of the forecast error variance in the aggregate stock index from September 1918 until the end of the pandemic in March 1920. We also find that the flu had a significant, but varied impact on nine NYSE sectors. The empirical analysis indicates that pandemics can matter big time for stock prices.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82380020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study a dynamic model of environmental protection in which the level of pollution is a state variable that strategically links policy making periods. Policymakers are forward looking but politically motivated: they have heterogeneous preferences and do not fully internalize the cost of pollution. This type of political economy model is often reduced to a "modified" planner's problem, and yields predictions that are qualitatively similar to a planner's constrained optimum, albeit with a bias: too much pollution in the steady state (or, in other applications, too little investment in public goods, too much public debt, etc.). We highlight conditions under which this reduction is not possible, and the dynamic time inconsistency generated by the political process is responsible for a new type of distortion. Under these conditions, there are equilibria in which, for a generic economy and generic initial conditions, the state evolves in complex cycles, or unpredictable chaotic dynamics. Depending on the fundamentals of the economy, these equilibria may generate ergodic distributions that consistently overshoot the planner's steady state of pollution, or that fluctuate around it.
Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
{"title":"Chaos and Unpredictability in Dynamic Social Problems","authors":"M. Battaglini","doi":"10.3386/W28347","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/W28347","url":null,"abstract":"We study a dynamic model of environmental protection in which the level of pollution is a state variable that strategically links policy making periods. Policymakers are forward looking but politically motivated: they have heterogeneous preferences and do not fully internalize the cost of pollution. This type of political economy model is often reduced to a \"modified\" planner's problem, and yields predictions that are qualitatively similar to a planner's constrained optimum, albeit with a bias: too much pollution in the steady state (or, in other applications, too little investment in public goods, too much public debt, etc.). We highlight conditions under which this reduction is not possible, and the dynamic time inconsistency generated by the political process is responsible for a new type of distortion. Under these conditions, there are equilibria in which, for a generic economy and generic initial conditions, the state evolves in complex cycles, or unpredictable chaotic dynamics. Depending on the fundamentals of the economy, these equilibria may generate ergodic distributions that consistently overshoot the planner's steady state of pollution, or that fluctuate around it.<br><br>Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at <a href=\"http://www.nber.org/papers/w28347\" TARGET=\"_blank\">www.nber.org</a>.<br>","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"146 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77742252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent countermeasures disrupted economic activity around the world. We investigate the effects of COVID-19 disruptions on the gender gap in academia. We administer a global survey of academics to collect nuanced data on the respondents' circumstances, such as the number and ages of children and time use. All academics report substantial increases in childcare and housework burdens, but women experienced significantly larger increases than men. Female academics with children report a disproportionate reduction in research time, both relative to childless men and women and to male academics with children.
{"title":"Covid-19 Disruptions Disproportionately Affect Female Academics","authors":"T. Deryugina, Olga Shurchkov, Jenna Stearns","doi":"10.1257/PANDP.20211017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/PANDP.20211017","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent countermeasures disrupted economic activity around the world. We investigate the effects of COVID-19 disruptions on the gender gap in academia. We administer a global survey of academics to collect nuanced data on the respondents' circumstances, such as the number and ages of children and time use. All academics report substantial increases in childcare and housework burdens, but women experienced significantly larger increases than men. Female academics with children report a disproportionate reduction in research time, both relative to childless men and women and to male academics with children.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"187 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77378597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：