A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that 75 percent of the effect of the birth of a first child on the overall gender gap in employment is accounted for by gender disparities in non-local employment.
Author Abstract: We study the effect of childbirth on local and non-local employment dynamics for both men and women using Belgian social security and geo-location data. Applying an eventstudy design that accounts for treatment effect heterogeneity, we show that 75 percent of the effect of the birth of a first child on the overall gender gap in employment is accounted for by gender disparities in non-local employment, with mothers being more likely to give up non-local employment compared to fathers. This gender specialisation is mostly driven by opposing job location responses of men and women to individual, household and regional factors. On the one hand, men do not give up non-local employment after childbirth when they are employed in a high-paid job, have a partner who is not participating in the labour market or experience adverse local labour market conditions, suggesting that fathers trade off better employment opportunities with longer commutes. On the other hand, women give up non-local jobs regardless of their earnings level, their partner’s labour market status and local economic conditions, which is consistent with mothers specialising in childcare provision compared to fathers.
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JUST PUBLISHED Vol. 35, Issue 3, July 2022: Journal of Population Economics (JOPE): 15 articles https://link.springer.com/journal/148/volumes-and-issues/35-3 Just released: CiteScore of JOPE moves up from 3.9 (2020) to 6.5 (2021)!LINK Similar, its Impact Factor is now 4.7 (2021) after 2.8 (2020)! LINK
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
The new Clarivate Impact Factor ranks the Journal of Population Economics(JOPE) substantially higher; from a value of 2.8 in 2020 it moved up to 4.7 for 2021. This confirms the strong upward trend in performance of the Journal already documented by the Scopus Cite Score, see LINK. While the Scopus Cite Score measures the contributions of journals with a broader coverage and a more long-term (4 years) basis, the Clarivate Journal Impact Factor 2021 is calculated as citations in 2021 to items published in 2019 and 2020 divided by the number of citable items in 2019 and 2020. The Clarivate Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) for 2021 is now 1.76, implying that JoPE has 76% more citation impact than the average in its category. The journal rank revealed by JCI for 2021 is 43 among the 570 journals in economics (Q1) and 2 among the 50 journals in demography (Q1).
The Journal of Population Economics JOPE Summer Event will take place online on 15 July 2022 (10.30-19.30 CEST Berlin/German time) on the hundredth birthday of Jacob Mincer, hero of labor, household and population economics. A session will reflect on his work. Others report on the highlights of new and forthcoming JOPE articles , including lead paper issues such as religiosity & the U.S. Capitol Riot and topics like abortions, climate & the Covid-19 pandemic, among others…..
Participation is open for the public and around the world, starting with participants from Australia and Asia, covering research from Africa and Europe, and ending with work from the US and Latin America. Online conferencing makes this all possible.
Register in time to meet the authors to get informed about new research and to ask questions. Authors will present the highlights of their articles published in issues 35:3 (issue just published) and 35:4 (issue in print, articles published online already) of 2022.
Meet the authors! Talk to the editors! You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: July 15, 2022; 10.30-19.30 CEST Berlin/Germany time. Join full or in part as of interest. Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEvc–spzgsE9R1vUt4m4f_zgBGCK_ssyT7 After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing the personal event link. You will then be reminded a few hours before the event starts.
Program
Presenting authors in bold! Scheduled times all CEST/Berlin-Germany. Lead papers have 20 min presentation & 10 min for Q&A; regular papers 10 (presentation) and 5 (Q&A).
10:30-10.35 Welcome: Klaus F. Zimmermann, Editor-in-Chief
10:35-12:30 Paper Session I. Chair:Kompal Sinha, Editor
15:15-16:15 Jacob Mincer Centennial. Chair: Klaus F. Zimmermann, Editor-in-Chief
Pedro N. Teixeira, Secretary of State for Higher Education in the Portuguese Government, author of Jacob Mincer. A Founding Father of Modern Labor Economics, Oxford University Press
Barry Chiswick, JOPE Advisory Board, former Associate Editor
16.15- 17.15 Journal of Population Economics (JOPE) Progress
Progress report: Klaus F. Zimmermann, Editor-in-Chief
Reflections on publishing: Terra McKinnish, Editor; Alfonso Flores-Lagunes, Editor
Q & R with the audience.
17.15-17.30 BREAK
17:30-19:30 Paper Session III. Chair:Madeline Zavodny, Managing Editor
Lead paper of issue 35(4) October 2022. Dhaval Dave, Drew McNichols & Joseph Sabia Political Violence, Risk Aversion, and Non-Localized Disease Spread: Evidence from the U.S. Capitol Riot In print, available in due course.
Author Abstract: Can public university honors programs deliver the benefits of selective undergraduate education within otherwise nonselective institutions? We evaluate the impact of admission to the Honors College at Oregon State University, a large nonselective public university. Admission to the Honors College depends heavily on a numerical application score. Nonlinearities in admis- sions probabilities as a function of this score allow us to compare applicants with similar scores, but different admissions outcomes, via a fuzzy regression kink design. The first stage is strong, with takeup of Honors College programming closely following nonlinearities in admissions prob- abilities. To estimate the causal effect of Honors College admission on human capital formation, we use these nonlinearities in the admissions function as instruments, combined with course- section fixed effects to account for strategic course selection. Honors College admission increases course grades by 0.10 grade points on the 0-4 scale, or 0.14 standard deviations. Effects are concentrated at the top of the course grade distribution. Previous exposure to Honors sections of courses in the same subject is a leading potential channel for increased grades. However, course grades of first-generation students decrease in response to Honors admission, driven by low performance in natural science courses. Results suggest that selective Honors programs can accelerate skill acquisition for high-achieving students at public universities, but not all students benefit from Honors admission.
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JUST PUBLISHED Vol. 35, Issue 3, July 2022: Journal of Population Economics (JOPE): 15 articles https://link.springer.com/journal/148/volumes-and-issues/35-3 Just released: CiteScore of JOPE moves up from 3.9 (2020) to 6.5 (2021)!LINK Similar, its Impact Factor is now 4.7 (2021) after 2.8 (2020)! LINK
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds that Indian workers react to asymmetric regional shocks by adjusting up to a third of a regional non-employment shock through migration within two years. This is somewhat higher than the response to non-employment shocks in the United States and the European Union but somewhat lower than the response to unemployment shocks in these economies
Author Abstract: This paper uses Indian EUS-NSSO data on 32 states/union territories and 570 districts for a bi-annual panel with 5 waves to estimate how regional population reacts to asymmetric shocks. These shocks are measured by non-employment rates, unemployment rates, and wages in fixed-effects regressions which effectively use changes in these indicators over time within regions as identifying information. Because we include region and time effects, we interpret regression-adjusted population changes as proxies for regional migration. Comparing the results with those for the United States and the European Union, the most striking difference is that, in India, we do not find any significant reactions to asymmetric non-employment shocks at the state level, only at the district level, whereas the estimates are statistically significant and of similar size for the state/NUTS-1 and district level in both the United States and Europe. We find that Indian workers react to asymmetric regional shocks by adjusting up to a third of a regional non-employment shock through migration within two years. This is somewhat higher than the response to non-employment shocks in the United States and the European Union but somewhat lower than the response to unemployment shocks in these economies. In India, the unemployment rate does not seem to be a reliable measure of regional shocks, at least we find no signi ficant effects for it. However, we find a significant population response to regional wage differentials in India at both the state and district level.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Paper reviews theories and evidence to find that most identified discrimination relates to gender in comparison to race or ethnic group.
