Low Fertility of Highly Educated Women: The Impact of Child Care Infrastructure

Most studies of the negative correlation between fertility and education treat education as exogenously raising wages and the cost of child rearing, thus reducing fertility. I relax these assumptions in two respects. First, child costs don't increase with the value of time when external child care is used. Second, over a lifetime, education is endogenous. I model women's choice of education, fertility, and form of child care, allowing for economies of scale in parental child care. Compatibility between work and family duties increases labor supply, the demand for children of educated women, and enhances incentives for obtaining education. Die meisten Untersuchungen über den negativen Zusammenhang zwischen Kinderzahl und Ausbildung behandeln den Bildungsstand als exogene Größe, welche den Lohn und damit die Kosten der Kinderbetreuungs erhöht und die Fertilität reduziert. Zwei Annahmen werden in diesem Papier gelockert. Erstens steigen die Kinderkosten nicht mit dem Wert der Zeit wenn externe Kinderbetreuung in Anspruch genommen werden. Zweitens ist das Bildungsniveau in einer Lebenszeitbetrachtung endogen. Ich modelliere die Entscheidung einer Frau über ihre Bildung, Fertilität und Kinderbetreuungsform. Dabei werden auch Skalenerträge in der häuslichen Kinderbetreuung berücksichtigt. Bessere Vereinbarkeit zwischen beruflichen und familiären Verpflichtungen erhöht das Arbeitsangebot, die Nachfrage gebildeter Frauen nach Kindern, und die Anreize in Bildung zu investieren

Weak Minimizers, Minimizers and Variational Inequalities for set valued Functions. A blooming wreath?

In the literature, necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of variational inequalities are introduced to characterize minimizers of convex set valued functions with values in a conlinear space. Similar results are proved for a weaker concept of minimizers and weaker variational inequalities. The implications are proved using scalarization techniques that eventually provide original problems, not fully equivalent to the set-valued counterparts. Therefore, we try, in the course of this note, to close the network among the various notions proposed. More specifically, we prove that a minimizer is always a weak minimizer, and a solution to the stronger variational inequality always also a solution to the weak variational inequality of the same type. As a special case we obtain a complete characterization of efficiency and weak efficiency in vector optimization by set-valued variational inequalities and their scalarizations. Indeed this might eventually prove the usefulness of the set-optimization approach to renew the study of vector optimization

Variational inequalities characterizing weak minimality in set optimization

We introduce the notion of weak minimizer in set optimization. Necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of scalarized variational inequalities of Stampacchia and Minty type, respectively, are proved. As an application, we obtain necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for weak efficiency of vector optimization in infinite dimensional spaces. A Minty variational principle in this framework is proved as a corollary of our main result.Comment: Includes an appendix summarizing results which are submitted but not published at this poin

A Minty variational principle for set optimization

Extremal problems are studied involving an objective function with values in (order) complete lattices of sets generated by so called set relations. Contrary to the popular paradigm in vector optimization, the solution concept for such problems, introduced by F. Heyde and A. L\"ohne, comprises the attainment of the infimum as well as a minimality property. The main result is a Minty type variational inequality for set optimization problems which provides a sufficient optimality condition under lower semicontinuity assumptions and a necessary condition under appropriate generalized convexity assumptions. The variational inequality is based on a new Dini directional derivative for set-valued functions which is defined in terms of a "lattice difference quotient": A residual operation in a lattice of sets replaces the inverse addition in linear spaces. Relationships to families of scalar problems are pointed out and used for proofs: The appearance of improper scalarizations poses a major difficulty which is dealt with by extending known scalar results such as Diewert's theorem to improper functions

DEMOCRACY’S SPREAD: Elections and Sovereign Debt in Developing Countries

We use partisan and opportunistic political business cycle (“PBC”) considerations to develop and test a framework for explaining election-period changes in credit spreads for developing country sovereign bonds. Pre-election bond spread trends are significantly linked both to the partisan orientation of incumbents facing election and to expectations of incumbent victory. Bond spreads for right-wing (leftwing) incumbents increase (decrease) as the likelihood of left-wing (right-wing) challenger victory increases. For right-wing incumbent partisan and opportunistic PBC effects bondholder risk perceptions are mutually reinforcing. For left-wing incumbents partisan PBC effects dominate bondholder risk perceptions compared to opportunistic PBC effects.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39961/3/wp575.pd