Reform of Unemployment Compensation in Germany : A Nonparametric Bounds Analysis Using Register Data

Economic theory suggests that an extension of the maximum length of entitlement for unemployment benefits increases the duration of unemployment. Empirical results for the reform of the unemployment compensation system in Germany during the 1980s are less clear. The analysis in this paper is motivated by the controversial empirical findings and by recent developments in econometrics for partial identification. We use extensive administrative data with the drawback that registered unemployment is not directly observed. For this reason we bound the reform effect on unemployment duration over different definitions of unemployment. By exploiting the richness of the data we use a nonparametric approach without imposing critical parametric model assumptions. We identify a systematic increase in unemployment duration in response to the reform in samples that amount to less than 15% of the unemployment spells for the treatment group

Equality of opportunity and educational achievement in Portugal

Portugal has one of the highest levels of income inequality in Europe, and low wages and unemployment are concentrated among low skill individuals. Education is an important determinant of inequality. However, there are large differences in the educational attainment of different individuals in the population, and the sources of these differences emerge early in the life-cycle when families play a central role in individual development. We estimate that most of the variance of school achievement at age 15 is explained by family characteristics. Observed school inputs explain very little of adolescent performance. Children from highly educated parents benefit of rich cultural environments in the home and become highly educated adults. Education policy needs to be innovative: (1) it needs to explicitly recognize the fundamental long run role of families on child development; (2) it needs to acknowledge the failure of traditional input based policies

Mixed mode data clustering: an approach based on tectrachoric correlations

In this paper we face the problem of clustering mixedmode data by assuming that the observed binary variables aregenerated from latent continuous variables. We perform a principalcomponents analysis on the matrix of tetrachoric correlations and wethen estimate the scores of each latent variable and construct adata matrix with continuous variables to be used in fully Guassianmixture models or in the k-means cluster analysis. The calculationof the expected a posteriori (EAP) estimates may proceed by simplyconsidering a limited number of quadrature points. Results on asimulation study and on a real data set are reported

The determinants of election to the United Nations Security Council

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11127-013-0096-4.The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is the foremost international body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security. Members vote on issues of global importance and consequently receive perks—election to the UNSC predicts, for instance, World Bank and IMF loans. But who gets elected to the UNSC? Addressing this question empirically is not straightforward as it requires a model that allows for discrete choices at the regional and international levels; the former nominates candidates while the latter ratifies them. Using an original multiple discrete choice model to analyze a dataset of 180 elections from 1970 to 2005, we find that UNSC election appears to derive from a compromise between the demands of populous countries to win election more frequently and a norm of giving each country its turn. We also find evidence that richer countries from the developing world win election more often, while involvement in warfare lowers election probability. By contrast, development aid does not predict election

Attracting Attentive Academics: Paper, Person or Place?

ISSN:1439-230

Residential mobility and local housing-market differences

The authors extend previous literature on variations in mobility rates across local housing markets by examining the linkage of mobility rates at the household level to the structure of local housing markets. The results suggest that residential mobility rates differ widely across local housing markets, substantiating the view that residential relocation is intimately intertwined with conditions at the local level. Local housing-market conditions also have different effects on mobility rates for renters and owner-occupiers. The results suggest that variation in residential mobility rates across housing markets can be in part explained by level of urbanization, the tenure structure, the degree of government intervention, and the size of the housing market. Remarkably, these differences in local housing markets cannot be seen to be related to housing-market features only. The results suggest that these differences can also be attributed to the behavior or attitude of households with respect to housing