Matching Items (18)
Description
This dissertation comprises three chapters.
In chapter one, using a rich dataset for the United States, I estimate a series of models to document the birth order effects on cognitive outcomes, non-cognitive outcomes, and parental investments. I estimate a model that allows for heterogeneous birth order effects by unobservables to examine how birth order effects varies across households. I find that first-born children score 0.2 of a standard deviation higher on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes than their later-born siblings. They also receive 10\% more in parental time, which accounts for more than half of the differences in outcomes. I document that birth order effects vary between 0.1 and 0.4 of a standard deviation across households with the effects being smaller in households with certain characteristics such as a high income.
In chapter two, I build a model of intra-household resource allocation that endogenously generates the decreasing birth order effects in household income with the aim of using the model for counterfactual policy experiments. The model has a life-cycle framework in which a household with two children confronts a sequence of time constraints and a lifetime monetary constraint, and divides the available time and monetary resources between consumption and investment. The counterfactual experiment shows that an annual income transfer of 10,000 USD to low-income households decreases the birth order effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills by one-sixth, which is five times bigger than the effect in high-income household.
In chapter three, with Francesco Agostinelli and Matthew Wiswall, we examine the relative importance of investments at home and at school during an important transition for many children, entering formal schooling at kindergarten. Moreover, our framework allows for complementarities between children's skills and investments from schools. We find that investments from schools are an important determinant of children's skills at the end of kindergarten, whereas parental investments, although strongly correlated with end-of-kindergarten outcomes, have smaller effects. In addition, we document a negative complementarity between children's skills at kindergarten entry and investments from schools, implying that low-skill children benefit the most from an increase in the quality of schools.
In chapter one, using a rich dataset for the United States, I estimate a series of models to document the birth order effects on cognitive outcomes, non-cognitive outcomes, and parental investments. I estimate a model that allows for heterogeneous birth order effects by unobservables to examine how birth order effects varies across households. I find that first-born children score 0.2 of a standard deviation higher on cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes than their later-born siblings. They also receive 10\% more in parental time, which accounts for more than half of the differences in outcomes. I document that birth order effects vary between 0.1 and 0.4 of a standard deviation across households with the effects being smaller in households with certain characteristics such as a high income.
In chapter two, I build a model of intra-household resource allocation that endogenously generates the decreasing birth order effects in household income with the aim of using the model for counterfactual policy experiments. The model has a life-cycle framework in which a household with two children confronts a sequence of time constraints and a lifetime monetary constraint, and divides the available time and monetary resources between consumption and investment. The counterfactual experiment shows that an annual income transfer of 10,000 USD to low-income households decreases the birth order effects on cognitive and non-cognitive skills by one-sixth, which is five times bigger than the effect in high-income household.
In chapter three, with Francesco Agostinelli and Matthew Wiswall, we examine the relative importance of investments at home and at school during an important transition for many children, entering formal schooling at kindergarten. Moreover, our framework allows for complementarities between children's skills and investments from schools. We find that investments from schools are an important determinant of children's skills at the end of kindergarten, whereas parental investments, although strongly correlated with end-of-kindergarten outcomes, have smaller effects. In addition, we document a negative complementarity between children's skills at kindergarten entry and investments from schools, implying that low-skill children benefit the most from an increase in the quality of schools.
ContributorsSaharkhiz, Morteza (Author) / Silverman, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Wiswall, Matthew (Thesis advisor) / Aucejo, Esteban (Committee member) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This dissertation consists of three essays on modern economic growth and structural transformation, in particular touching on the reallocation of labor across industries, occupations, and employment statuses.
The first chapter investigates the quantitative importance of non-employment in the labor market outcomes for the United States. During the last 50 years, production has shifted from goods to services. In terms of occupations, the routine employment share decreased, giving way to increases in manual and abstract ones. These two patterns are related, and lower non-employment had an important role. A labor allocation model where goods, market services, and home services use different tasks as inputs is used for quantitative exercises. These show that non-employment could significantly slow down polarization and structural transformation, and induce significant displacement within the labor force.