Author Abstract: This paper provides an overview of theory and empirical evidence on earnings discrimination within the workplace. Earnings discrimination occurs when employees producing work of equal value are differentially remunerated because of their social group. The paper reviews theories of why employers may discriminate in this way. The paper then goes on to review research evidence on earnings discrimination as one source of earnings inequality within the workplace. The ability of empirical studies to identify discrimination is discussed, and evidence on the mechanisms through which discrimination may affect earnings is reviewed, covering observational and experimental studies. The research evidence is most plentiful in respect of discrimination by gender. Accordingly, much of the discussion focuses on the role of discrimination in driving a wedge between the wages of men and women. However, the paper also reviews evidence on earnings discrimination by race or ethnic group. It concludes with a discussion of policy responses.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
The Institute for Economic and Social Research (IESR) at Jinan University and the Global Labor Organization (GLO) are jointly organizing the Fifth IESR-GLO Conference online.
Beijing Time August 29 to August 31, 2022 through Zoom.
Theme is Social Policy Under Global Challenges
Keynote speakers are: Lisa Cameron and Junsen Zhang
The IESR-GLO annual conference is aimed to provide a platform for scholars and experts to exchange ideas on the current pressing economic issues through presentations of high-quality academic papers and policy discussions. Previous IESR-GLO Conferences have covered topics such as the Social Safety Net and Welfare Programs in 2021, Economics of Covid-19 in 2020 and on the labor markets in Belt and Road countries in 2019.
Submission
We welcome papers on topics related to social policies, especially social assistance and its reform experience.
Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO Shuaizhang Feng, Jinan University Sen Xue, Jinan University
Contact
For inquiries regarding the conference, please contact Sen Xue at sen.xue@jnu.edu.cn. General inquiries regarding the submissions should be directed to iesrjnu@gmail.com.
Lisa CameronJunsen Zhang
Lisa Cameron is the James Riady Chair of Asian Economics and Business and a Professorial Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. She is an empirical micro-economist whose research incorporates the techniques of experimental and behavioural economics so as to better understand human decision-making. Much of her research focuses on policy evaluation – understanding the impacts and behavioural implications of public policy, with a focus on social and economic issues. She is particularly interested in the welfare of disadvantaged and marginalised groups and the socio-economic determinants of health. Much of her research to date has focused on developing countries, particularly Indonesia and China and she has extensive experience collaborating with agencies such as the World Bank and AusAID (DFAT). Lisa received her PhD from Princeton University in 1996. She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences in 2013.
Junsen Zhang is currently a Distinguished University Professor in the School of Economics, Zhejiang University. Prof. Zhang is also Emeritus Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research (both theoretical and empirical) has focused on the economics of family behavior, including fertility, marriage, education, intergenerational transfers, marital transfers, gender bias, and old-age support. He also works on family-related macro issues, such as ageing, social security, and economic growth. Using many data sets from different countries (regions), either micro or macro, he has studied economic issues in Canada, the US, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong, as well as Mainland China. Most of his recent research has been on the economics of the family using Chinese data. He has published over 100 papers in major refereed international journals. Many of them were published in leading economics journals or in leading field journals. According to a ranking by RePEc dated May 2018, Junsen Zhang ranks as the number one economist in the field of the Chinese economy. He was Editor of the Journal of Population Economics from 2001 to 2020 and has been Co-Editor of Journal of Human Resources since February 2019. He was the President of the Hong Kong Economic Association from 2007 to 2011. In 2013, he was elected as a Fellow of the Econometric Society.
Author Abstract: We examine the impact of increasing minimum wage on employment by exploiting variation in the age-dependent National Minimum Wage (NMW) in the UK. We extend the Regression Discontinuity model to evaluate the procyclicality of employment effect and show that previous estimates may be biased due to failure to account for the local non-employment rate. Contrary to the existing literature, we report a positive employment elasticity after accounting for the effect of local labour market conditions. The results suggest that the positive employment effect of increasing minimum wage is strongly procyclical, i.e. is more pronounced in areas with low non-employment rates. Under an assumption that employers have no direct impact around the cut-off point, the results suggest that a higher minimum wage increases labour supply of young workers.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
EBES-40 in Istanbul takes place on July 6-8, 2022 in hybrid mode (see EBES program). GLO supports the event with two sessions (local Istanbul time):
Chair: Klaus F. Zimmermann (EBES & GLO & UNU-MERIT, The Netherlands & Free University Berlin, Germany). Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics
Climate Change in Historical Perspective: Violence, Conflict, and Migration Qing Pei* (Education University of Hong Kong and GLO), Yingqi Long (Education University of Hong Kong) and Xiaolin Lin (Education University of Hong Kong)
Labor Market Agglomeration Economies Shihe Fu (Xiamen University and GLO)
Well-being in Old and Very Old Age Johanna Hartung* (University of Bonn); Janina Nemitz (Helsana Insurance Company Ltd) and Gizem Hülür (University of Bonn)
Earnings Discrimination in the Workplace John Forth (Bayes Business School) and Nikolaos Theodoropoulos* (University of Cyprus and GLO)
Age at Marriage Pavel Jelnov (University of Hannover and GLO)
Maternity Leave Krishna Regmi (Kennesaw State University) and Le Wang (University of Oklahoma and GLO)
Author Abstract: In developing countries, one in four girls is married before turning 18, with adverse consequences for their own and their children’s human capital. In this paper, we investigate whether laws can affect attitudes and behaviour towards child marriage – in a context in which the laws are not strictly enforced. We do so using a randomised video-based information intervention that aimed to accelerate knowledge transmission about a new child marriage law in Bangladesh that introduced harsher punishments for facilitating early marriage. Follow-up surveys documented an increase in early marriage among treated households if the father or family elders received the information. The findings allow us to distinguish between two competing theoretical channels underlying the effect of legal change and highlight the risk of backlash against laws that contradict traditional norms and practices.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Unlike the common impact factors, CiteScore measures the contributions of journals with a broader coverage and on a more long-term (4 years) basis.
The May 2022 published scores for 2021 are defined as: “CiteScore 2021 counts the citations received in 2018-2021 to articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters and data papers published in 2018-2021, and divides this by the number of publications published in 2018-2021.”
Economics and Econometrics: Journal of Labor Economics 6.4; Journal of Human Resources 5.4.
Demography: Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 6.9; Demography 5.7.
JOPE Editor-in-Chief & GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann thanks authors, readers, the editorial team as well as Springer Nature staff for their amazing contributions to this success.
A new GLO Discussion Paperusing Greek data finds thatperceived social rejection as suggested by the minority stress theory is associated with increased consumption of tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis, as well as unprotected sex.
Author Abstract: This study presents associations between the perceived social rejection of sexual minorities and tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis consumption and unprotected sexual intercourse in the capital of Greece, Athens. This is the first Greek study to evaluate the concept of the minority stress theory on sexual minorities’ substance use and unprotected sexual intercourse. In addition, this is among the first international studies to examine whether periods of adverse economic conditions are associated with sexual minorities’ substance use and unprotected sexual intercourse. Two panel datasets covering the periods 2013–2014 and 2018–2019 were used to determine the perceived social rejection, that is, whether sexual minorities have been rejected by friends, treated unfairly in educational and/or workplace environments, treated negatively in social situations and received poor health and public services due to their sexuality. The estimates indicate that perceived social rejection is associated with the increased consumption of tobacco (by 9.1%, P <0.01), alcohol (by 7.1%, P <0.01), and cannabis (by 12.5%, P <0.01), as well as unprotected sexual intercourse (by 6.5%, P <0.01). In the first three cases, the magnitude of the associations is stronger for men than women and there is increased cannabis consumption during periods of deteriorated economic conditions (by 5.5%, P <0.01). In the European Union, reducing stigma, substance use, risky sexual behaviours, and health inequalities for sexual minorities is a goal of public health. If minority stress is correlated with substance use and risky sexual behaviours leading to detrimental physical/mental health outcomes then prevention and support interventions should be designed.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We propose and test empirically a theory describing the endogenous formation and persistence of mega-states, using China as an example. We suggest that the relative timing of the emergence of agricultural societies, and their distance from each other, set off a race between their autochthonous state-building projects, which determines their extent and persistence. Using a novel dataset describing the historical presence of Chinese states, prehistoric development, the diffusion of agriculture, and migratory distance across 1° x 1° grid cells in eastern Asia, we find that cells that adopted agriculture earlier and were close to Erlitou – the earliest political center in eastern Asia – remained under Chinese control for longer and continue to be a part of China today. By contrast, cells that adopted agriculture early and were located further from Erlitou developed into independent states, as agriculture provided the fertile ground for state-formation, while isolation provided time for them to develop and confront the expanding Chinese empire. Our study sheds important light on why eastern Asia kept reproducing a mega-state in the area that became China and on the determinants of its borders with other states.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper introduces novel data on public sentiment towards economic sanctions based on nearly one million social media posts in 109 countries during the Russia-Ukraine war by using machine learning. We show the geographical heterogeneity between government stances and public sentiment. Finally, political regimes, trading relationships, and political instability could predict how people perceived this inhumane war.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
New book published in 30 languages. It studies the driving forces and long-run perspectives of the journey of mankind. We discuss major points with the author in an interview (see below).
