The achievement gap between Roma and non-Roma students in East Central Europe and its potential causes

This study quantifies the achievement gap between Roma and non-Roma students in East Central Europe and assesses the potential causes of the gap. Using the UNDP survey of 2011, the only comparable data on the Roma spanning many countries, we show that the gap in the chances to get secondary education is substantial in all countries. When comparing young adults living with parents of comparable income and educational attainment, the gap drops by more than a half in most countries. Using unique data from Hungary, we assess the gap in standardized test scores and show that it is comparable to the size of the Black-White test score gap in the U.S.A. in the 1980’s. The test score gap in Hungary is almost entirely explained by social differences in income, wealth and parental education, and ethnic factors do not play a significant role. We identify two major mechanisms by which the social disadvantages of Roma students lead to lower skills. Their home environment is less favorable for their cognitive development, and their schools are characterized by a lower quality educational environment. Ethnic differences in the home environment are, again, explained by social differences, and ethnicity seems to play no additional role. On the other hand, while access to higher quality schools is strongly related to social differences, Roma students seem to face additional disadvantages. The results suggest that besides policies that aim at alleviating poverty, well-designed interventions influencing the mechanisms can also improve the skill development of Roma and other disadvantaged children

Wage setting in Hungary: evidence from a firm survey

We document results from a survey of wage setting in Hungarian enterprises. The survey was developed and coordinated by the Eurosystem Wage Dynamics Network, and it was administered in 17 European countries; this allows us to put the Hungarian findings in context. The main conclusion from the survey is that while Hungarian firms operate in a quite flexible institutional environment, their wage setting practices are relatively rigid. In its wage setting outcomes, Hungary shares more similarities with Western European countries than with countries in the Central and Eastern European region. The survey provides strong evidence that the observed wage setting behaviour can be explained by internal factors related to employee motivation, perceived fairness, and firms’ desire to maintain a desired wage distribution.wage setting, survey, Hungary, Wage Dynamics Network.

Wage setting in Hungary: evidence from a firm survey

This paper presents new evidence on the flexibility of the Hungarian labor market, with special emphasis on wages. The results are based on a new survey on wage setting among Hungarian firms. The survey is part of the Eurosystem Wage Dynamics Network (WDN), and it is a harmonized questionnaire administered in 17 countries in Europe, including almost all Euro Area countries as well as five Central and Eastern European countries. The survey results show that the Hungarian labor market, while institutionally flexible, appears to be surprisingly rigid. The survey evidence points to low turnover and possibly more rigid wages than previously thought. JEL Classification: C83, J01, J30Hungary, survey, wage dynamics network, Wage setting

Household Stock Market Beliefs and Learning

This paper characterizes heterogeneity of the beliefs of American households about future stock market returns, provides an explanation for that heterogeneity and establishes its relationship to stock holding behavior. We find substantial belief heterogeneity that is puzzling since households can observe the same publicly available information about the stock market. We propose a simple learning model where agents can invest in the acquisition of financial knowledge. Differential incentives to learn about the returns process can explain heterogeneity in beliefs. We check this explanation by using data on beliefs elicited as subjective probabilities and a rich set of other variables from the Health and Retirement Study. Both descriptive statistics and estimated relevant heterogeneity of the structural parameters provide support for our explanation. People with higher lifetime earnings, higher education, higher cognitive abilities, defined contribution as opposed to defined benefit pension plans, for example, possess beliefs that are considerably closer to what historical time series would imply. Our results also suggest that a substantial part of the reduced form relationship between stock holding and household characteristics is due to differences in beliefs. Our methodological contribution is estimating relevant heterogeneity of structural belief parameters from noisy survey answers to probability questions.

Who Becomes a Stockholder? Expectations, SUbjective Uncertainty, and Asset Allocation

We develop a model of portfolio selection with subjective uncertainty and learning in order to explain why some people hold stocks while others don’t. We model heterogeneity in information directly, which is an alternative to the existing explanations that emphasized heterogeneity in transaction costs of investment. We plan to calibrate the model to survey data (when available) on people’s perception about the distribution of stock market returns. Our approach also leads to a model of learning with new implications such as zero optimal risky assets, or ex post correlation of uncorrelated labor income and optimal portfolio composition. It also points to two factors in probabilistic thinking that should have a major impact on stock ownership. These are the level and the precision of expectations. We construct proxy measures for the two parameters from the 1992-2000 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We use a large battery of the subjective probability questions administered in each wave of HRS to construct an overall “index of optimism” (the correlated factor between all subjective probabilities) and “index of precision” (the fraction of nonfocal probability answers, following Lillard and Willis, 2001). We also construct measures for how people forecast the weather, their cognitive capacity, wealth, and basic demographics. Our results indicate that stock ownership and the probability of becoming a stockholder are strongly positively correlated with the indices of the level and precision of expectations. Interpretation of the former is quite challenging and further research is needed to understand its full content.