The second chapter, coauthored with Bart Hobijn and Todd Schoellman, looks at the demographic structure of structural transformation. More than half of labor reallocation during structural transformation is due to new cohorts disproportionately entering growing industries. This suggests substantial costs to labor reallocation. A model of overlapping generations with life-cycle career choice under switching costs and structural transformation is studied. Switching costs accelerate structural transformation, since forward-looking workers enter growing industries in anticipation of future wage growth. Most of the impact of switching costs shows on relative wages.
The third chapter establishes that job polarization is a global phenomenon. The analysis of polarization is extended from a group of developed countries to a sample of 119 economies. At all levels of development, employment shares in routine occupations have decreased since the 1980s. This suggests that routine occupations are becoming increasingly obsolete throughout the world, rather than being outsourced to developing countries. A development accounting framework with technical change at the \textit{task} level is proposed. This allows to quantify and extrapolate task-specific productivity levels. Recent technological change is biased against routine occupations and in favor of manual occupations. This implies that in the following decades, world polarization will continue: employment in routine occupations will decrease, and the reallocation will happen mostly from routine to manual occupations, rather than to abstract ones.
The first chapter investigates the quantitative importance of non-employment in the labor market outcomes for the United States. During the last 50 years, production has shifted from goods to services. In terms of occupations, the routine employment share decreased, giving way to increases in manual and abstract ones. These two patterns are related, and lower non-employment had an important role. A labor allocation model where goods, market services, and home services use different tasks as inputs is used for quantitative exercises. These show that non-employment could significantly slow down polarization and structural transformation, and induce significant displacement within the labor force.
The second chapter, coauthored with Bart Hobijn and Todd Schoellman, looks at the demographic structure of structural transformation. More than half of labor reallocation during structural transformation is due to new cohorts disproportionately entering growing industries. This suggests substantial costs to labor reallocation. A model of overlapping generations with life-cycle career choice under switching costs and structural transformation is studied. Switching costs accelerate structural transformation, since forward-looking workers enter growing industries in anticipation of future wage growth. Most of the impact of switching costs shows on relative wages.
The third chapter establishes that job polarization is a global phenomenon. The analysis of polarization is extended from a group of developed countries to a sample of 119 economies. At all levels of development, employment shares in routine occupations have decreased since the 1980s. This suggests that routine occupations are becoming increasingly obsolete throughout the world, rather than being outsourced to developing countries. A development accounting framework with technical change at the \textit{task} level is proposed. This allows to quantify and extrapolate task-specific productivity levels. Recent technological change is biased against routine occupations and in favor of manual occupations. This implies that in the following decades, world polarization will continue: employment in routine occupations will decrease, and the reallocation will happen mostly from routine to manual occupations, rather than to abstract ones.
ContributorsVindas Quesada, Alberto José (Author) / Hobijn, Bart (Thesis advisor) / Bick, Alexander (Committee member) / Ventura, Gustavo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
A recession at the time of high school graduation could place multiple and competing pressures on a student deciding between entering the labor force and going to college. A recession may lower opportunity costs, increasing college enrollment and depressing the college wage premium; a downturn may also restrict enrollment to only those with sufficient family resources to pay for it. In the event that either of these illustrations holds true, recessions would seem to result in an adverse, exogenous welfare impact. This paper examines the extent to which recessions at the time of high school graduation affect students' likelihood of enrolling in college and then looks at the long-term earnings effects these early-life recessions carry. I first describe the choice between entering a volatile labor market and enrolling in higher education that faces 18-year-old high school graduates during a recession. For my analysis, I use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study the effects recessions have on high school graduates' decision-making. I then develop a model using these same data to compare the college wage premiums for individuals treated and untreated by a recession at the time of high school graduation. I find that recessions result in an economically significant uptick in college enrollment. However, the college wage premium for those who enroll in a recession is not statistically different from that witnessed by enrollees in better economic climates. Nonetheless, those young people who enter college during a recession may witness an economically appreciable earnings premium over and above the typical college premium. I conclude by exploring the significance of these findings and reflect on their seemingly contradictory implications.
