1,720,971 research outputs found
Intra-Household Allocation of Time and Resources: Empirical Evidence on a Sample of Italian Households with Young Children
Get PDFThis paper examines the labour supply decision of the household when the presence of pre-school children, creating non-separabilities in the use of time, is explicitly taken into account. A set of nested tests is obtained from the standard household utility model and from the collective one, both including a household production function measuring the quality of time provided to the children. The application of the tests to a sample of Italian households shows that the collective model considered in this paper cannot be rejected. For this demographic group we also find enough evidence against the income pooling hypothesis and against the Slutsky inter-person symmetry condition. However, the identification of the income sharing parameters shows that the distribution of the household non-labour income does not affect the household labour supply system. We also provide a measure of the bias implicit in the standard household utility approach, by comparing the labour supply elasticiticies obtained from the two models.Household labour supply, children
Individual Decisions and Household Demand for Consumption And Leisure
Get PDFThe standard microeconomic assumption of a household utility function raises two theoretical problems: it contradicts methodological individualism and it ignores economic phenomena like income and consumption sharing, division of labour, externalities and altruism within a household. This paper reviews two approaches, aggregation theory and more recent non-unitary models, to compare the different properties that household consumption and leisure demands have to satisfy in the two basic contexts. The paper also discusses some recent empirical evidence which seems to encourage further investigation in the non-unitary framework.consumption, labour supply, intra- household allocation
Does Indonesia have a"low-pay"civil service?
Get PDFGovernment officials and polcy analysts maintain that Indonesia's civil servants are poorly paid and have been for decades. This conclusion is supported by anecdotal evidence and casual empiricism. The authors systematically analyze the realtionship between government and private compensation levels using data from two large household surveys carried out by Indonesia's Central Bureau of Statistics: the 1998 Sakernas and 1999 Susenas. The results suggest that government workers with a high school education or less, representing three-quarters of the civil service, earn a pay premium over their private sector counterparts. Civil servants with more than a high school education earn less than they would in the private sector but, on average, the premium is far smaller than commonly is alleged and is in keeping with public/private differentials in other countries. These results prove robust to varying econometric specifications and cast doubt on low pay as an explanation for government corruption.Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,National Governance,Knowledge Economy,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,NationalGovernance,Knowledge Economy,Education for the Knowledge Economy,Parliamentary Government
Welfare analysis of fiscal reforms in Europe: Does the representation of family decision processes matter? Evidence from Italy
Get PDFThis paper adopts a "piece-meal" approach to empirically identify, on a sample of Italian households, a collective model where both nonparticipation and non-convex budget sets are allowed for. Two tax reforms, i.e. the 2002 tax changes recently introduced in Italy and a revenue neutral linear income tax are evaluated by the collective framework derived. The predictions obtained for individual labour supplies, income and welfare distribution are then compared with those of a traditional unitary model. The exercise provide an assessment of the distortion introduced in positive and normative analyses when individuals are assumed to behave as if in a unitary, rather than in a collective world. The results suggest that further efforts should be devoted to the analysis of intra-household decision models.collective models; intra household allocation; tax reform
Labor market time and home production: A new test for collective models of intra- household allocation
Get PDFThe allocation of time is a crucial decision that influences many aspects of household welfare, above all consumption, income level and home production. This paper presents a new methodology to estimate woman domestic productivity using a French time use survey, at least whenever the recursivity property for constrained utility maximization with home production applies. It provides empirical evidence not rejecting a collective model of household decision making over working time, as the sum of time spent in domestic production and market labor time. Our results show also that female domestic productivity is a relevant variable explaining intra-household distribution of resources.Collective models, home production, time- use
Financial Market Imperfections and Home Ownership: A Comparative Study
Get PDFWe explore the determinants of the international pattern of homeownership using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), a collection of microeconomic data on fourteen OECD countries. In most of these countries the cross-section is repeated over time. This allows us to construct a truly unique international dataset on over 400,000 households. The dataset also includes selected demographic variables (carefully matched between the different surveys). After controlling for individual-country effects, cohort effects and calendar time effects, we find strong evidence that different downpayment ratios affect the age-profile of housing tenure, particularly for the young.homeownership, financial markets
With the help of one's neighbors - externalities in the production of nutrition in Peru
Get PDFBoth public, and private resources contribute to children's nutritional status. And investments by one household may improve health in other neighborhood households, by improving the sanitation environment, and increasing shared knowledge. The authors measure the externalities of investments in nutrition, by indicatingthe impact of women's education in Peruvian neighborhoods, on children's nutrition in other households, after controlling for those households'education, and income. They find that in rural areas this shared knowledge has a significant impact on nutrition. The coefficient of an increase in the average education in the neighborhood is appreciably larger than the coefficient of education in isolation. That is, educating women in rural areas, improves all children's nutritional status, even for those whose caregivers are themselves not educated. In both urban, and rural areas, they observe externalities from investments in sanitation made by neighboring households. They do not find the same externalities in the case of investments, only in the household water supply. There is a direct link between the caregivers'education, and their children's health status. Education transmits information about health, and nutrition. It teaches numeracy, and literacy, which help caregivers read labels, and instructions. Bu exposing caregivers to new environments, it makes them receptive to modern medical treatment. It gives women the confidence to participate in decision-making within a household, and it gives men, and women the confidence to interact with health care professionals.Health Economics&Finance,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Decentralization,Public Health Promotion,Urban Services to the Poor,Urban Services to the Poor,Health Economics&Finance,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Town Water Supply and Sanitation
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