Oded Galor : The Journey of Humanity. The Origins of Wealth and Inequality, 2022.
Herbert H. Goldberger Professor of Economics at Brown University
the founding thinker behind Unified Growth Theory, which seeks to uncover the fundamental causes of development, prosperity and inequality over the entire span of human history.
Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economic Growth and an Editor of the Journal of Population Economics.
INTERVIEW
GLO: What brought you to focus your research on long-term roots of the history of mankind?
Oded Galor: I was born and raised in Jerusalem, and perhaps not surprisingly given the inescapable historical context of daily life in the city, I have developed a great affinity to the understanding of the roots of human behavior and the historical origins of religiosity, ethnicity, diversity, and the lasting impact of historical factors on human prosperity.
During my academic career, I was intrigued by the origins of inequality in the wealth of nations, and this curiosity gravitated me over time towards the field of Economic Growth. But, in contrast to the dominating trends in the late 1980s and early 1990s, my research in the field of economic growth was quite different. Rather than focusing on the notion of convergence, which is predicated naturally on the presumption that initial conditions do not matter in the long run, my research has focused on the understanding of the roots of inequality across nations and the role of initial conditions in the determination of the fate of nations.
My quest for the understanding of the vast inequality in the wealth of nations led ultimately to my creation of Unified Growth Theory. The development of this theory was fueled by the conviction and the evidence that a comprehensive understanding of global inequality would not be feasible in the absence of a theory that would reflect the principal driving forces behind the entire process of development and capture the central role that historical and pre-historical factors have played in bringing about the current disparities in living standards.
Along this process, I developed a great passion to the mathematical fields of dynamical systems and bifurcation theory, which underlines the importance of initial conditions in the determination of long-run position of complex systems. These important mathematical tools have enabled me to develop the Unified Growth Theory and to resolve some of the most fundamental mysteries in the development process.
GLO: What story reveals your recent book, ‘The Journey of Humanity’?
Oded Galor: The book explores the evolution of human societies since the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa nearly 300,000 years ago. It resolves two of the most fundamental mysteries that surround this journey:
The mystery of growth – what are the roots of the dramatic transformation in living standards in the past 200 years, after 300,000 years of near stagnation. Why, in the past 200 years, has income per capital in the world increased 14-fold and life expectancy more than doubled, after 300,000 years of minuscule progress in these dimensions?
The mystery is inequality – what is the origin of the vast inequality in living standards across countries and regions and why has this inequality increased so dramatically in the past 200 years?
The book advances a revolutionary perspective about the origins of wealth and global inequality. It suggests that much of the inequality in the wealth of nations can be traced to historical and pre-historical forces that operated hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, and even tens of thousands of years ago.
GLO: The Malthusian poverty trap: How did we got out of this according to your ‘Unified Growth Theory‘?
Oded Galor: Ever since the emergence of Homo sapiens and development of the first stone-cutting tool, technological progress fostered the growth and the adaptation of the human population to its changing environment. In turn, growth and the adaptation of the population widened the pool of inventors and expanded the demand for innovations, further stimulating the creation and adoption of new technologies. Nevertheless, over most of human existence, one central aspect of the human condition remained largely unaffected: living standards. Innovations stimulated economic prosperity for a few generations, but ultimately, population growth brought living conditions back towards subsistence levels.
For millennia, the wheels of change – the reinforcing interplay between technological progress and the size and composition of the human population – turned at an ever-increasing pace until, eventually, a tipping point was reached, unleashing the rapid technological progress of the Industrial Revolution. The increasing demand for skilled and educated workers who could navigate this rapidly changing technological environment incentivized parents to invest in the education of their children and therefore to bear fewer of them. Fertility rates started to decline and living standards improved without being swiftly counterbalanced by population growth, and thus began a long-term rise in human prosperity that the world has experienced in the past two centuries.
GLO: You conclude that instead of the predicted communist revolution, industrialization lead to mass education. Why was Marx wrong?
Oded Galor: Marx maintained that the intensifying competition among capitalists would result in a reduction in their profits, inducing them to deepen the exploitation of workers. He argued that class struggle would therefore be inevitable since society would necessarily reach the point where the ‘proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains’.
Nevertheless, contrary to Marx’s hypothesis, the transformation of the production process in the course of the Industrial Revolution made education a critical element in boosting industrial productivity and maintaining profit rates. Education and the skills of the workforce became increasingly more important to the capitalist class, as they came to realize that education held the key to preventing a decline in their profit margins. They have therefore lobbied forcefully for the provision of public education for the masses. Hence, instead of a communist revolution, industrialization triggered a revolution in mass education.
GLO:Why has the industrialization over the last two centuries brought amazing growth but also huge global inequality?
Oded Galor: Intriguingly, when prosperity skyrocketed in recent centuries, it did so earlier in some parts of the world, triggering a second major transformation: the emergence of immense inequality across societies. Institutional, cultural, geographical and societal characteristics that emerged in the ancient past propelled societies on their distinct historical trajectories, influenced the timing of their escape from the epoch of stagnation, and contributed to the gap in the wealth of nations.
GLO:Why is global inequality so persistent and received strategies like the ‘Washington Consensus‘ with a set of universal structural reforms in your view a fundamental misconception?
Oded Galor: Privatization of industry, trade liberalization and secure property rights might be growth-conducive policies for countries that have already developed the social, cultural and educational prerequisites for economic growth, but in environments where these foundations are absent, where social cohesion is tenuous and corruption well entrenched, such universal reforms have often been fruitless.
Institutional, cultural, geographical and societal characteristics that emerged in the distant past have propelled civilizations through their distinct historical routes and fostered the divergence in the wealth of nations. Incontestably, cultures and institutions conducive to economic prosperity can be gradually adopted and formed. Barriers erected by aspects of geography can be mitigated. But any such interventions that ignore the particular characteristics that have emerged over the course of each country’s journey are unlikely to reduce inequality and may instead provoke frustration, turmoil and prolong stagnation.
GLO: Where does your interest and concern about inequality come from? How does inequality in the distribution of wealth affect growth?
Oded Galor: My long-term interest and concern about inequality has been based on my personal moral conviction as well as the understanding of potential adverse effect of inequality on economic prosperity. Wealth inequality is associated with inefficient education and investment decisions of the poorer segments of society. It has therefore an adverse effect on the allocation of talents across occupations and it reduces economic efficiency. In addition, it adversely affects social cohesiveness and is associated with civil unrest and therefore loss in productivity. Thus, despite the importance of wage inequality in generating the proper economic incentives, it is quite apparent that excessive wealth inequality adversely affects ‘equality of opportunity’ in society and is therefore both unjust and harmful for economic efficiency and social cohesiveness.
GLO: How do you differentiate your contribution from the bestselling work of Yuval Noah Harari (‘Sapiens. A Brief History of Humankind’)?