EXPERIENCE OF EXPERT ACTIVITY (Analysis of complex problems assuming various diagnostic means)

Difficulties in expert activity are introduced in the first section of the paper. The second section gives examples of expert activity, which integrates the knowledge of several professional fields. As an illustration, the aspects of preparing expert opinions on buildings with damage caused by water and on pavements of small elements in large-surface parking roofs are discussed. The paper concludes with thoughts on the development of expert activity and its arising interdisciplinary features

Iskolai szegregáció, szabad iskolaválasztás és helyi oktatáspolitika 100 magyar városban

A roma és nem roma tanulók iskolai elkülönülése igen nagy mértékben megnövekedett a nyolcvanas évek eleje óta a magyar iskolarendszerben. Jelen tanulmány 100 város adatain vizsgálja a szabad iskolaválasztás és a helyi oktatáspolitika szerepét ebben a folyamatban. Adminisztratív adatokat kombinálunk egy általunk tervezett kérdőíves felmérés adataival, melyet az érintett városok oktatáspolitikájának és lakóhelyi szegregációjának a feltárása érdekében folytattunk. Eredményeink azt mutatják, hogy a szabad iskolaválasztás csökkenti a lakóhelyi elkülönülés szerepét az iskolák közötti szegregációban azáltal, hogy a magasabb társadalmi státusú tanulók közül sokan járnak lakóhelyüktől távolabbi iskolákba. Azokban a városokban, ahol több tanuló jár lakóhelyétől távolabbi iskolákba, az iskolák közötti szegregáció is erősebb. A helyi oktatáspolitikai gyakorlat szintén növeli az iskolai szegregációt, e tekintetben jelentős különbségek vannak az egyes városok között. Azokban a városokban, ahol inkább szegregációs irányultságú a helyi oktatáspolitika, az iskolák közötti etnikai elkülönülés is nagyobb. A szabad iskolaválasztás hatása azonban jóval erősebb, mint a helyi oktatáspolitikáé

Adóráták és korrupció hatásai a munkaerőpiac látható valamint rejtett szegmenseire és az adóbevételekre (Keresztmetszeti és idősoros elemzések 28 OECD és 24 átmeneti ország mintája alapján) = The impact of tax rates and corruption on the visible and hidden segments of the labor market and the tax revenues (Cross section and time series analyses on sample of 28 OECD and 24 transition countries)

A kutatás kiindulópontja az volt, hogy az adóráták és a korrupció hatása a gazdaságban nem választható el egymástól: az adóráták országok közötti összehasonlítása félrevezető, ha egyidejűleg nem vesszük figyelembe azt az intézményi környezetet, amelyben ezek az adóráták hatnak a gazdaság szereplőire. A különféle adórátáknak a korrupcióval, mint pótlólagos adóval való kiegészítésével három nagyobb területre koncentráltunk: 1. Munkapiac: Regressziós modelljeinek kimutatták, hogy az adóráták és a munkapiaci intézmények eltérései mellett a korrupció mértékének különbségei is fontos tényezők a munkapiaci szegmensek nemzetközi relatív különbségeinek magyarázatában. 2. Adóbevételek: A kutatás 1.részében kapott eredményekre támaszkodva vizsgáltuk az adóbevételek nemzetközi eltéréseit. Kimutattuk, hogy az adórátáknak a korrupcióval való interakciója és az adóbevételek közötti kapcsolat Laffer típúsú görbét ír le, ahol az adóráták pozitív kapcsolatban állnak az adóbevételekkel, míg az adóráták és a korrupció interakciójának magasabb szintje csökkenti az adóbevételeket. Ez utóbbi hatás azonban még a legnagyobb korrupcióval rendelkező ország esetében sem kompenzálja az adóráták adóbevételt növelő hatását. 3. A rejtett gazdaság arányának becslése. A 2. részben kapott eredmények lehetővé tették több, a rejtett gazdaság nagyságát jelző indikátor kidolgozását és számszerűsítését a vizsgált országokra. | The starting point of the research was that: a simple comparison of statutory tax rates across countries to analyze the effect of the tax burden may be misleading, if we do not take into account the environment in which tax rates let their impact on the behavior of various participants of the economy be felt. The research focused on three major fields by investigating the effect of tax rates combined with corruption as an extra tax. 1 Labour market: The results of regression models confirm that beside tax rates and labour institutions the level of corruption is also an important explanatory variable explaining the relative size of various segments of the labour market. 2 Tax revenues: Based on the results of part 1 the determination of the ratio of the tax revenues to the GDP was investigated. We showed that the tax rates have a positive effect on the tax revenues and higher level of the interaction between the tax rates and the level of corruption decreases significantly these relative tax revenues. The latter effect however, even in a country with the most corrupt environment can not compensate revenue-boosting effects of the tax rates. 3 Estimations of the size of the hidden economy: The results of part 2 enabled us to construct and estimate different indicators measuring the size of the hidden economy in the investigated countries