Mortality Risk and Educational Attainment of Black and White Men

This paper investigates to what extent the differences in education between black and white men can be explained by the differences in their mortality risks. A dynamic optimal stopping-point life cycle model is examined, in which group-level mortality risk plays an important role in determining individual-level mortality risk, health expenditure,and the amount of schooling. The model is calibrated to quantify the effect of mortality risks on schooling by taking the black and white male population as the respective reference groups for black men and white men. We find that the impact of mortality risk on schooling explains more than two-thirds of the empirical education differences between black and white males. This conclusion is robust to a set of plausible parameter values.

Power Dynamics: Multiple Equilibria, Cyclical Fluctuations, and Local Stability in Intertemporal General Equilibrium Models

Based on the theory of power proposed by John Galbraith, Bertrand Russell and other social scientists, this paper offers two positive intertemporal general equilibrium models to understand: i.) How do rational people decide their optimal consumption, property accumulation, and power? ii.)What causes people to choose different growth path of power? iii.)Why would two people, whose power and wealth endowment levels are quite close, differ so drastically in their future practice? iv.) Why could the rational pursue of power in a "perfect" world is compatible with cyclical power patterns? The simple two-dimensional model considers the dynamic property of power. The second model is an extension of the first model, and analyses the wealth effect on power accumulation. Numerical simulations have provided strong support for our modeling approaches.Power, Stable limit cycles, Hopf bifurcation, Multiple equilibria

"Net Intergenerational Transfers from an Increase in Social Security Benefits"

When the age of death is uncertain, individuals will leave bequestsÐeven if they have no desired bequests--simply because they will hold wealth against the possibility of living longer. Bequests are accidental. Starting from a baseline level of Social Security benefits, an increase in benefits will cause consumption to increase. However, consumption may not increase by as much as the increase in Social Security, which would cause wealth to be greater than under the baseline scenario. The higher wealth levels would translate into greater bequests. Therefore, an increase in Social Security benefits may not be a complete transfer from the younger generation to the older generation. Some of the increase in benefits may be bequeathed back to the younger generation. Whether this happens depends on the form of the utility function, the amount of bequeathable wealth, and whether there is a bequest motive. The objective of this paper is to quantify for single persons how much of an increase in Social Security benefits would be bequeathed back to the younger generation. We find that, at least for singles, increases in Social Security benefits are unlikely to be offset by bequests.

Subjective Mortality Risk and Bequests

This paper investigates whether subjective expectations about future mortality affect consumption and bequests motives. We estimate a dynamic life-cycle model based on subjective survival rates and wealth from the panel dataset Asset and Health Dynamics among Oldest Old. We find that bequest motives are small on average, which indicates that most bequests are involuntary or accidental. Moreover, parameter estimates using subjective mortality risk perform better in predicting out-of-sample wealth levels than estimates using life table mortality risks, suggesting that decisions about consumption and saving are influenced more strongly by individual-level beliefs about mortality risk than by group level mortality risk.

Net intergenerational transfers from an increase in social security benefits

When the age of death is uncertain, individuals will leave bequestseven if they have no desired bequestssimply because they will hold wealth against the possibility of living longer. Bequests are accidental. Starting from a baseline level of Social Security benefits, an increase in benefits will cause consumption to increase. However, consumption may not increase by as much as the increase in Social Security, which would cause wealth to be greater than under the baseline scenario. The higher wealth levels would translate into greater bequests. Therefore, an increase in Social Security benefits may not be a complete transfer from the younger generation to the older generation: some of the increase in benefits may be bequeathed back to the younger generation. Whether this happens depends on the form of the utility function, the amount of bequeathable wealth, and whether there is a bequest motive. The objective of this paper is to quantify for single persons how much of an increase in Social Security benefits would be bequeathed back to the younger generation. We find that, at least for singles, increases in Social Security benefits are unlikely to be offset by bequests

Dynamic Labor Demand in China: Public and Private Objectives

This paper studies dynamic labor demand by private and public manufacturing plants in China. It contributes along two dimensions. First, it uncovers the objectives of public enterprises and compares them to private enterprises. Second, it estimates adjustment costs of these plants and thus their (dynamic) labor demand. One of our principal findings is that public plants maximize the discounted present value of profits without a soft-budget constraint. There is strong evidence of both quadratic and linear firing costs at the plant level. Costs of adjusting hours are small and lower for private compared to public plants. The private plants operate with considerably lower quadratic adjustment costs. The higher quadratic adjustment costs of the public plants may reflect their internalization of social costs of employment adjustment. Domestic private plants and collective plants have about the same discount factor, much lower than state controlled plants.