Oded Galor: The Journey of Humanity consists of two major parts. The first part examines the progression of humanity, as a whole, since the emergence of Homo sapiens in Africa nearly 300,000 ago. The scope of this part has some parallels to “Sapiens”, but it is fundamentally different conceptually and scientifically. It is based on Unified Growth Theory, which identifies the wheels of change that have governed the journey of humanity over the entire course of human history. Each of the building blocks of this theory is evidence-based, founded on rigorous empirical analysis. In contrast, many of the critical transitions in “Sapiens” are largely speculative, and as the results of UGT reveal, its basic premise— that humanity progressed gradually since the agricultural revolution— is counter-factual. Moreover, The Journey of Humanity highlights the demographic forces that are central for the understanding of the Malthusian trap, as they have characterized 99.9% of human history and ultimately the take-off from stagnation to growth. This factor, however, is absent in “Sapiens”.
The second part of the Journey of Humanity explores the origins of inequality across countries. It highlights the role of institution, culture, geography, and human diversity in the divergence in the wealth of nations in the past 200 years. It leads into important policy implications about the vital role of gender equality, tolerance, and diversity in the future prosperity of humanity and the importance of the history of each individual country in the design of policies that could mitigate inequality across nations. This important analysis about the roots of inequality between nations is also absent from “Sapiens”.
As the author of “Origins”, Lewis Dartnell wrote: “if you like Sapiens you will love [The Journey of Humanity].
GLO:Your book feeds the hope for a long-term rise in humanity, of increased wealth, understanding and collaboration.
On p. 9 you write: “…. the outlook derived from this exploration can be described as fundamentally hopeful, in terms of the overarching trajectory of societies across the globe. ….education, tolerance and greater gender equality hold the keys to our species’ flourishing in the decades and centuries to come. ”
And after discussing major global catastrophes over the last century, you write on pp. 242-243: “But history shows that, shattering and dreadful as they are, these events have had limited long-term impact on the grand arc of human development. The relentless march of humanity has so far been unstoppable.”
How does this fit with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, which appears to many, like a game-changer of history?
Oded Galor: In fact the current crisis has reinforced my confidence about the relentless march of humanity. It is quite apparent that the Russian invasion to Ukraine has clarified to individuals across the globe that their liberties are at risk, and unless the forces that cherish freedom would unify, totalitarian regime may prevail and derail humanity from its promising march. And indeed, we have witnessed unprecedented unity within the European continent and even between the deeply polarized US society. As was the case in the course of human history, therefore this dreadful event is very unlikely to affect the grand arc of human development, and humanity may emerge from this crisis stronger than otherwise, as totalitarian regimes will recede further.
******
Oded Galor was interviewed by Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President.
GLO Southeast Asia Lead Niaz Asadullah is co-editing a special issue for the International Journal of Educational Development (IJED). The editors are inviting interested authors to submit proposals for review. Prospective authors are also encouraged to make informal queries to guest editors by email. Deadline for full paper submission is 1st Oct 2022. See below for a summary of the call and here for a link to the official call through Elsevier.
Call Details: Faith-based education and development: Opportunities, challenges, and controversies
The special issue explores the possible distinctive contributions, roles, and issues related to faith-based schools and educational actors and how they are situated in contexts.
Guest editors:
TJ D’Agostino, Assistant Professor of the Practice, University of Notre Dame Institute for Educational Initiatives (adagosti@nd.edu)
Faith-based education has long played a vital role in education systems globally. We are seeking manuscripts for a special issue of IJED that explores the possible distinctive contributions, roles, and issues related to faith-based schools and educational actors and how they are situated in contexts. Manuscripts may cover a range of disciplinary perspectives on topics that may include:
role and contributions to educational development / SGDs, opportunities and challenges of partnering
political and legal issues, challenges, and conflicts
organizational identity
funding models and regulatory approaches
benefits or challenges of engaging
historical development
intersection of social contexts and role / mission
Manuscript submission information:
You are invited to submit your manuscript at any time before the submission deadline of 1st October 2022. For any inquiries about the appropriateness of contribution topics, please contact Professor TJ D’Agostino at adagosti@nd.edu
Author Abstract: Historically, the Spanish labor market has been quite unstable. The unexpected arrival of COVID-19 in 2020 has stressed these vulnerabilities. In this paper, we analyze the immediate impact of the pandemic on Spanish labor market outcomes. We find that, during the lockdown period, individuals work 3 hours less per week. Moreover, results show that the labor force participation reduced by 2.3% due to the pandemic. Finally, sectors of activity present heterogeneous effects.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This chapter reviews the economic effects of employee representation with statutory consultation and information rights at the workplace, the works councils. The chapter summarises the international literature which is heavily skewed towards the German case. This review focuses, first, on the mechanisms that enable the productivity enhancing role of works councils. Second, the review discusses the context factors that hamper or facilitate the productivity enhancing role of works councils. The chapter will start discussing the economic consequences of German works councils and then review the evidence obtained from other countries.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Assessing rent discounts implied by rent regulation is challenging because the counterfac- tual rents of regulated units in the unregulated market are not observed. We estimate these counterfactual rents and predict the quality-adjusted rent discount for each rent-stabilized unit in New York City (NYC) using novel data from 2002 to 2017. We find robust average rent discounts of $410 per month (34% of contract rents of stabilized units). The aggregate size of these discounts in NYC is between 4 to 5.4 billion USD per year, roughly 10-14% of the federal budget on means-tested housing programs. We document that discounts: (1) increase linearly with housing tenure; (2) are not progressively distributed; (3) are larger in Manhattan and increasing in gentrifying neighborhoods; and (4) are three times larger for households correctly aware of being beneficiaries. We find that rent stabilization has disproportionately benefited White tenants. Not only are they more likely to occupy rent-stabilized units conditional on observables, but they also receive higher discounts. On average, Black stabilized tenants get $150, Hispanics $135, and AAPI $43 less on monthly rent discounts than White stabilized ten- ants. This racial gap, which has shrunk over time, is mainly explained by the uneven sorting of households of different races across locations.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We study how firms respond to predictable, but uncertain, worker absences arising from maternity and non-work-related sickness leave. Using administrative data on over 1.5 million spells of leave in Brazil, we identify the short-run effects of a leave spell starting on firms’ employment, hiring, and separations. Firms respond immediately by increasing hiring, but the increase is substantially less than one-for-one replacement. Hiring responses are more pronounced for absences arising in occupations with more transferable skills and in firms operating in thicker labor markets. Overall, our results imply that using external markets is costly and firms manage absences through other channels.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This study examines the impacts of caregiving by grandparents on children’s academic performance in China, using data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2010 and 2014). Applying pooled OLS, instrumental variables and fixed-effects models with panel data estimation techniques, we find evidence that grandparents appear to have an adverse effect on the test scores of their school-age grandchildren. We further examine the mechanisms of this negative effect. Our results suggest that the education of grandparents plays an important role on the success of grandchildren and that increased schooling of grandparents can mitigate the negative effects of non-parental caregivers; thus, there are potential positive intergenerational impacts as grandparents become more educated themselves. When examining additional channels depressing test scores, we find evidence of grandparents’ tendency to overindulge single-child grandchildren and grandsons. Lastly, it also appears that the common parenting practices of grandparents are detrimental to childhood development.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We study the gender gap in the duration of sick leave in Spain by splitting this duration into two types of days – those which are related to biological characteristics and those derived from behavioral reasons. Using the Statistics of Accidents at Work for 2011-2019, we found that women presented longer standard durations (i.e., purely attached to physiological reasons) compared to men. However, when estimating individuals’ efficiency as the ratio between actual and standard durations, we found that women were more inefficient at lower levels of income, whereas in case of men, this occurred at higher levels of income. These results were reinforced when considering that men and women do not recover from the same injury at the same rate. Women were more efficient than men across all the compensation distribution, especially at higher income levels.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Greek-letter student social groups, better known as fraternities and sororities, are a ubiquitous feature on many American higher education campuses. These organizations, especially fraternities, have a reputation for encouraging unruly and improper behavior among both members and non-members. This paper investigates the effect of the degree of prevalence of these Greek organizations at a campus, as measured by the percentage of students who are members of fraternities and sororities, on the instances of liquor and drug law violations on campuses, as measured by the number of arrests for liquor and drug laws violations. Using a unique dataset, which combines data from three sources, we address any potential selection bias by including several controls associated with party culture and through the inclusion of institution-level fixed effects. We find that a larger percentage of students in fraternities (but not sororities) is associated with an increase in the number of arrests for drug law violations. A larger percentage of students in sororities (but not the percentage of students in fraternities) is associated with a larger number of arrests for liquor law violations. This result is highly significant and is robust across various specifications.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfinds that standard measures substantially underestimate the effects of family background on children’s educational opportunities, among other effects.
