Interrelated Dynamics of Health and Poverty in Australia

Using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this study examines the joint dynamics of health and poverty in Australian families. Taking advantage of panel data, the modelling approach used in this study allows a better estimation of the causal relationship between health and poverty. The results indicate that the causality between health and poverty runs both ways and the relationship is confounded by unobserved heterogeneity. In particular, it is found that families headed by a person in ill-health are more likely to be in poverty compared with families headed by a person with good health. On the other hand, a family head whose family is in poverty in the current year is more likely to be in ill-health in the next year compared with a family head whose family is not in poverty. In addition, there is evidence that health and poverty are affected by correlated unobservables, causing health to be endogenous to poverty even in the absence of a reverse effect from poverty on health. Consequently, treating health as exogenous in a poverty equation would produce biased estimates.socio-economic status, poverty, health, recursive models, panel data

Union Wage Effects in Australia: Evidence from Panel Data

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, our research indicates that unobserved heterogeneity substantially biases cross-sectional estimates of union wage effects upward for both males and females. Estimates of the union wage premium for male workers between the ages of 25 and 64 fall from 8.7 percent to 5.2 percent after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. For females aged 25 to 63 the estimated 4.0 percent cross-sectional union wage premium falls to 1.9 once unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for. Our results also indicate positive sorting by unobserved skills into union membership, especially among low skilled male and female workers. There is also evidence of negative sorting into unions among the most highly skilled.union wage effects; fixed effects models; panel data

Public-Private Wage Gap in Australia: Variation Along the Distribution

Previous research on public-private wage differentials in Australia is scarce and has focused on the central parts of the conditional wage distribution. Using the first six waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, this study applies quantile regression models to examine whether the sectoral wage effect varies along the wage distribution. For females, we find public sector wage premiums for almost the entire wage distribution and the premiums are relatively stable except at the extremities of the distribution. For males, the premiums decrease monotonically and are negative for the top half of the conditional wage distribution. The decomposition results show that the observed differences in individuals and job characteristics account for a substantial proportion of the overall sectoral wage gap.wage gap, quantile regression, decomposition

Eat, Drink, Firms and Government: An Investigation of Corruption from Entertainment and Travel Costs of Chinese Firms

Entertainment and Travel Costs (ETC) is a standard expenditure item for Chinese firms with an annual amount equal to about 20 percent of total wage bills. We use this objective accounting measure as a basis to analyze the composition of ETC and the effect of ETC on firm performance. We rely on the predictions from a simple but plausible model of managerial decision-making to identify components of ETC by examining how the total ETC responds to different environmental variables. In our empirical analysis we find strong evidence that firms. ETC consists of a mix that includes bribery to government officials both as %u201Cgrease money%u201D and %u201Cprotection money,%u201D expenditures to build relational capital with suppliers and clients, and managerial excesses. ETC overall has a significantly negative effect on firm performance, but its negative effect is much less pronounced for those firms located in cities with low quality government service, those who are subject to severe government expropriation, and those who do not have strong relationship with suppliers and clients. Our findings have important implications on how to effectively curb corruption.

Allometric models for aboveground biomass of ten tree species in northeast China

China contains 119 million hectares of natural forest, much of whichis secondary forest. An accurate estimation of the biomass of these forests is imperative because many studies conducted in northeast China have only used primary forest and this may have resulted in biased estimates. This study analyzed secondary forest in the area using information from a forest inventory to develop allometric models of the aboveground biomass (AGB). The parameter values of the diameter at breast height (DBH), tree height (H), and crown length (CL) were derived from a forest inventory of 2,733 trees in a 3.5 ha plot. The wood-specific gravity (WSG) was determined for 109 trees belonging to ten species. A partial sampling method was also used to determine the biomass of branches (including stem, bark and foliage) in 120 trees, which substantially ease the field works. The mean AGB was110,729 kg ha–1. We developed four allometric models from the investigation and evaluated the utility of other 19 published ones for AGB in the ten tree species. Incorporation of full range of variables with WSG-DBH-H-CL, significantly improved the precision of the models. Some of models were chosen that best fitted each tree species with high precision (R2 ≥ 0.939, SEE 0.167). At the latitude level, the estimated AGB of secondary forest was lower than that in mature primary forests, but higher than that in primary broadleaf forest and the average level in other types of forest likewise

Union wage effects in Australia: Evidence from panel data

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this research indicates that unobserved heterogeneity substantially biases cross-sectional estimates of union wage effects upward for both males and females. Estimates of the union wage premium for male workers between the ages of 25 and 64 fall from 8.7 percent to 5.2 percent after controlling for unobserved heterogeneity. For females aged 25 to 63 the estimated 4.0 percent cross-sectional union wage premium falls to 1.9 once unobserved heterogeneity is controlled for. The results also indicate positive sorting by unobserved skills into union membership, especially among low skilled male and female workers. There is also evidence of negative sorting into unions among the most highly skilled

State-Dependence and Stepping Stone Effects of Low Pay Employment in Australia

Using the HILDA Survey, this study examines state-dependence and stepping stone effects of low pay in Australia. The results show that both state-dependence and stepping stone effects of low pay are present after observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity is accounted for. The results also show that, other things being equal, people who are on low pay are more likely to be in employment in the future than those who are either unemployed or not in the labour force. On the other hand, people on low pay do not appear to be more likely to become jobless in the future than those on higher pay

The Dynamics of Low Pay Employment in Australia

Using the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, this study shows that the largest proportion of low pay spells originated from higher pay; only a small proportion were from non-employment or recent graduates. While the majority of low pay spells transitioned to higher pay, a significant proportion ended up with non-employment. The multivariate analysis shows that workers who entered low pay from higher pay also have a higher hazard rate of transitioning to higher pay; and those who entered low pay from non-employment are more likely to return to non-employment. Union members, public sector jobs and working in medium to large size firms increase the hazard rate of transitioning to higher pay, while immigrants from non-English speaking countries and workers with health problems have a lower hazard rate of moving into higher pay. There is some evidence that the longer a worker is in low paid employment, the less likely they are to transition to higher pay

State-Dependence and Stepping Stone Effects of Low Pay Employment in Australia

Using the HILDA Survey, this study examines state-dependence and stepping stone effects of low pay in Australia. The results show that both state-dependence and stepping stone effects of low pay are present after observed and unobserved individual heterogeneity is accounted for. The results also show that, other things being equal, people who are on low pay are more likely to be in employment in the future than those who are either unemployed or not in the labour force. On the other hand, people on low pay do not appear to be more likely to become jobless in the future than those on higher pay