Foreign Trade and the Gender Earnings Differential in Urban Mexico

gender discrimination, trade liberalization, Mexico

North-South Trade Liberalization and Returns to Skill in the South: The Case of Mexico

This study examines the effect of NAFTA, an instance of North-South trade liberalization, on returns to skill in Mexico. Mexico is abundant in low-skill workers relative to the US and Canada, and so, by the Hecksher-Ohlin-Samuelson trade model, NAFTA ought to have raised the relative earnings of low-skill workers, that is, lowered returns to skill in Mexico. Analysis of Mexican labor micro-data yields the finding that while returns to skill in industries producing tradeables have risen, ceteris paribus, since Mexico embarked upon trade liberalization by joining the GATT in 1986, this rise was less pronounced by 1999 in industries liberalized relatively rapidly by NAFTA, launched in 1994, than in industries liberalized relatively slowly by this phased trade treaty. This is considered evidence of NAFTA holding back rise in returns to skill, since it is plausible such a dampening would have been more marked in industries more rapidly exposed to trade with Mexico's skill abundant northern neighbors. Hence, this study suggests trade with developed nations may lower returns to skill in developing nations. It is speculated this may slow the pace of private human capital accumulation in developing nations, with negative consequences for their economic growth.human capital, Heckscher-Ohlin model, NAFTA

The Effect of Early Childhood Developmental Program Attendance on Future School Enrollment and Grade Progression in Rural North India

This paper examines the effect of prior participation in early childhood developmental programs, considered endogenous, upon 7-19 years olds' school enrollment and grade progression in rural North India. It hopes both to extend to less developed countries recent influential research on the long-term benefits of early childhood interventions in the United States, and to make a case for the inclusion of such interventions amongst developing nations’ policy initiatives toward expanding schooling. Analysis of data from the World Bank's 1997-98 Survey of Living Conditions in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar yields the findings that early childhood developmental program attendance at ages 0-6 raises the probability of school enrollment among average 7-19 year olds by 31 percentage points, and that this beneficial early experience also significantly hastens students’ grade progression.early childhood development, less developed country, India, schooling

The plough, gender roles, and corruption

Cross-country empirical studies of corruption using ordinary least squares commonly find that nations in which women play a greater role in economic and public life suffer less corruption. This has been a controversial finding since measures of women’s participation in the economy and politics are likely endogenous. This study uses an aspect of national ancestral geography as a novel instrumental variable in the estimation of the true causal effects of gender upon corruption. It thereby finds that ordinary least squares estimates of the effects of gender upon corruption are biased. This conclusion is upheld in time-series fixed-effects estimation

Household Access to Microcredit and Children's Food Security in Rural Malawi: A Gender Perspective

Using data from the 1995 Malawi Financial Markets and Food Security Survey, this study seeks to discover if women's relative control over household resources or intra-household bargaining power in rural Malawi, gauged by their access to microcredit, plays a role in children's food security, measured by anthropometric nutritional Z-scores. Access to microcredit is assessed in a novel way as self-reported credit limits at microcredit organizations. Since credit limits, that is, the maximum sums that might be borrowed, hinge upon supply-side factors such as the availability of credit programs and the financial resources of lenders, it is plausible they are more exogenous than demand driven loan uptake or participation in microcredit organizations, the common ways of gauging access to microcredit. It is indicated that whereas the access to microcredit of adult female household members improves 0–6 year old girls', though not boys', long-term nutrition as measured by height-for-age, the access to microcredit of male members has no such salutary effect on either girls' or boys' nutritional status. This may be interpreted as evidence of a positive relation between women's relative control over household resources and young girls' food security. That women's access to microcredit improves young girls' long-term nutrition may be explained in part by the subsidiary finding that it raises household expenditure on food.intra-household distribution, bargaining, microcredit, gender, Malawi

NON-METROPOLITAN TO METROPOLITAN AREA MIGRATION OF YOUNG ADULTS

The decisions of young adults from non-metropolitan areas to either migrate to metropolitan areas or remain in non-metropolitan areas following the completion of schooling are studied in this paper. The migration decision is decomposed into an hourly initial earnings component and a cost component comprising the financial, psychic, and employment attainment costs of migration. There are three noteworthy findings. First, while the propensity to migrate increases in educational attainment, contrary to conventional wisdom, this is entirely attributable to lower costs to migration among more educated individuals. Second, weak local economic conditions exert a strong influence on migration behavior. Specifically, high local unemployment rates and low per-capita county income significantly increase the cost of migration. Third, expected differences in initial earnings continue to provide an important incentive for young adults to migrate from non-metropolitan to metropolitan areas.Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Labor and Human Capital,

Women's Status and Children's Food Security in Pakistan

This study examines the role of women's intra-household status relative to men in children's food security in Pakistan. Data from the 1991 Pakistan Integrated Household Survey (PIHS) yield a measure of evidence of a positive relation between women's intra-household status and children's food security.Pakistan, women, children, food security, anthropometric

Household Access to Microcredit and Children?s Food Security in Rural Malawi: A Gender Perspective