Author Abstract: A large literature on intergenerational mobility focuses on the conditional mean of children’s economic outcomes to understand the role of family background, but ignores the information contained in conditional variance. Using exceptionally rich data free of coresidency bias, we provide evidence on three large developing countries (China, India, and Indonesia) that suggests a strong influence of father’s education on conditional variance of children’s schooling. We find substantial heterogeneity across countries, gender, and geography (rural/ urban). Cohort based estimates suggest that the effects of father’s education on the conditional variance has changed qualitatively, in some cases a positive effect in the 1950s cohort turning into a substantial negative effect in the 1980s cohort. We develop a methodology to incorporate the effects of family background on the conditional variance along with the standard conditional mean effects. We derive risk adjusted measures of relative and absolute mobility by accounting for an estimate of the risk premium for the conditional variance faced by a child. The estimates of risk adjusted relative and absolute mobility for China, India and Indonesia suggest that the standard measures substantially underestimate the effects of family background on children’s educational opportunities, and may give a false impression of high educational mobility. The downward bias is specially large for the children born into the most disadvantaged households where fathers have no schooling, while the bias is negligible for the children of college educated fathers. The standard (but partial) measures may lead to incorrect ranking of regions and groups in terms of relative mobility. Compared to the risk adjusted measures, the standard measures are likely to underestimate gender gap and rural-urban gap in educational opportunities.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Abortion issues are again on the agenda in may societies around the globe. Academic research can inform the public debate. The Journal of Population Economics(JOPE) is a scientific outlet for studying important issues. It has published a larger number of relevant papers recently. Two new papers studying abortion regulations in the United States were presented on June 1, 2022 open to the public. JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann (GLO, UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) has opened the event, and Managing Editor Madeline Zavodny (University of North Florida) had chaired the session.
JOPE Research Workshop on Abortion Issues II (see Abortion Issues I) Wednesday June 1; 4-5 pm CEST (Berlin time) Chair: Madeline Zavodny (University of North Florida)
Author Abstract: Distinguishing between short-run and long-run outcomes we provide new insight into the relationship between education and migration. We examine the specific link between the acquisition of high levels of human capital in the form of university education in Turkey and migration to Germany. We implement bounds testing procedures to ascertain the long-run relationships with the variables of interest in a migration model. Although the bounds testing procedure has advantages compared to other methods, it has not been widely implemented in the migration literature. We find a negative and decreasing non-linear long-run and short-run relationship between home country university education and Turkish migration to Germany over 1970-2015. Over the long run, increased higher education reduces emigration flows.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Abortion issues are again on the agenda in may societies around the globe. Academic research can inform the public debate. The Journal of Population Economics(JOPE) is a scientific outlet for studying important issues. It has published a larger number of relevant papers recently. Two new papers on the consequences of abortion bans were presented on May 31, 2022 open to the public. JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann (GLO, UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) has opened the event, and Managing Editor Michaella Vanore (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) chaired the session.
Anisha Sharma (Ashoka University, India) Unwanted daughters: the unintended consequences of a ban on sex-selective abortions on the educational attainment of women
Federico H. Gutierrez (Bates White, previously Vanderbilt University, USA) The inter-generational fertility effect of an abortion ban
A new GLO Discussion Paperguides the reader step-by-step to the leading scientific, political, and cultural challenges in granting broad worldwide access to vaccination.
Author Abstract: Should the intellectual property rights on the first Covid-19 vaccines be temporarily lifted in applying the Trade-Related Aspect of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) flexibility? Is it right to grant the first generation of Covid-19 vaccines a special treatment from an IPR perspective? On what grounds? By extensively reviewing the available medical and economic literature on the subject, this chapter will guide the reader step-by-step to the leading scientific, political, and cultural challenges in granting broad worldwide access to vaccination. The accumulated delays in providing effective Covid-19 vaccine intervention in the low- and middle-income countries are ultimately responsible for the virus circulation at the global level and the proliferation of immunity-escaping variants. Therefore governmental rationality around the world would suggest any possible active policy tool to scale up the current vaccines supply. However, not to prevent future investment in R&D, the governments should bear the cost of the expected increased industry obsolescence determined by a temporary patent waiver; this includes public patent-buy-outs and regulated public-private R&D partnerships.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfindsthat granting undocumented migrants access to driving licenses increased the propensity to work along the intensive margin. Among those at work, their usual weekly hours rose by approximately 1.5%.
Author Abstract: As of 2021, 16 U.S. States and the District of Columbia have implemented laws allowing undocumented migrants to acquire a driver’s license. In this paper, I hypothesize that lower barriers to work caused by the ability to obtain driving licenses can affect undocumented migrants’ fertility decisions. Using a differencein- differences strategy based on temporal and geographical variation in the implementation of laws granting undocumented migrants access to driving licenses across U.S. states, I find that these laws were associated with about 9% decline in childbirth among likely undocumented married women. Exploring the mechanism, the results of the analysis indicate that granting undocumented migrants access to driving licenses increased the propensity to work along the intensive margin. Among those at work, their usual weekly hours rose by approximately 1.5%.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
On behalf of the GLO, Sergio Scicchitano (Lead of the Coronavirus GLO Cluster) is organizing the “Session CO551: Covid-19 econometrics” at the 16th International Conference on Computational and Financial Econometrics (CFE 2022).
A new GLO Discussion Paper shows that the Great HE Expansion has exacerbated a large pre-existing urban-rural gap in educational attainment underpinned by the hukou system.
Author Abstract: China experienced a near 5-fold increase in annual Higher Education (HE) enrolment in the decade starting in 1999. Using the China Household Finance Survey, we show that the Great HE Expansion has exacerbated a large pre-existing urban-rural gap in educational attainment underpinned by the hukou (household registration) system. We instrument the years of schooling with the interaction between urban hukou status during childhood and the timing of the expansion – in essence a difference-in-differences estimator using rural students to control for common time trends. We find that the Great HE raised earnings by 17% for men and 12% for women respectively, allowing for county fixed-effects. These Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS) estimates, which are robust to additional controls for hukou status at birth fully interacted with birth hukou province, can be interpreted as the Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) of education on earnings for urban students who enrolled in HE only because of the Great HE Expansion. For the selected subsample of respondents with parental education information, we find that the 2SLS returns for students from more disadvantaged backgrounds are at least as high as their more advantaged counterparts, for both genders.
Featured image: j-zamora-on-Unsplash
RELATED WORK
Higher Education Expansion and the Rise of China in Economics Research” by Matloob Piracha, Massimiliano Tani, Klaus F. Zimmermann & Yu Zhang. China Economic Review74 (2022) 101813. Published FREE OPEN ACCESS. Free PDF.
