Does Marriage Lead to Specialization? An Evaluation of Swedish Trends in Adult Earnings Before and After Marriage

We examine whether marriage leads to specialization in Sweden by implementing a model that differentiates specialization in the household by cohabitation and marriage. Our paper evaluates this model using panel data to analyze trends in earnings before and after marriage between 1985 and 1995 for married and long-term cohabiting Swedish couples with children. To identify the effect of marriage on earnings we use the reform of the widow’s pension system that resulted in a marriage boom in Sweden in 1989 and difference-in-difference estimation. Our results show that most of the male marriage premium can be explained by positive selection whereas the female marriage penalty reflects increased specialization in home production and childcare. The findings suggest that the positive selection of men into marriage translates into the increased specialization of women. We also find evidence that marriage facilitates specialization in the few couples where mothers earn more than fathers, resulting in a marriage premium for women and a marriage penalty for men. Finally, we find that the net effect of marriage on family earnings is zero because the male marriage premium is offset by the female marriage penalty. Our results show that specialization results from the legal arrangement of marriage, not from the living arrangement of the household.Marriage; Marriage premium; Specialization

Does Marriage Matter for Children? Assessing the Impact of Legal Marriage in Sweden

This paper examines whether parental marriage confers educational advantages to children relative to cohabitation. We exploit a dramatic marriage boom in Sweden in late 1989 created by a reform of the Widow’s Pension System that raised the attractiveness of marriage compared to cohabitation to identify the effect of marriage and the effect of selection bias on marriage estimates. Sweden’s rich administrative data sources enable us to identify the children who were affected by parental marriage due to this marriage boom. Our analysis addresses the question of whether marginal marriages created by a policy initiative have an impact on children. Using grade point average at age 16 as the outcome variable, we first show the expected pattern that children with married parents do better than children with cohabiting parents. However, once we control for observable family background and compare the outcomes for children whose parents married due to the reform with those for children whose parents remained unmarried, the differences largely disappear. The results from a sibling difference analysis are consistent with the conclusion that the differentials among children of married and cohabiting parents reflect selection rather than causation.family structure; marriage; child well-being; educational attainment

Willingness to pay and QALYs: What can we learn about valuing foodborne risk?

This study examines the value of reducing foodborne risk. Research on the valuation of health risk has been dominated by the study of mortality risk. Foodborne risk is, however, in most cases non-fatal and this study therefore focuses on individuals' preferences for reducing morbidity risk related to food consumption. We obtain estimates of the value of a statistical case (VSC) for morbidity risk and the value of a statistical life (VSL) for mortality risk in line with previous findings in the literature. However, we also examine whether WTP is proportional to the expected change in QALYs and estimate a WTP per QALY. We find that WTP is increasing with but not proportional to the change in QALYs. Our monetary estimates are significantly higher than expected and suggest that respondents may have found it dificult to evaluate both a change in risk and health level

Willingness to Pay and Sensitivity to Time Framing: A Theoretical Analysis and an Application on Car Safety

Stated preference (SP) surveys attempt to obtain monetary values for non-market goods that reflect individuals’ “true” preferences. Numerous empirical studies suggest that monetary values from SP studies are sensitive to survey design and so may not reflect respondents’ true preferences. This study examines the effect of time framing on respondents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for car safety.We explore how WTP per unit risk reduction depends on the time period over which respondents pay and face reduced risk in a theoretical model and by using data from a Swedish contingent valuation survey. We find that WTP is sensitive to time framing; the theoretical model predicts that the effect is likely to be nontrivial, and empirical estimates from an annual scenario are about 70 percent higher than estimates from a monthly scenario

A comparison of the nutritional qualities of supermarket's own and regular brands of bread in Sweden