Using data from the 1995 Malawi Financial Markets and Food Security Survey, this study seeks to discover if women?s relative control over household resources or intra-household bargaining power in rural Malawi, gauged by their access to microcredit, plays a role in children?s food security, measured by anthropometric nutritional Z-scores. Access to microcredit is assessed in a novel way as self-reported credit limits at microcredit organizations. Since credit limits, that is, the maximum sums that might be borrowed, hinge upon supply-side factors such as the availability of credit programmes and the financial resources of lenders, it is plausible they are more exogenous than demand driven loan uptake or participation in microcredit organizations, the common ways of gauging access to microcredit. It is indicated that whereas the access to microcredit of adult female household members improves 0- to 6-year old girls?, though not boys?, long-term nutrition as measured by height-for-age, the access to microcredit of males has no such salutary effect on either genders? nutritional status. This may be interpreted as evidence of a positive relation between women?s relative control over household resources and young girls? food security. That women?s access to microcredit improves young girls? long-term nutrition may be explained in part by the subsidiary finding that it raises household expenditure on food.microcredit, gender, food security, Malawi

THE IMPACT OF WELFARE REFORM ACROSS METROPOLITAN AND NON-METROPOLITAN AREAS: A NON-PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS

Recent public cash assistance reform measures designed to induce recipients to leave welfare and enter the workforce represent the most important change in social welfare policy in recent decades. Single female-headed families with children (SFHFwC), who represent 53 percent of non-metropolitan families with children living below the poverty line, are the major target group of reform measures. Recent studies have expressed concerns that heads of SFHFwC may face particular difficulties in transiting from welfare to work in non-metropolitan areas due to relatively weak demand for low skill female labor, greater childcare and transportation barriers to workforce participation, and economies of scale in the delivery of public programs to assist in transition. Despite these concerns, non-metropolitan SFHFwC have shown significant improvements in a number of economic indicators of family welfare since the initial implementation of reforms. However, the underlying causes of economic gains, and the relationship between gains and reform measures, remains unclear. This paper examines shifts from 1993 to 1999 in the distribution of real per-capita total receipts of non-metropolitan and metropolitan area SFHFwC with data from the U.S. Current Population Survey Annual Demographic Files. Nonparametric density estimates reveal a significant positive rightward shift in the per-capita distribution of total receipts of non-metropolitan SFHFwC occurred from 1993 to 1999. These gains are largely attributable to a rightward shift in the distribution of the earnings portion of total per-capita receipts, as the public assistance component of total receipts shifted leftward over the same period. The contributions of structural change in workforce welfare participation as well as underlying individual and area attribute shifts, are then examined using nonparametric density re-weighting methods. Specifically, five counterfactual experiments are conducted. The first experiment simulates the counterfactual distribution of non-metropolitan 1999 per-capita total receipts if the frequency of workforce welfare participation states in the 1999 data were at 1993 levels, but the distribution of per-capita receipts within each of four possible states of workforce and welfare participation remained at 1999 levels. The second counterfactual density simulates the 1999 non-metropolitan area distribution of per-capita receipts that would have prevailed if structural relationships between workforce welfare participation decisions and area and individual attributes were at 1993 levels, but area and individual attributes remained at 1999 levels. The third counterfactual experiment simulates the 1999 distribution of per-capita receipts that would have prevailed with both the 1993 structural relationship between workforce welfare participation and area and individual attributes and 1993 area and individual attribute levels. The fourth counterfactual experiment simulates 1999 distributions of per-capita receipts that would have prevailed if area unemployment and individual attributes in each workforce welfare state remained at 1993 levels, but the distribution of workforce welfare states were at 1999 levels. The final counterfactual density presents the 1999 per-capita receipts distribution that would have prevailed with 1999 workforce welfare participation rates arising from 1993 levels of unemployment in non-metropolitan areas. These experiments suggest that structural change in the relationship between area and individual attributes and workforce welfare program participation decisions from 1993 to 1999 accounts for only a small portion of observed shifts in total per-capita receipts. Changes in individual and area attributes, by contrast, account for much of the observed rightward shift in non-metropolitan per-capita total receipts from 1993 to 1999. Further, SFHFwC economic gains appear to arise from increased education levels and other individual attribute shifts, rather than more favorable area economic conditions. Gains should, therefore, be relatively resilient to future area economic downturns.Public Economics,

India’s calorie consumption puzzle: insights from the stochastic cost frontier analysis of calorie purchases

Between the early 1970s and very nearly the present, Indians’ per capita calorie consumption declined. This decline, perplexing in the face of rising per capita income when malnutrition is rampant, has been termed India’s Calorie Consumption Puzzle. It has been partially attributed to a squeeze in the household food budget. This study employs Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis to evaluate this explanation, upon the logic that such a squeeze shall likely result in the rising cost-efficiency of calorie purchases, that is, the more economical purchase of calories. Analysis of household expenditure data from India’s National Sample Survey reveals that Indian households’ purchase of calories did become more cost-efficient at every level of income, suggesting that there was indeed a squeeze in the household food budget, making this a viable explanation of the Calorie Consumption Puzzle. Besides thus investigating India’s Calorie Consumption Puzzle, this study demonstrates a novel application of Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis, to consumption instead of the more common production, in that the method has not previously been applied to the consumption of multiple items treated as inputs yielding an output. Stochastic Cost Frontier Analysis applied to calorie acquisition may be a new way of gauging changes over time in food security, with a rise in cost-efficiency indicating a squeeze in the food budget or declining food security