Higher Education Expansion and Gender Norms: Evidence from China by Wei Shi. Journal of Population Economics (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-022-00888-z FREE OPEN ACCESS.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This chapter reviews and evaluates progress in recent research on the graduate premium in general as well as the differential graduate premiums by discipline, accounting for higher-education choice by individuals under substantial uncertainty. The contribution of this review, relative to previous reviews, is the collection of a wider variety of evidence that all bears on a relatively narrow issue, namely the graduate and discipline premiums, allowing for selection into undergraduate degree and degree subjects which include the option value of undertaking postgraduate degrees. The issue of subject-job match quality after graduation is only treated as a sensitivity check to the main results, due to concerns with self-selection. To avoid overlap with the more thematic chapters in this handbook which focus on HE structures and student financing respectively, this review only emphasizes that the sizes of the graduate and discipline premiums are context-specific, especially regarding how HE is structured and financed in a country, without going into details. Much higher weight is placed on the most up-to-date research that sheds light on the causal effects of higher-education and subject choice, and the conclusions are heavily driven by the best evidence rather than by consensus built around correlations. The chapter ends with a short summary of the empirical evidence and a brief discussion of possible areas for future research.
Featured image: Mikael-Kristenson-on-Unsplash
RELATED WORK
Higher Education Expansion and the Rise of China in Economics Research” by Matloob Piracha, Massimiliano Tani, Klaus F. Zimmermann & Yu Zhang. China Economic Review74 (2022) 101813. Published FREE OPEN ACCESS. Free PDF.
Higher Education Expansion and Gender Norms: Evidence from China by Wei Shi. Journal of Population Economics (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-022-00888-z FREE OPEN ACCESS.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: To explain the mixed findings on hiring discrimination against homosexual applicants, we explore the perceptual drivers behind employers’ evaluations of gay men and lesbian women. Therefore, we conduct an extensive vignette experiment among 404 genuine recruiters, for which we test systematically-selected perceptions theoretically associated with homosexual job candidates in earlier studies. We find causal evidence for distinct effects of sexual identities on candidate perceptions and interview probabilities. In particular, interview probabilities are positively (negatively) associated with the perception of lesbian women (gay men) as being more (less) pleasant to work with compared to heterosexual candidates. In addition, interview chances are negatively associated with the perception of gay men and lesbian women as being more outspoken. Furthermore, our data align well with the idea of a concentrated discrimination account, whereby a minority of employers who privately hold negative attitudes towards homosexual individuals are responsible for most instances of hiring discrimination.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Abortion issues are again on the agenda in may societies around the globe. Academic research can inform the public debate. The Journal of Population Economics((JOPE) is a scientific outlet for studying important issues. It has published a larger number of relevant papers recently, which are discussed in the workshops announced below. The events are open to the general public. Use this chance to discuss research findings with the authors. Prior registration to both parts separately is required. JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann (GLO, UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) will open the events, and Managing Editors Michaella Vanore (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) and Madeline Zavodny (University of North Florida) will chair the sessions.
JOPE Research Workshop on Abortion Issues I Tuesday May 31; 4-5 pm CEST (Berlin time) Chair: Michaella Vanore (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University)
Anisha Sharma (Ashoka University, India) Unwanted daughters: the unintended consequences of a ban on sex-selective abortions on the educational attainment of women
Federico H. Gutierrez (Vanderbilt University, USA) The inter-generational fertility effect of an abortion ban
Prior registration required:
You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: May 31, 2022 04:00 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
Author Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of supply-side abortion restrictions on aggregate abortion and birth rates in the United States. Specifically, I exploit state and time variation in the implementation of the first targeted regulation of abortion provider (TRAP) law in a state to identify the effects of the laws. I find that TRAP laws are associated with a reduction in the abortion rate of approximately 5% the year the first law is implemented, and an average reduction of 11-14% in subsequent years. There is also evidence that TRAP laws increased birth rates by 2-3%, which accounts for approximately 80-100% of the observed decline in abortion rates.
Author Abstract: An expansive empirical literature estimates the causal effects of policies governing young women’s confidential and legal access to contraception and abortion. I present a new review of changes in the historical policy environment in the United States that serve as the foundation of this work. I consult primary sources including annotated statutes, judicial rulings, attorney general opinions, and advisory articles in medical journals, as well as secondary sources including newspaper articles and snapshots of various policy environments prepared by scholars, advocates, and government organizations. Based on this review, I provide a suggested coding of the policy environment over the past 60 years. I also present and compare the legal coding schemes used in the empirical literature and where possible I resolve numerous and substantial discrepancies.
Access to more published JOPE research on abortion issues:
Sergio Scicchitano (GLO Coronavirus Cluster Lead) organized with Minerva Lab (University La Sapienza of Rome) a session on “Covid-19 pandemic and the future of economics and economic systems” for STOREP, 26-28 May 2022, Tuscia University, Viterbo, Italy.
Session 5: [ISSUES](MinervaLab- INAPP)Covid-19 pandemic and the future of economics and economic systems May 26, 2022 15:00 to 16:30 (Rome time) The participation free at the link
Session Chair: Sergio Scicchitano, National Institute for Public Policies Analysis (INAPP)
– DISTRIBUTIONAL EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 ON WAGES IN ITALY By Carmen Aina; Università Piemonte Orientale Irene Brunetti; INAPP – National Institute for Public Policy Analysis Chiara Mussida; Catholic University of the Sacred Heart Sergio Scicchitano; National Institute for Public Policies Analysis (INAPP) presented by: Irene Brunetti, INAPP – National Institute for Public Policy Analysis Discussant: Guglielmo Forges Davanzati, Università del Salento
– The new industrial revolution: the optimal choice for flexible work companies By Leonardo Becchetti; University of Rome “Tor Vergata” Francesco Salustri; Roma Tre & UCL Nazaria Solferino; UNICAL presented by: Francesco Salustri, Roma Tre & UCL Discussant: Davide Gualerzi, Università di Padova
– COVID-19, GENDER AND LABOUR By Marcella Corsi; Sapienza University of Rome Ipek Ilkkaracan; Istanbul Technical University presented by: Marcella Corsi, Sapienza University of Rome Discussant: Antonella Stirati, Università Roma Tre
Economics and the Economic System: The Ecological Transition 19th STOREP Annual Conference Università della Tuscia, Viterbo, 26-28 May 2022.
In his intriguing and thought-provoking lecture, Professor Niaz demystified Bangladesh’s development achievements since 1970s revisiting trends in a range of indicators across different sectors. He explained that Bangladesh’s social achievements in female schooling, fertility reduction, immunization coverage, contraception usage, and weakening of son preference in fertility are truly exceptional when compared with Pakistan, India and other countries at the same stage of economic development. These cases of ‘positive deviance’ point to a ‘development miracle’ i.e. systematic social progress achieved before Bangladesh’s recent surge in GDP growth.
Professor Niaz however cautioned that the public spendings on education and health as ratios of GDP are among the lowest in the world. If Bangladesh is to emulate the East Asian model of economic growth (e.g. South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia), then a drastic increase in education and health spending is necessary – mega infrastructure projects must be complemented with human capital development for sustainable development. Among other issues, Professor Niaz commented on the sustainability of our current economic progress, highlighting some worrying trends in data on FDI, exports, inequality, military expenditure and state capacity as well as the rise of plutocracy.
The public lecture was followed by a lively Q&A session where participants actively engaged with the speaker asking questions about the future of Bangladesh economy. The event was attended by over 200 students. NSU faculty members, the Chair of the Department of Economics Dr. Asad Karim Khan Priyo, the Dean of NSU SBE Dr. Abdul Hannan Chowdhury, and the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of NSU Dr. M Ismail Hossain were all present in the lecture.
Meet the author and read related work in the Journal of Population Economics: More details
Author Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of supply-side abortion restrictions on aggregate abortion and birth rates in the United States. Specifically, I exploit state and time variation in the implementation of the first targeted regulation of abortion provider (TRAP) law in a state to identify the effects of the laws. I find that TRAP laws are associated with a reduction in the abortion rate of approximately 5% the year the first law is implemented, and an average reduction of 11-14% in subsequent years. There is also evidence that TRAP laws increased birth rates by 2-3%, which accounts for approximately 80-100% of the observed decline in abortion rates.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Paperfindsfor a panel of 122 countries spanning the period 1965-2020 that national per capita income has generally a negative and significant effect on the total fertility rate.
