Mathematics camps: A gift for gifted students?

We evaluate the short-run impact of a mathematics camp for gifted high school students. During the camp, studets work in teams, trying to solve advanced mathematical prob- lems with the help of manipulatives. We randomize participation in the camp and test the effects of such participation on problem-solving skills, personality traits, and career intentions. Results show that participants improve their problem-solving skills, especially in questions that require the use of logic. We also find positive effects on students’ person- ality traits: students declare to be less neurotic and more extroverted. Gifted students with relatively lower school math scores benefit more from the program. Finally, participating in the mathematics camp makes students more willing to go to university

What is Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander? How gender-specific conceptual frames affect financial participation and decision-making

We conduct a field experiment with elementary school children to go to the roots of the gender gap in financial participation and decision-making. We study the combined effects of two treatments designed to boost the attention span of participants in completing a basic financial task. We find that the use of gender-specific conceptual frames (competitiveness vs. cooperation) in the description of the task: a) raises girls’ interest and thus increases their number of coherent answers; b) makes the transmission of information on the utility of savings more effective in boosting the coherence of girls’ answers; c) does not increase girls’ level of impatience. This evidence supports our underlying hypothesis that the use of more gender-specific conceptual frames in presenting financial information to women may play a role in narrowing the gender gap in financial market participation and decision-making

Impact of Ageing on Curative Health Care Workforce in Selected EU Countries

Population ageing combined with a shrinking potential workforce are main factors influencing future socio-economic development and the labour market. This paper has the objective to show the impact of population change on one important sector of the economy, the health care market. As the need for health care services increases with age, the population ageing is expected to have a direct influence on the demand for services and the workforce needed. The shrinking labour force and the currently high share of elderly health professionals will have an impact of the future supply of health workforce. Based on the NEUJOBS demographic scenarios tough and friendly and age- and gender specific utilization rates the changes in the health workforce needed are calculated. Changes in labour supply and employment are shown using the results of the econometric model NEMESIS. In both scenario a decline in population size and an ageing of the population is expected. In the friendly scenario the demand for health care services is expected to increase, although the population size declines. The population ageing has a higher effect on the demand as the shrinking population size. In the tough scenario the significant decline in population dominates the demand for health workforce. Due to the demographic change also a decline in labour supply is calculated, while the employment in health care is estimated to increase in both scenarios. In 2025, the estimated employment is higher than the demand for health workforce. But on the demand side the calculations show only the pure demographic effect. Due to data restrictions we could not take into account the technological medical progress, changes in health utilization behaviour or changes in health status of the population. All these factor have an influence on the future health workforce demand.This publication was produced as part of the NEUJOBS project, funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme under contract no. 266833 (http://www.neujobs)

Measuring the Sustainability of Pension Systems through a Microsimulation Model: The Case of Italy. ENEPRI Research Report No. 66, 19 January 2009

Many countries have recently enacted radical reforms to their pension systems to recover long-term financial sustainability. One measure has been to introduce an actuarially fair pension rule. A system that grants actuarially fair benefits is not only fair across individuals and generations, i.e. it grants equality of treatment, but is also sustainable in the long run. In this paper, we take Italy as a case study and use a microsimulation model – an instrument able to monitor actuarial fairness of the pension rules in a less conventional approach – to analyse the phasing-in of the reforms and their ability to recover the long-term sustainability of the system

Women participation and caring decisions: do different institutional frameworks matter? A comparison between Italy and The Netherlands

From a classic static model of time allocation with altruism, testable implications relative to the effects of the differences in policy intervention on informal care and participation are derived. Those are then tested by comparing working and informal caring choices in Italy and The Netherlands, two countries that differ deeply in the policy interventions towards adults in need and in the accessibility to part-time working positions. The analysis is conducted by comparing the estimated coefficients of a multivariate dynamic binary probit on informal care provision and participation on a panel sample of working age married women of the two countries. As predicted by the model, results reveal for The Netherlands with respect to Italy a lower negative causal effect of informal care on labour market participation, a lower state dependence in informal caring decisions and a non significant role of income levels in determining caring choices.labour market participation, informal care-giving, welfare policies, multivariate binary probit