Cohort size and transitions into the labour market

This paper estimates the effect that the size of an individual’s labour-market entry cohort has on the subsequent duration of search for employment. Survival-analysis methods are applied to empirically assess this relationship using a sample of apprenticeship graduates who entered the German labour market between 1999 and 2012. The results suggest that apprentices from larger graduation cohorts take less time to find employment, but this effect appears to be significant only for a period of up to six months after graduation. These results therefore do not support the cohort-crowding hypothesis that members of larger cohorts face depressed labour-market outcomes. Moreover, there is no evidence that shorter search durations are the result of graduates being pushed into lower-quality employment. The finding that graduating as part of a larger cohort leads to shorter search durations is in line with those parts of the cohort-size literature that find larger youth cohorts being associated with lower unemployment rates. A possible explanation is that firms react to an anticipated increase in the number of graduates by creating jobs

Optimal minimum wages

We develop a quantitative spatial model with heterogeneous firms and a monopsonistic labour market to derive minimum wages that maximize employment or welfare. Quantifying the model for German micro regions, we find that the German minimum wage, set at 48% of the national mean wage, has increased aggregate worker welfare by about 2.1% at the cost or reducing employment by about 0.3%. The welfare-maximizing federal minimum wage, at 60% of the national mean wage, would increase aggregate worker welfare by 4%, but reduce employment by 5.6%. An employment-maximizing regional wage, set at 50% of the regional mean wage, would achieve a similar aggregate welfare effect and increase employment by 1.1%

The regional effects of Germany’s national minimum wage

We show that the minimum wage introduced in Germany in 2015 led to spatial wage convergence, in particular in the left tail of the distribution, without reducing relative employment in low-wage regions within the first two years

What is the optimal minimum wage?

The European Commission advocates an adequate minimum wage, which could be 60% of the median wage. A recent independent report published by the UK’s HM Treasury recommends a similar level. Germany’s Minister of Labour and Social Affairs has committed to a minimum wage of €12 per hour and the Raise the Wage Act would increase the U.S. federal minimum wage from $7.25 to$15 per hour by 2025. Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Duncan Roth, and Tobias Seidel explore whether such ambitious minimum wage increases improve the living conditions of low-wage workers as advocated by proponents, or lead to massive job loss as feared by opponents

Quality of life in a dynamic spatial model

We develop a dynamic spatial model in which heterogeneous workers are imperfectly mobile and forward-looking and yet all structural fundamentals can be inverted without assuming that the economy is in a stationary spatial equilibrium. Exploiting this novel feature of the model, we show that the canonical spatial equilibrium framework understates spatial quality of-life differentials, the urban quality-of-life premium and the value of local non-marketed goods. Unlike the canonical spatial equilibrium framework, the model quantitatively accounts for local welfare effects that motivate many place-based policies seeking to improve quality of life

Lockdown shows us it is not work that attracts us to big cities – but the social life

COVID’s effect on the social lives of city dwellers – being able to meet at the pub, restaurants or theatre – may be more relevant for the future of cities than its impact on work, write Gabriel Ahlfeldt, Fabian Bald, Duncan Roth, and Tobias Seidel

Anyone up for helping the Fisherman's wife? More solidarity with accidental misery than with man-made misery

We examine the willingness to donate depending on whether “misery” is random generated or self-inflicted by too high demands in bilateral negotiations. We find that randomness has a positive influence on the total amount of donation. In case of self-inflicted “misery” we observe that the subject who may have caused the unfavourable situation receives significantly less than the perceived innocent subject.altruism, bargaining experiment

Global burden of cardiovascular diseases and risk factors, 1990–2019 update from the GBD 2019 Study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), principally ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the leading cause of global mortality and a major contributor to disability. This paper reviews the magnitude of total CVD burden, including 13 underlying causes of cardiovascular death and 9 related risk factors, using estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019. GBD, an ongoing multinational collaboration to provide comparable and consistent estimates of population health over time, used all available population-level data sources on incidence, prevalence, case fatality, mortality, and health risks to produce estimates for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. Prevalent cases of total CVD nearly doubled from 271 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 257 to 285 million) in 1990 to 523 million (95% UI: 497 to 550 million) in 2019, and the number of CVD deaths steadily increased from 12.1 million (95% UI:11.4 to 12.6 million) in 1990, reaching 18.6 million (95% UI: 17.1 to 19.7 million) in 2019. The global trends for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and years of life lost also increased significantly, and years lived with disability doubled from 17.7 million (95% UI: 12.9 to 22.5 million) to 34.4 million (95% UI:24.9 to 43.6 million) over that period. The total number of DALYs due to IHD has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 182 million (95% UI: 170 to 194 million) DALYs, 9.14 million (95% UI: 8.40 to 9.74 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 197 million (95% UI: 178 to 220 million) prevalent cases of IHD in 2019. The total number of DALYs due to stroke has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 143 million (95% UI: 133 to 153 million) DALYs, 6.55 million (95% UI: 6.00 to 7.02 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 101 million (95% UI: 93.2 to 111 million) prevalent cases of stroke in 2019. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of disease burden in the world. CVD burden continues its decades-long rise for almost all countries outside high-income countries, and alarmingly, the age-standardized rate of CVD has begun to rise in some locations where it was previously declining in high-income countries. There is an urgent need to focus on implementing existing cost-effective policies and interventions if the world is to meet the targets for Sustainable Development Goal 3 and achieve a 30% reduction in premature mortality due to noncommunicable disease

Rehabilitation medicine summit: building research capacity Executive Summary

The general objective of the "Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity" was to advance and promote research in medical rehabilitation by making recommendations to expand research capacity. The five elements of research capacity that guided the discussions were: 1) researchers; 2) research culture, environment, and infrastructure; 3) funding; 4) partnerships; and 5) metrics. The 100 participants included representatives of professional organizations, consumer groups, academic departments, researchers, governmental funding agencies, and the private sector. The small group discussions and plenary sessions generated an array of problems, possible solutions, and recommended actions. A post-Summit, multi-organizational initiative is called to pursue the agendas outlined in this report (see Additional File 1)

Maternal hemoglobin depletion in a settled Northern Kenyan pastoral population

Objectives: This study examines maternal hemoglobin depletion in a cross-sectional sample of Ariaal women living in northern Kenya. Maternal hemoglobin depletion occurs when women do not have enough dietary iron to replace the high levels of iron allocated to the fetus during pregnancy. Methods: To study this phenomenon, reproductive histories, socioeconomic status, anthropometry, and hemoglobin levels were collected from a cross-section of 200 lactating Ariaal women in northern Kenya. Results: Ariaal women show increasing levels of hemoglobin with increasing time since birth and lower hemoglobin levels with increasing parity, indicating an incomplete repletion of dietary iron over women's reproductive lifetime. Women who lived in a more livestock-dependent village had higher hemoglobin levels and lower prevalence of clinical anemia than women who lived in villages more dependent on agriculture, indicating that differences in diet may alleviate the effects of iron depletion. Conclusions: These data demonstrate that Ariaal women are iron depleted due to pregnancy, incompletely replete hemoglobin during the course of lactation, and show depletion of hemoglobin with increasing parity. Women in this community may be able to improve their iron status through a greater reliance on food sources rich in dietary iron. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78218/1/21078_ftp.pd