Author Abstract: This paper examines the effect of national income on the total fertility rate (children born per woman). We estimate the effects on fertility of shocks to national per capita income using plausibly exogenous variations in oil price shock as an instrument for income and using instrumental variable generalized quantile regressions (IV-GQR). Using data for a panel of 122 countries spanning the period 1965-2020, our results show that national per capita income has generally a negative and significant effect on the total fertility rate. Looking at the entire spectrum of the fertility distribution, the IVGQR estimates exhibit considerable heterogeneity in the impact of income on fertility. The income elasticity of fertility is relatively low at the upper tail of the distribution (for countries with high fertility) compared to the value at the median.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Measuring the intergenerational mobility of welfare provides key inputs for policies, but very few studies examine intergenerational mobility of subjective well-being (SWB), particularly in a poorer, transitional country context. We make new contributions by analyzing rich panel SWB data from Russia over the past quarter century, which address various shortcomings with traditional income data. We find that intergenerational SWB mobility-as measured by subjective wealth and life satisfaction-exists, with daughters having higher transmission of SWB from their mothers than sons. Adding other child and parent characteristics to the multivariate regression models can reduce the estimated impacts of mothers’ SWB by up to 40% but does not change the gender gaps in the intergenerational transmission. Our results are robust to different model specifications and sample restrictions.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
A new GLO Discussion Papersuggests that COVID-19 made employers and employees more aware of the productivity gains arising from the digital revolution.
Author Abstract: The forced remote working relationships experienced during the COVID-19 pandemics made employers and employees more aware of the productivity gains arising from the digital revolution. To investigate the characteristics of such gains, we model firms’ production allowing companies to choose among three types of (face-to-face in presence, remote synchronous, and remote asynchronous) employees relationships. The introduction of remote interactions allows us to outline five features affecting workers productivity such as i) mobility reduction, ii) frequency of interactions, iii) optimal time/place, iv) work-life balance, and v) relationship decay effects. We calculate the optimal share of the three types of relationships that maximise corporate profits conditional to reasonable parametric assumptions on the five effects under perfect and asymmetric information. We as well assess the potential productivity growth of companies that use only faceto- face interactions when allowing also remote interactions. We finally discuss existing private business contracts that introduced hybrid combinations of in-person and remote work activities for their employees, that are aligned with our theoretical findings and call for new industrial and environmental policies at national and supranational level.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Abortion issues are again on the agenda in may societies around the globe. Academic research can inform the public debate. The Journal of Population Economics((JOPE) is a scientific outlet for studying important issues. It has published a larger number of relevant papers recently, which are discussed in the workshops announced below. The events are open to the general public. Use this chance to discuss research findings with the authors. Prior registration to both parts separately is required. JOPE Editor-in-Chief Klaus F. Zimmermann (GLO, UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) will open the events, and Managing Editors Michaella Vanore (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University) and Madeline Zavodny (University of North Florida) will chair the sessions.
JOPE Research Workshop on Abortion Issues I Tuesday May 31; 4-5 pm CEST (Berlin time) Chair: Michaella Vanore (UNU-MERIT & Maastricht University)
Anisha Sharma (Ashoka University, India) Unwanted daughters: the unintended consequences of a ban on sex-selective abortions on the educational attainment of women
Federico H. Gutierrez (Vanderbilt University, USA) The inter-generational fertility effect of an abortion ban
Prior registration required:
You are invited to a Zoom meeting. When: May 31, 2022 04:00 PM Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
Author Abstract: This paper analyzes the impact of supply-side abortion restrictions on aggregate abortion and birth rates in the United States. Specifically, I exploit state and time variation in the implementation of the first targeted regulation of abortion provider (TRAP) law in a state to identify the effects of the laws. I find that TRAP laws are associated with a reduction in the abortion rate of approximately 5% the year the first law is implemented, and an average reduction of 11-14% in subsequent years. There is also evidence that TRAP laws increased birth rates by 2-3%, which accounts for approximately 80-100% of the observed decline in abortion rates.
Author Abstract: An expansive empirical literature estimates the causal effects of policies governing young women’s confidential and legal access to contraception and abortion. I present a new review of changes in the historical policy environment in the United States that serve as the foundation of this work. I consult primary sources including annotated statutes, judicial rulings, attorney general opinions, and advisory articles in medical journals, as well as secondary sources including newspaper articles and snapshots of various policy environments prepared by scholars, advocates, and government organizations. Based on this review, I provide a suggested coding of the policy environment over the past 60 years. I also present and compare the legal coding schemes used in the empirical literature and where possible I resolve numerous and substantial discrepancies.
Access to more published JOPE research on abortion issues:
Author Abstract: This paper uses data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe to analyze the effect of spousal health shocks on own labor supply decisions. Results from the analysis suggest minimal changes to the probability of work and the intensity of work for both husbands and wives of disabled spouses. Wives, however, do experience an increase in the probability of retirement after their husbands experience a work-limiting health shock. Results suggest that this increased probability is due to the desire to consume joint leisure. Finally, the analysis finds substantial cross-regional heterogeneity in the effect spousal health shocks have on the various labor market outcomes examined here, which suggests an important role for country-specific factors in the estimates provided in the earlier literature.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract:We empirically examine whether violation of hypergamy – which occurs when the wife’s economic status equals or exceeds that of her husband’s – causally affects domestic violence using microdata from India. Identifying the causal effect of hypergamy violation on domestic violence, however, is challenging due to unmeasured confounding and reverse causality. To overcome these difficulties, we utilize a nonparametric bounds approach. Relying on fairly weak assumptions, we find strong evidence that violation of hypergamy leads to a significant increase in domestic violence. Further, we provide suggestive evidence that this result arises because violation of hypergamy is likely to undermine patriarchal beliefs and norms about gender roles, and also because it is likely to increase men’s likelihood of using domestic violence as an instrument. Our findings suggest that policies that seek to empower women and promote gender equality might paradoxically increase women’s exposure to domestic violence.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Using data from large-scale experiments with entire families for Bangladesh, the research finds that both mothers’ and fathers’ risk, time and social preferences are significantly positively correlated with their children’s economic preferences.Results differ from evidence for rich countries.
Shyamal Chowdhury (University of Sydney) presents the paper in a public speech in the University of Dhaka on May 12, 2022.
GLO Discussion Paper No. 592, 2020 now forthcoming as
Economic preferences across generations and family clusters: A large-scale experiment in a developing country by Chowdhury, Shyamal & Sutter, Matthias & Zimmermann, Klaus F.
GLO FellowsShyamal Chowdhury and Matthias Sutter & GLO President Klaus F. Zimmermann
Shyamal Chowdhury
Matthias Sutter
Klaus F. Zimmermann
Author Abstract:Our large-scale experiment with 542 families from rural Bangladesh finds substantial intergenerational persistence of economic preferences. Both mothers’ and fathers’ risk, time and social preferences are significantly (and largely to the same degree) positively correlated with their children’s economic preferences, even when controlling for personality traits and socio-economic background. We discuss possible transmission channels and are the first to classify all families into one of two clusters, with either relatively patient, risk-tolerant and pro-social members or relatively impatient, risk averse and spiteful members. Classifications correlate with socio-economic background variables. We find that our results differ from evidence for rich countries.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
New book published. It investigates the global challenges for the United States and the upcoming competition with China.
Alfredo Toro Hardy:America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline?Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. More information: Springer — Amazon
Below: GLO interview with the author!
Without a single shot being fired, the United States had won the Cold War. This led to the homogenization of the world under America’s liberal order. Its global hegemony, though, proved to be brief. A country that arrived from the blue, China, is now contesting the U.S. primacy.
