Journal of Population Economics最新文献

We examine the effect of school shootings on risky health behaviors, health, and human capital outcomes of exposed students as adults and on their migration during middle and high school and a few years beyond. We use shootings data compiled by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security along with 2003–2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to examine risky behaviors, health, and human capital outcomes, and the 2004–2018 American Community Survey to examine migration. We find that students exposed to school shootings experience declines in health and well-being, engage in more risky behaviors, and have worse education and labor market outcomes as young adults. There is no evidence of migration in response to school shootings.

Our work sheds light on the joint role of human capital and geography during the early stages of the transition from stagnation to growth in early twentieth century Greece. We uncover a robust association between geography and literacy. We also show that geography is correlated with land inequality and thus establish that land distribution is a channel through which geography influences literacy. Finally, the impact of geography on human capital formation weakens with industrialization. Our work contributes to the literature on geography and human capital in the transition from stagnation to growth since Greece was at the early stages of the industrial era during the study period.

Abstract

This study investigates the conditions under which welfare fraud and incomplete take-up emerge simultaneously and persist for a long time, which has been observed in many countries, particularly Japan and Germany. To do this, we extend models of statistical discrimination and taxpayers’ resentment to simple models of population dynamics. We find two stable boundary equilibria in the first model. One of these equilibria entails low welfare fraud and (100%) incomplete take-up, and the other entails high welfare fraud and (100%) take-up. In contrast, we find a unique stable equilibrium in the tax resentment model, which is interior and thus allows for the coexistence of welfare fraud and incomplete take-up in a long run. Hence, we conclude that this unique long-run equilibrium of the dynamic taxpayers’ resentment model provides a better explanation for the observation of simultaneous and persistent presence of welfare fraud and incomplete take-up in actual economies.

This study investigates how the global adoption of modern electrical batteries influenced women’s fertility choices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country rich in cobalt, an essential component of lithium-ion batteries. The findings reveal that women living in cobalt-rich villages experience higher fertility rates and a greater desire for children relative to those in non-cobalt-rich communities. I attribute this phenomenon to the use of children in cobalt mines, as opposed to other mineral mining activities, which leads to a short-term increase in household wealth and motivates parents to have more children. These results provide novel insights into our understanding of the complex relationship between economic development, natural resources, and fertility decisions in developing economies.

This study unveils the causal effect of authoritative violence on individuals’ likelihood to migrate. Specifically, we examine the migration patterns of Venezuelans during the 2017–2018 political and economic crisis. We draw insights from regional-level data on civilian casualties caused by security forces, along with information extracted from the ENCOVI-2018 survey data that captures migration flows. The estimates rely on travel time from the capital city as an instrumental variable and are robust to the inclusion of several household- and socio-economic regional-level characteristics. The findings strongly suggest that authoritative violence is a significant non-economic push factor for international migration. Moreover, additional evidence indicates that this type of violence influences the skill composition of migrants, especially in the context of South-to-South migration flows.

We evaluate the impact of oral polio vaccines on the incidence of all disabilities (locomotor, hearing, visual, speech, and mental) in India, focusing on polio-related disability, which constitutes the largest fraction of locomotor disabilities. Polio was hyperendemic in India even as recently as the early 1990s, but the country was declared wild polio virus-free in 2014. Intent-to-treat effects from difference-in-differences with multiple time period models that condition on demographic and socio-economic characteristics reveal that access to oral polio vaccines in the year of birth reduced the incidence of any disability, locomotor disability, and polio-related disability by 20.5%, 11.6%, and 7.2%, respectively, signaling substantial gains. Impacts on any disability underline that polio vaccines had positive spillover effects on other disability categories as well. The eradication of polio in India, while relatively late, brought significant health benefits and is a notable health economics success story in a developing context.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a deleterious impact on the world economy. Studies have documented the disproportional impact of the pandemic on minorities, immigrants, and business owners in the USA. In this study, we use Current Population Survey monthly data spanning from January 2014 through December 2021 to examine how the COVID-19 pandemic affected Asian entrepreneurship. We show that the pandemic disproportionally hurt Asian entrepreneurship, particularly among immigrants, up until the end of 2020. A detailed analysis of Asian business dynamics reveals a substantial increase in self-employment exits during the first year of the pandemic. We fail to find convincing evidence of differential industry/job-type concentration, individual preferences, majority-minority disparities, narrower clientele, or differential access to government support as primary drivers for such patterns. Instead, we find suggestive evidence of discrimination playing a non-negligible role that subsided in 2021, coinciding with the rollout of vaccines.

The intersection of age with ethnicity is understudied, particularly for labor force outcomes. We explore the labor market for Hispanic high school graduates in the United States by age using information from the US Census, American Community Survey, Current Population Survey, and three laboratory experiments with different populations. We find that the differences in outcomes for Hispanic and non-Hispanic high school graduates do not change across the lifecycle. Moving to a laboratory setting, we provided participants with randomized resumes for a clerical position that are, on average, equivalent except for name and age. In all experiments, participants treated applicants with Hispanic and non-Hispanic names the same across the lifecycle. These findings are in stark contrast to the differences and patterns across the lifecycle for corresponding Black workers and job applicants. We argue that these null results may explain the much smaller literature on labor market discrimination against less-educated Hispanic workers.

Women bear a disproportionate share of the unpaid labor within a household, which contributes to gender gaps in life and relationship satisfaction. This paper examines how an exogenous shock that increases the workload within the household impacts the burden of unpaid labor. By exploiting a rich longitudinal dataset from Australia, I estimate the gendered impacts to parental workload and stress, life and relationship satisfaction, and household division of labor when parents have a child with a significant health shock. I find evidence that women experience a decrease in their satisfaction with parenting and life satisfaction. These results are most pronounced for households where the mother is less active in the labor market or less educated. Point estimates indicate that men do not experience the same negative effects.

I investigate the effects of California’s paid family leave (CA-PFL) program, the first state-mandated paid leave available to both mothers and fathers in the US. I examine the effects on the overall health of mothers and fathers during two distinct periods: health immediately around childbirth and health following childbirth. To do so, I leverage the variation in the timing of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) health care topical module relative to the exact year and month of childbirth. I find that CA-PFL has improved mothers’ health during pregnancy and immediately after childbirth. This improvement in health is accompanied by a reduced likelihood of mothers not working or taking unpaid work absence. Some improvements manifest in fathers’ health too during the same period. However, I observe that fathers report more instances of feeling sick, starting around 5 months after childbirth. Further analysis reveals that the share of fathers not working or taking unpaid work absence rises temporarily when the leave period ends. Understanding the effects on fathers’ health and leave utilization is pivotal to evaluating the program’s overall benefits and potential unintended consequences given the growing focus on enhancing equal access to paid leave for both mothers and fathers.