Incentive Effects of Risk Pooling, Redistributive and Savings Arrangements in Unemployment Benefit Systems: Evidence from a Job-Search Model for Brazil

We develop a model of job search and use it to assess the effects that the Brazilian unemployment benefit system has on exit rates from unemployment. In our setup, unemployed workers receive job offers from the formal and informal sectors and decide whether to accept them or wait. Only jobs in the formal sector come with unemployment benefits. After incorporating the rules of the Brazilian unemployment benefit system we estimate the parameters of the model using its labor force survey (a rotating panel). Key parameters determining model dynamics are: the distribution of wage offers for each individual; the observed probabilities of separation from formal and informal jobs; and the unobserved job offers arrival rates. The results show that, in general, workers eligible for unemployment benefits also have higher offer rates – their unobserved characteristic are correlated with more job opportunities. Policy simulations ten suggest that the risk pooling and savings component of the unemployment benefit system have small effects on the probabilities of remaining unemployed. The main effect of both schemes is to reduce transitions into informal jobs. The effects are larger for unskilled workers, particularly women. The simulations also show that current effects are conditioned on the design of the system. More generous unemployment benefits, for instance, could substantially increase the share of workers who remain unemployed. In addition, asking workers to contribute to finance unemployment benefits would reduce formal employment.labor market transitions, unemployment insurance, social protection, job-search models, structural estimations

Entangled Economy: an ecosystems approach to modeling systemic level dynamics

We present a model of an economy inspired by individual based model approaches in evolutionary ecology. We demonstrate that evolutionary dynamics in a space of companies interconnected through a correlated interaction matrix produces time dependencies of the total size of the economy total number of companies, companies age and capital distribution that compares well with statistics for USA. We discuss the relevance of our modeling framework to policy making.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figure

5to. Congreso Internacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Sociedad. Memoria académica

El V Congreso Internacional de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación para la Sociedad, CITIS 2019, realizado del 6 al 8 de febrero de 2019 y organizado por la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, ofreció a la comunidad académica nacional e internacional una plataforma de comunicación unificada, dirigida a cubrir los problemas teóricos y prácticos de mayor impacto en la sociedad moderna desde la ingeniería. En esta edición, dedicada a los 25 años de vida de la UPS, los ejes temáticos estuvieron relacionados con la aplicación de la ciencia, el desarrollo tecnológico y la innovación en cinco pilares fundamentales de nuestra sociedad: la industria, la movilidad, la sostenibilidad ambiental, la información y las telecomunicaciones. El comité científico estuvo conformado formado por 48 investigadores procedentes de diez países: España, Reino Unido, Italia, Bélgica, México, Venezuela, Colombia, Brasil, Estados Unidos y Ecuador. Fueron recibidas un centenar de contribuciones, de las cuales 39 fueron aprobadas en forma de ponencias y 15 en formato poster. Estas contribuciones fueron presentadas de forma oral ante toda la comunidad académica que se dio cita en el Congreso, quienes desde el aula magna, el auditorio y la sala de usos múltiples de la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, cumplieron respetuosamente la responsabilidad de representar a toda la sociedad en la revisión, aceptación y validación del conocimiento nuevo que fue presentado en cada exposición por los investigadores. Paralelo a las sesiones técnicas, el Congreso contó con espacios de presentación de posters científicos y cinco workshops en temáticas de vanguardia que cautivaron la atención de nuestros docentes y estudiantes. También en el marco del evento se impartieron un total de ocho conferencias magistrales en temas tan actuales como la gestión del conocimiento en la universidad-ecosistema, los retos y oportunidades de la industria 4.0, los avances de la investigación básica y aplicada en mecatrónica para el estudio de robots de nueva generación, la optimización en ingeniería con técnicas multi-objetivo, el desarrollo de las redes avanzadas en Latinoamérica y los mundos, la contaminación del aire debido al tránsito vehicular, el radón y los riesgos que representa este gas radiactivo para la salud humana, entre otros

ESSAYS ON THE ROLE OF SOCIAL STATUS AND PEER EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUALS' BEHAVIOR AND WELL-BEING

Classic economics has long underestimated the role of social contexts on indi- viduals’ behavior. Individuals are not only driven by independent incentives but also by social influence as well as social approval and recognition. This dissertation contains three papers concerning the role of peer effects and social status on individuals’ behavior and well-being. The first chapter analyzes adolescents peer effects on cigarettes consump- tion by considering the popularity (i.e., social network centrality measures) of smokers and non-smokers within high schools. The analysis is based on the Ad- dHealth dataset, which has exhaustive data on social networks in the sampled high schools and detailed information about students and household charac- teristics. We use variations across cohorts within schools by using school fixed effects, lagged peer’s behavior at the cohort level as well as instrumental vari- ables. We find that the popularity of smokers increases the probability of indi- viduals smoking, while the popularity of non-smokers has the opposite effect. Analogous results apply to the number of cigarettes smoked, as well as the age of initiation. These effects persist up to fourteen years after high school. The second chapter follows a similar strategy to analyze peer effects on high school GPA. Using AddHealth data, we find that the popularity of good stu- dents in mathematics considerably increases individuals’ math GPA the fol- lowing year, while the popularity of bad students has the opposite effect. The positive effect is somewhat stronger for males, yet the negative effect is much stronger for females. These patterns extend to college participation and com- pletion. Thus, the first two chapters of this dissertation show the importance of social status in mediating the strength of peers’ influence. Individuals seem to ‘follow’ the behavior of high-status individuals and avoid that of low-status individuals. The final chapter looks at positional concerns in rural China with respect to rural income and remittances. More specifically, we look at how the average income and average remittances in the local county affect individuals’ subjec- tive well-being (SWB). We find that average rural income has a strong negative effect on SWB, arguably due to income comparisons. However, average remit- tances have a strong positive effect, possibly due to a signal effect of the po- tential opportunities from migration, both for potential migrants and potential remittances receivers

Peer effects on adolescent smoking: Are popular teens more influential?

<div><p>Previous research on adolescent cigarette adoption has focused on peer influence and the perceived status gain from smoking but has ignored the status effects on peer influence. We analyze adolescent peer effects on cigarette consumption while considering the popularity of peers. The analysis is based on a four wave panel survey representative of American high school students. We measure peers’ popularity by their eigenvector centrality in high school social networks. Using lagged peers’ behavior, school fixed effects, and instrumental variables to control for homophily and contextual confounds, we find that the probability of smoking the following year increases with the mean popularity of smokers, while the popularity of non-smokers has the opposite effect. These effects persist seven and fourteen years later (wave 3 and 4 of the data). In addition, the probability of smoking increases with the smoking propensity of the 20% most popular teens and decreases with the smoking propensity of the bottom 80%. The results indicate the importance of knowing not only the smoking propensity within a school but also the location of smokers within the social hierarchy.</p></div

Correlates of popularity.

<p>Weighted standardized eigenvector centrality.</p

Data structure.

<p>Data structure.</p

Probability of smoking and popularity of smokers/non-smokers—Probit average marginal effects.

<p>Probability of smoking and popularity of smokers/non-smokers—Probit average marginal effects.</p