Efficient Intra-Household Allocation of Parental Leave

We propose a model of how parents resolve conflicts about sharing the negative short and long-term consequences from parenthood-related career interruptions on earnings. We introduce childcare sharing in a collective model of household behavior with public consumption as in Blundell, Chiappori, and Meghier (2005). Conceptually, the solution to the household problem can be thought of as a two-stage process: Parents first agree on public expenditures on professional childcare; then, conditional on the level of public consumption and the budget constraint stemming from stage one, parents determine their individual job absence durations and private consumption shares. Using relative income measures from German parental benefit data as distribution factors, we find evidence for Pareto efficiency in childcare sharing. More precisely, households with higher total incomes purchase more professional childcare, and changes in distribution factors shift the conditional parental leave allocation in favor of the partner whose relative income increased.childcare, collective model, conditional sharing rule, intra-household allocation

On the Sensitivity of Return to Schooling Estimates to Estimation Methods, Model Specification, and Influential Outliers If Identification Is Weak

We provide a comparison of return to schooling estimates based on an influential study by Angrist and Krueger (1991) using two stage least squares (TSLS), limited information maximum likelihood (LIML), jackknife (JIVE), and split sample instrumental variables (SSIV) estimation. We find that the estimated return to education is quite sensitive to the age controls used in the models as well as the estimation method used. In particular, we provide evidence that JIVE coefficients' standard errors are inflated by a group of extreme years of education observations, for which identification is especially weak. We propose to use Cook's Distance in order to identify influential outliers having substantial influence on first-stage JIVE coefficients and fitted values.Cook's Distance, heteroskedasticity, outliers, return to education, specification, weak instruments

Updating, Self-Confidence and Discrimination

In a laboratory experiment, we show that subjects incorporate irrelevant group information into their evaluations of individuals. Individuals from on average worse performing groups receive lower evaluations, even if they are known to perform equally well as individuals from better performing groups. Our experiment leaves room neither for statistical nor taste-based discrimination. The discrimination we find is rather due to conservatism in updating beliefs. This conservatism is more pronounced in females. Furthermore, self-confident male evaluators overvalue male performers. Additionally, we use our data to simulate a job promotion ladder: Few rounds of moderate discrimination virtually eliminate females in higher positions.updating, conservatism, gender, discrimination, self-confidence

Prekäre Einkommenslagen in Deutschland: Ein Ost-West-Vergleich 1996 bis 2002

The paper investigates the distribution of equivalence-weighted net household income for West and East Germany, covering the period from 1996 to 2002. The data set used is the annual cross section data set “Mikrozensus”. The main issues of the paper are twofold. First, we analyze standard measures of income distributions as well as measures of inequality. Second, we set up a Logit model to explain relative poorness in East and West Germany using Mikrozensus data to capture household characteristics. The main focus in this section deals with the question how different types of forms of living and the number of children will affect the risk of falling into precarious income situations. The results show that the risk of getting poor is higher for families with children as well as for single persons with children.income distribution, equivalence income, relative poorness, micro census, logit models

Intra-Household Allocation of Parental Leave

We introduce childcare sharing in a collective model of household behavior to investigate which factors make spouses increase or decrease their share of parental leave. The concern about future consumption motivates parents to invest in their human capital and to limit their leave duration. Using relative income and the age difference between spouses as distribution factors, we cannot reject Pareto efficiency in childcare sharing. Higher relative incomes and larger age differences shift the conditional leave allocation towards the relatively poorer and younger partner, respectively. Households with higher total income purchase more professional childcare

Intra-Household Allocation of Parental Leave

We introduce childcare sharing in a collective model of household behavior to investigate which factors make spouses increase or decrease their share of parental leave. The concern about future consumption motivates parents to invest in their human capital and to limit their leave duration. Using relative income and the age difference between spouses as distribution factors, we cannot reject Pareto effciency in childcare sharing. Higher relative incomes and larger age differences shift the conditional leave allocation towards the relatively poorer and younger partner, respectively. Households with higher total income purchase more professional childcare

Knocking out CD70 rescues CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells from antigen induced exhaustion

AbstractCD70 is an attractive target for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy as treatment for both solid and liquid malignancies. However, functionality of CD70-specific CARs is only modest. Here, we optimized a CD70-specific VHH based CAR (nanoCAR). We evaluated the nanoCARs in clinically relevant modelsin vitro, using co-cultures of CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells with malignant rhabdoid tumor organoids, andin vivoby using a diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model. Whereas the nanoCAR T cells were highly efficient in organoid co-cultures, they showed only modest efficacy in the PDX model. Knocking out CD70 expression by the nanoCAR T cells resulted in dramatically enhanced functionality in the PDX model, suggesting that endogenous CD70 interaction with the nanoCAR induces exhaustion. Through single-cell transcriptomics, we obtained evidence that CD70KO CD70-specific nanoCAR T cells are protected from antigen induced exhaustion. Our data shows that CARs targeted to endogenous T cell antigens, negatively affect CAR T cell functionality by inducing an exhausted state which can be overcome by knocking out the specific target, in this case CD70.</jats:p