Processed food is associated with unhealthy qualities such as higher content of harmful fats, sugars and salt. The aim of our study was to compare the nutritional qualities of supermarket's own brands and regular brands of bread sold in Sweden. Additionally, we compared the nutritional qualities of gluten-free and gluten-containing bread. We collected information from the labels of 332 bread products available in the largest grocery store chains. The Australian Health Star Rating (HSR) system was used to quantify the nutritional quality of each bread product. We compared all supermarket's own brand products to regular brand products, and gluten-free to gluten-containing bread. The mean HSR for the supermarket's own brands was lower than the regular brands (3.6 vs. 3.7; p = 0.046). For the regular brand products, the fibre, sugar and total fat content were greater (p < 0.001, p = 0.002 and p = 0.021, respectively), while less protein (p = 0.009) compared to regular bread products. Gluten-free bread had a lower HSR than gluten-containing bread (mean 3.5 vs. 3.8, respectively; p < 0.001). The regular brand products were slightly healthier than the supermarket's own brands, primarily as a result of a higher fibre content. Gluten-free bread products were slightly unhealthier due to a lower protein content

Interchain effects in the ultrafast photophysics of a semiconducting polymer: THz time-domain spectroscopy of thin films and isolated chains in solution

Euan Hendry, Mattijs Koeberg, Juleon M. Schins, H. K. Nienhuys, V. Sundström, L. D. A. Siebbeles, and Mischa Bonn, Physical Review B, Vol. 71, article 125201 (2005). "Copyright © 2005 by the American Physical Society."We compare the generation and decay dynamics of charges and excitons in a model polymer semiconductor (MEH-PPV) in solution and drop-cast thin films, by recording the sub-ps transient complex conductivity using THz time-domain spectroscopy. The results show that the quantum efficiency of charge generation is two orders of magnitude smaller in solution (~10–5) than in the solid film (~10–3). The proximity of neighboring chains in the films apparently facilitates (hot) exciton dissociation, presumably by allowing the electron and hole to separate on different polymer strands. For both samples, photoexcitation leads to the predominant formation of bound charge pairs (excitons) that can be detected through their polarizability. Surprisingly, the polarizability per absorbed photon is a factor of 3 larger in solution than in the film, suggesting that interchain interactions in the film do not result in a substantial delocalization of the exciton wave function

Heterogeneity in Blood Pressure Response to 4 Antihypertensive Drugs: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Importance: Hypertension is the leading risk factor for premature death worldwide. Multiple blood pressure-lowering therapies are available but the potential for maximizing benefit by personalized targeting of drug classes is unknown. Objective: To investigate and quantify the potential for targeting specific drugs to specific individuals to maximize blood pressure effects. Design, Setting, and Participants: A randomized, double-blind, repeated crossover trial in men and women with grade 1 hypertension at low risk for cardiovascular events at an outpatient research clinic in Sweden. Mixed-effects models were used to assess the extent to which individuals responded better to one treatment than another and to estimate the additional blood pressure lowering achievable by personalized treatment. Interventions: Each participant was scheduled for treatment in random order with 4 different classes of blood pressure-lowering drugs (lisinopril [angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor], candesartan [angiotensin-receptor blocker], hydrochlorothiazide [thiazide], and amlodipine [calcium channel blocker]), with repeated treatments for 2 classes. Main Outcomes and Measures: Ambulatory daytime systolic blood pressure, measured at the end of each treatment period. Results: There were 1468 completed treatment periods (median length, 56 days) recorded in 270 of the 280 randomized participants (54% men; mean age, 64 years). The blood pressure response to different treatments varied considerably between individuals (P <.001), specifically for the choices of lisinopril vs hydrochlorothiazide, lisinopril vs amlodipine, candesartan vs hydrochlorothiazide, and candesartan vs amlodipine. Large differences were excluded for the choices of lisinopril vs candesartan and hydrochlorothiazide vs amlodipine. On average, personalized treatment had the potential to provide an additional 4.4 mm Hg-lower systolic blood pressure. Conclusions and Relevance: These data reveal substantial heterogeneity in blood pressure response to drug therapy for hypertension, findings that may have implications for personalized therapy. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02774460