ContributorsFischer, Brett (Author) / Dillon, Eleanor (Thesis director) / Wiswall, Matthew (Committee member) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Students in an online course can face diminished incentives to exert effort and focus without the structure of instructor-paced material. To introduce new motivation to spend more time with course material, this paper examines the use of A/B split test content experiments. One group of students is exposed to a set of hidden hyperlinks ("Easter Eggs") within the course and earns trivially small amounts of course credit for finding them. While controlling for demographics and initial effort, finding each additional Easter Egg is associated with a 0.8 percentage point increase in final grade. This effect is even stronger for low performers: for those below the median grade before the first Easter Egg, each find increases final grade by 1.3 points. The treatment advantages low-performing students more than their high-achieving counterparts, thus helping to reduce the education gap at extremely low cost to course developers.
ContributorsWinseck, Kevin Lee (Author) / Hobijn, Bart (Thesis director) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Music (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
On September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet became the leader of Chile after a violent coup d’état, which left the economy in shambles. The previous president and ruling party, Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity coalition respectively, were moving the country towards socialism and in doing so increased the government presence in the economy, nationalized copper and other industries, and redistributed agricultural land. Soon after nationalizing the copper industry, prices fell and the large expenditures being made by the government lead to a recession characterized by shrinking GDP, failing nationalized businesses, US economic sanctions, high inflation, and unfavorable exchange rates. Pinochet turned to the Chicago Boys, Chilean economists educated at the University of Chicago’s School of Economics by Milton Friedman, to formulate an economic plan that would reduce inflation as well as limiting government involvement in the economy. This paper will examine the neoliberal free market principals instituted by the Chicago Boys, the immediate and delayed effects in the Chilean government, and how these principals have been and can be utilized to provide stabilization and growth in other Latin American economies.
ContributorsJohnsen, Kaitlin (Author) / Goegan, Brian (Thesis director) / Hobijn, Bart (Committee member) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Yearly changes in the consumer price index are used to adjust social security benefits in order to keep the purchasing power of social security beneficiaries the same. Currently, social security benefits are adjusted using a fixed-weighted price index that reflects the purchasing patterns of workers. However, some believe that a price index that captures the spending habits of the elderly should adjust monthly social security benefits, while others argue that a chain-weighted price index is a more accurate indexation technique. This report finds that if an elderly or chain-weighted price index were implemented this year, there would not be a significant change in the projected insolvency of the social security trust fund, but there could be a substantial decrease in the social security trust fund's yearly cash-flow deficit. Therefore, changing the indexation of social security benefits should not be seen as a short-term solvency fix. Instead, adjusting monthly social security benefits should be about keeping the purchasing power of beneficiaries relatively the same.
ContributorsScobas, Peter Jonathan (Author) / Hobijn, Bart (Thesis director) / Smith, Kerry (Committee member) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Existing research into the health benefits of insurance fall into two major categories \u2014 observational and experimental. Observational studies have centered on data sets from before 2000 and focus on the mortality differences between the privately insured and the uninsured. Experimental studies began with Massachusetts' 2006 health reform and continued after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. These studies measure the effects of public insurance among the coverage expansion populations. These two bodies of literature come to ambiguous and contradictory conclusions to the mortality effects and health value of insurance. This study extends the observational methodologies to the publicly insured in samples from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in both the 1988-1994 survey and the 2001-2002 survey. Using the Cox Proportional Hazard model, this study estimates the hazard ratios faced by the privately and publicly insured compared to the uninsured. This study finds the publicly insured face hazards 1.5 times those of the uninsured (p<.001), while the privately insured do not face hazards significantly different from those of the uninsured. Literature suggests that some unobserved characteristic of the publicly insured are influencing their mortality. Interacting with participants health reveals that these differences across groups shrink as health declines. Experimental literature suggests that public insurance lowers the uninsured risk from "healthcare amenable" conditions. Treatment of these conditions may explain the hazard reductions among the uninsured in non-excellent health. The high risk of the publicly insured in excellent health defies explanation.
ContributorsMorita, Aidan James Donnelly (Author) / Veramendi, Gregory (Thesis director) / Zafar, Basit (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In this paper I seek to understand how consumers value music today by investigating what consumers are willing to pay for digitally downloaded songs (such as the ones available on the iTunes or Amazon music stores) and the variety of factors that influence their willingness to pay. I conducted a survey and received over 500 responses regarding willingness to pay for single-song downloads, consumer sentiment on whether music should be free, streaming service use, and other information pertaining to music consumption behavior. Through this research I found that paid-streamers are willing to pay more for songs than those who do not pay to stream, all else being equal. Further, Free-streamers are not willing to pay significantly more or less than non-streamers. This finding is additional information to other research that suggests streaming acts as a substitute for sales. I also found that most consumers are in the middle when it comes to the debate for whether music should always be free or always be purchased. Where someone aligns on the spectrum is a statistically significant contributing factor to what that person is willing to pay for a song. My findings also suggest that consumer preferences distinguish between benefit derived from music ownership and benefit derived from the ability to listen to music. This information sheds more light on the reason behind the declining digital download market.