China has been the driving force of a whole array of multilateral cooperative initiatives that have kept a lid on its nationalistic excesses and enhanced its global convergence appeal.
China’s GDP is in the process of surpassing that of the United States. It has already developed the capability to technologically offset America’s superior forces through disruptive asymmetric weapons.
During its first Cold War the U.S. had the wind on its back. All the right configuration of elements supported it. In this emerging Cold War with China the opposite happens as the U.S. confronts the wrong configuration of factors. With such inauspicious outlook Washington should explore other alternatives to Cold War.
ALFREDO TORO HARDY is a Venezuelan retired diplomat, scholar and author.
He has a PhD on International Relations by the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Affairs, two master degrees on international law and international economics by the University of Pennsylvania and the Central University of Venezuela, a post-graduate diploma in diplomatic studies by the Ecole Nationale D’Administration (ENA) and a Bachelor of Law degree by the Central University of Venezuela.
Before resigning from the Venezuelan Foreign Service in protest for events taking place in his country, he was one of its most senior career diplomats. As such, he served as Ambassador to the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Chile and Ireland. He directed the Diplomatic Academy of the Venezuelan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as other Venezuelan academic institutions in the field of international affairs.
He is an Honorary Research Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and has been a Visiting Professor at the universities of Princeton and Brasilia and an on-line Professor at the University of Barcelona. He has also been a Fulbright Scholar, a two-time Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Resident Scholar and an academic advisor on diplomatic studies to the University of Westminster.
He has authored twenty-one books and co-authored fifteen more on international affairs and history, while publishing thirty peer reviewed papers on the same subjects. His latest book America’s Two Cold Wars: From Hegemony to Decline? was published by Palgrave Macmillan in March 2022.
INTERVIEW
GLO: In your book you argue that the United States won the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and is now at the outset of a new Cold War with China. Is this not an illusion in the face of the invasion of Ukraine, where we are confronted again in a radical way with a split of the world between democratic and autocratic regimes with Russia as a particularly aggressive opponent? This new war seems to be hot, not cold.
Alfredo Toro Hardy:The idea of an ideological split of the world between democratic and autocratic regimes, with the U.S. towering again a “free world” notion, is controversial. Notwithstanding that Russia’s invasion to Ukraine has provided a temporary support to Biden’s democracy versus autocracy proposal, the fact remains that America’s liberal order has been invaded by the cancer of populism and its functioning and basic norms are under threat. In three years’ time Washington could be inaugurating a fresh Trump administration.
Conversely, at least in the case of China there is no interest whatsoever in promoting or weighing an ideological contest on behalf of authoritarianism. First, since Deng Xiaoping days’ results are all that matter. A straightforward social contract exists between the Chinese Communist Party and the people: We’ll make you better off and you will follow our orders. Efficacy becomes the magic word. Second, the authoritarian nature of the Chinese regime is not tantamount to ideology but to culture. A political culture that dates back to 221 BC with the establishing of the Qin dynasty and that presents the CCP regime as part of a continuum within China’s long dynastic history. This duality efficacy-culture is not prone to ideological disquisitions.
As for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine other elements are also in line: Its historical obsession with borders, imperial nostalgia, Ivan Ilyn’s fashionable ideas on Russia’s exceptionalism and the need of spiritual renewal. And so on.
In sum, the ideologically oriented dichotomy democracy versus autocracy fails to capture the complexities involved within the great powers competition.
GLO: While Russia may live on its natural resources and the military, China badly depends on trade and technology. China seeks world domination beyond military strength and needs the collaboration of the Western World. Will globalization return or will we see a bipolar world again?
Alfredo Toro Hardy: China has indeed become the main promoter and defender of globalization. However, trends are moving in the opposite direction. This requires some explanation. Globalization emerged as a result of political intention and technological feasibility. Now, it finds itself seriously challenged for the same reasons. In both cases, political intention and technological feasibility are clearly identified with Western economies.
Globalization, as its promoters assumed, would mainly benefit the Western world as fast moving nations appeared to be the better prepared to take advantage from a rapidly moving global economy. Based on this assumption, Western nations and the economic multilateral institutions under their control, gave the necessary steps to make globalization a reality. Political intention was reinforced by technological feasibility. One centered in the so called supply chains and global chains of value, which allowed for the offshoring of countless manufacturing and service jobs within an integrated world economy.
However, political intention has been reversing course. The massive contraction of traditional employments and the dramatic shrinking of middle classes within Western economies, ignited this change. A wave of protectionism and economic nationalism has kept globalization under siege. On its side, a technological feasibility centered in the Fourth Industrial Revolution makes possible the onshoring of economic activities to the Western world. Why, indeed, go manufacturing or looking for service providers afar, when technology allows for cheap options at home?
Onshoring which identifies with producing home or near shoring which identifies with regionalism, have been gathering strength. Covid 19 has provided an important push in the same direction, as the disruption of supply chains that it unleashed generated inflation. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is providing an even more significant push. Not only by disrupting the energy and food supply chains, which in themselves are immensely important, but because it implies a return to the age of geopolitical uncertainty. Henceforward, economic security would advise producing home or close to home.
China would be certainly affected by the crisis of globalization.
GLO: Many observers think that the core of the US-Chinese competition will be the race to achieve the most advanced technological breakthroughs. Will the United States be able to keep its leading position?
Alfredo Toro Hardy: Until not long ago China’s technological advances depended on its “picking from the low-hanging trees”. Nowadays, China is an extremely efficient indigenous innovator in direct competition with the United States in several key technological areas. Although not yet prepared to displace America’s technological superiority overall, the technologies in which they are forcefully competing have a tremendous multiplier effect.
Their competition is contingent on the efficiency of two very different development models – the State guided and funded one, and the market oriented one. Curiously enough, the Chinese have become the best pupils in following the textbook of America’s innovation success story in the decades that followed World War II, when the Federal Government played a pivotal role. Nowadays, however, the former teachers completely adhere to the market forces. The Chinese route map in science, technology and innovation looks more coherent and holistic than the one currently been followed by the United States.
GLO: How should the Western world deal with the forthcoming Chinese conflict with Taiwan? What lessons do we lean from the current war in Europe?
Alfredo Toro Hardy:To begin with, the newfound strength of the European Alliance, which under Trump seemed to have been brain dead according to Macron’s definition, has yet to prove itself. Would it survive a long conflict in Ukraine? Would it survive beyond the European continent? Would it survive a plausible Trump return to the White House? Hence, better circumscribe ourselves to the United States when referring to a Western approach in the “forthcoming” Chinese conflict with Taiwan.
The case of Taiwan is particularly forbidding in relation to an American containment policy of the Popular Republic of China. This, for three reasons. First, the distances involved. Distance from California to Taiwan is 7,000 miles and from Hawaii close to 5,300 miles. Conversely, distance between mainland China and Taiwan is only 90 miles. John Mearsheimer’s notion of the stopping power of water fully applies here. Second, the asymmetric interests involved. For Beijing reuniting Taiwan with the mainland represents a historical restitution not a territorial expansion. Meaning, it sees Taiwan as an integral part of the country’s territory and has immanent incentives in seeking reunification. For the U.S., on the contrary, only reputational interests are involved. What it’s at stake for both lies at completely different levels. Third, the principles involved. Since the 1972 joint communique between Washington and Beijing, the former has never contested the One China policy. A good example of this was Clinton’s “three no’s” policy – the U.S. doesn’t support independence for Taiwan, nor does it support “two Chinas”, nor does believe that Taiwan should have membership in any organization for which statehood is required. Under those bases how to go to war with Beijing in support of Taipei?
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Alfredo Toro Hardy was interviewed by Klaus F. Zimmermann, GLO President.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
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Access to more published JOPE research on abortion issues:
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
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Accepted for publication in the Journal of Population Economics.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
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The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
