3,256 research outputs found
The effect of availability and distance from school on children‘s time allocation in Ghana
No full textIn this paper we present evidence on the impact of distance to school and school availability
on households’ decisions concerning time allocation of primary-age children between work, schooling,
and household chores activities using data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey 1998–99. Our results
indicate that the increased and eased access to school has a well-defined impact on children’s time use.
In particular, reducing the distance to primary school encourages children school attendance and
reduces children work. Interestingly, the distance to middle school discourages children’s work and
boosts household chores activities. Moreover, the availability of both primary and middle schools has a
positive effect on schooling decisions, and having a primary school nearby discourages household chores
activity. Our results are robust to controlling for the endogeneity of school placement and per capita
expenditures. We also find that household decisions about children’s time use differ by children’s sex,
suggesting that girls may be differently responsive to policy measures aimed at reducing work and
household chores activities and at increasing their school attendance
Joint custody law and mothers' labor market outcomes: evidence from the USA
No full textThis paper studies the economic implications for mothers of the changes
in child custody law from maternal preference to joint custody using the 1960–2000
Census Public Use Micro Sample (IPUMS). Variation in the timing of the joint custody
reform across states provides a natural experimental framework to study the
causal effect of shared custody on mothers’ economic outcomes. The results show
that only single mothers experience a decrease in earnings as a consequence of the
adoption of the joint custody law, exposing them to a higher risk of poverty. The
paper discusses a possible explanation for these findings, namely that the higher child
support payment the mother receives from the non-custodial father in case of joint
custody might discourage her from looking for high paid jobs or investing in her
career
Air Pollution during Pregnancy and Birth Outcomes in Italy
No full textWe investigate the impact of fetal exposure to air pollution on health outcomes at birth in Italy in the 2000s combining information on mother’s residential location from birth certificates with information on PM10 concentrations from air quality monitors. The potential endogeneity deriving from differential pollution exposure is addressed by exploiting as-good-as-random variation in rainfall shocks as an instrumental variable for air pollution concentrations. Our results show that both average levels of PM10 and days above the hazard limit have detrimental effects on birth weight, duration of gestation as well as overall health status at birth. These effects are mainly driven by pollution exposure during the third trimester of pregnancy and further differ in size with respect to the maternal socio-economic status, suggesting that babies born to socially disadvantaged mothers are more vulnerable. Given the non negligible effects of pollution on birth outcomes, further policy efforts are needed to fully protect fetuses from the adverse effects of air pollution and to mitigate the environmental inequality of health at birth
In-Work Benefits for Married Couples: an Ex-Ante Evaluation of EITC and WTC Policies in Italy
No full textThis paper investigates labor supply and redistributive effects of in-work benefits for Italian
married couples using a tax-benefit microsimulation model and a multi-sectoral discrete choice model of labor
supply. We consider in-work benefits based on the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Working Tax
Credit (WTC) existing in the US and the UK, respectively. The standard design of these income support
mechanisms is however augmented with a premium for two-earner households to avoid potential disincentive
effects on secondary earners. Revenue neutral policy simulations show that our reforms may greatly improve
the current Italian tax-benefit system in terms of both incentive and redistributive effects. Furthermore,
neglecting sector-specific attributes of the various job opportunities may lead to overstated estimates of the
policy effects
Home Sweet Home: the Effect of Sugar Protectionism on Emigration in Italy, 1876-1913
No full textProtectionist policies have often relevant effects at the regional level. This paper analyzes the impact of sugar import duties on emigration in nineteenth century Italy. Both for climatic reasons and the nature of the soil, the cultivation and processing of sugar beets was geographically concentrated. Our theoretical model illustrates how a tariff that favours local producers may affect residents' incentive to migrate abroad. Using a new set historical data, the predictions of the model are tested through quasi-experimental methods which use the exogenous variation in sugar cultivation across areas to estimate the effect of interest. Results show that protectionism reduced the relative incentive to migrate away from sugar-producing areas
The mismatch between employment and child care in Italy: the impact of rationing
No full textLabor market decisions, Fertility, Child care, J2, C3, D1,
Counting rotten apples: Student achievement and score manipulation in Italian elementary Schools
No full textWe derive bounds on the distribution of math and language scores of elementary school students in Italy
correcting for pervasive manipulation. A natural experiment that randomly assigns external monitors to
schools is used to deal with endogeneity of manipulation, as well as its mismeasurement in the data.
Bounds are obtained from properties of the statistical model used to detect classes with manipulated
scores, and from restrictions on the relationship between manipulation and true scores. Our results show
that regional rankings by academic performance are reversed once manipulation is taken into account
In a Small Moment: Class Size and Moral Hazard in the Italian Mezzogiorno
No full textInstrumental variables (IV ) estimates show strong class-size effects in Southern Italy. But Italy's Mezzogiorno is distinguished by manipulation of standardized test scores as well as by economic disadvantage. IV estimates suggest small classes increase manipulation. We argue that score manipulation is a consequence of teacher shirking. IV estimates of a causal model for achievement as a function of class size and score manipulation show that class-size effects on measured achievement are driven entirely by the relationship between class size and manipulation. These results illustrate how consequential score manipulation can arise even in assessment systems with few accountability concerns
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