ContributorsRodriguez, Stefan Daniel (Author) / Mandel, Naomi (Thesis director) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This dissertation contains a portfolio of papers in economics. The first paper, ``Vehicle Emissions Inspection Programs: Equality and Impact," presents the results of a study of the Arizona Vehicle Emissions Inspection Program. Using a unique data set, I find that the Arizona Vehicle Emissions Inspection Program is regressive in that it constrains the vehicle repair decisions of people on the low end of the income distribution more than those on the high end. I also find that the social cost of the program in Arizona is more than twice the social benefit, assuming a \$7 million value of statistical life. The second paper is ``Fiat Value in the Theory of Value." Because of advances in information processing technology, it is now technically feasible to have a currency-less monetary system. This paper explores one such system. In the model, prices are in units currency-less fiat money called fiat value, fiat value is a form of government debt, and the services of the stock of fiat value are a factor of production. In this system, the National accounts must be revised to account for money as a production factor, Friedman satiation is possible even with positive inflation, and various monetary policy regimes are explored. The third paper, ``Unconventional Monetary Policy in a Modern Paradigm of Money," uses the model developed in ``Fiat Value in the Theory of Value" to evaluate quantitative easing and interest on reserves policies as a response to liquidity shocks. I find that quantitative easing is an effective response to liquidity crises because it drives the marginal product of money to zero. When the marginal product of money is zero, the business sector does not have to pay to rent the services of money, a production factor that is free to create. I also show that a positive interest on reserve policy hampers the effectiveness of quantitative easing, and that quantitative easing does not cause a high inflation rate.
ContributorsWessel, Ryan J (Author) / Prescott, Edward C. (Thesis advisor) / Schoellman, Todd (Committee member) / Hobijn, Bart (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Family economics uses economic concepts such as productions and decision making to understand family behavior. Economists place emphasis on the rule of families on labor supply, human capital investment, and consumption. In a household, the members choose the optimal time allocations between working, housework and leisure, and money between consumption of different members and savings. One-Child policy and strong inter-generational connections cause unique family structure in China. Households of different generations provide income transfer and labor support to each other. Households consider these connections in their savings, labor supply, human capital investment, fertility and marriage decisions. Especially, strong intergenerational relationships in China are one cause of the high level of young female labor supply and high saving rate. I will investigate the rules of intergenerational relationships on household economic behavior.
Affirmative Action allocates college seats to a separate group. To evaluate the distribution effects of AA on discrete groups, we need to study household's strategic reactions on the rule of college seats allocation. The admission system of National College Entrance Examination in China is a type of AA. That distributes college seats by regions. I will use the rapid expansion of Chinese college enrollment as a natural experiment to check the households' reaction on AA and college expansion.
Media economics utilizes economic empirical and theoretical tools to figure out the social, cultural, and economic issues in media industries. The impact of online piracy on genuine products sales is under debate, because people cannot find representing proxies to evaluate piracy levels. I will use Chinese data to study the effects of online piracy on theater revenue.
Affirmative Action allocates college seats to a separate group. To evaluate the distribution effects of AA on discrete groups, we need to study household's strategic reactions on the rule of college seats allocation. The admission system of National College Entrance Examination in China is a type of AA. That distributes college seats by regions. I will use the rapid expansion of Chinese college enrollment as a natural experiment to check the households' reaction on AA and college expansion.
Media economics utilizes economic empirical and theoretical tools to figure out the social, cultural, and economic issues in media industries. The impact of online piracy on genuine products sales is under debate, because people cannot find representing proxies to evaluate piracy levels. I will use Chinese data to study the effects of online piracy on theater revenue.
ContributorsYue, Yang (Author) / Silverman, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Kovrijnykh, Natalia (Committee member) / Veramendi, Gregory (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017