Mortality, Fertility, Education and Capital Accumulation in a Simple OLG Economy

We develop a simple overlapping generations model to analytically show that population aging leads to increased educational efforts through a general equilibrium effect. The key mechanism at work in the model is that scarcity of raw labor increases the rate of return to human capital relative to physical capital. While a reduction in the birth rate is shown to unambiguously increase educational efforts, increases in the survival rate have ambiguous effects. Falling birth rates unambiguously increase capital per worker while the effects of rising survival rates are ambiguous. When evaluating our model using a calibrated version we find that education always in- creases if life expectancy rises but the effect on the capital stock is still ambiguous and depends on the parameters of the model. We conclude that our model is a useful laboratory to highlight the various potentially offsetting effects at work in models with endogenous education and overlapping generations which is key for understanding the magnitudes of results of applied quantitative general equilibrium analyses employing such a framework.

From Malthus to modern growth : child labor, schooling and human capital

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model of fertility, human capital accumulation, child labor and uncertain child survival focusing on the qualitative and quantitative effect of declining mortality on household decisions and economic development. Due to uncertainty about child survival, parents have a precautionary demand for children. Rising survival probability leads to falling fertility, eventually to investment into schooling and the demise of child labor. Child labor can be an obstacle to development since it lowers the incentives of parents to educate children. Furthermore, the paper argues that the decline of precautionary child demand as a consequence of falling mortality is not sufficient to generate a demographic transition. Falling mortality can only explain a relatively small part of the fertility decline. A sizable reduction in fertility can only be achieved by human capital investment and the induced quantity-quality trade off

Optimal level of government debt - matching wealth inequality and the fiscal sector

We calibrate an incomplete markets large scale OLG model to the US income and wealth distribution and examine the effects of alternative government debt levels and adjustment policies on macroeconomic aggregates and welfare. We find that the government should hold negative debt. Due to the high degree of wealth and income dispersion ex ante lifetime utility increases with increasing wages (falling interest rates) by around 6% of lifetime consumption at optimal debt levels. The optimal level depends on the adjustment policy can vary by up to 70% of GDP (between -180% and -110%). With lower government debt, high income/wealth agents are always worse off. Adjusting transfers benefits the lowest income/wealth group. The largest gains are, however, experienced by agents in the middle of the income/wealth distribution: they benefit from higher wages and transfers but do not lose too much capital income

MRO bidding in the presence of LTROs: an empirical analysis of the pre-crisis period

Using individual data from the Eurosystem’s liquidity providing tenders for the pre-crisis period we investigate banks’ joint bidding behaviour in Main Refinancing Operation (MRO) and Longer Term Refinancing Operations (LTRO). We test whether banks bid at lower rates in MROs before the LTRO and at higher rates after the LTRO, compared to other operations. We offer two main findings. First, we find that in general banks bid in the MRO before the LTRO at lower rates as compared to “other” MROs. Moreover, MRO participants which also bid in the following LTRO bid at even lower rates, compared to peers not bidding in the LTRO. These findings support the hypothesis that banks view obtaining liquidity from the two operations as substitutes and bid strategically. Second, we find that banks generally bid more aggressively in the MRO after the LTRO. Even more striking, banks which participated also in the LTRO preceding the MRO bid at substantially higher rates. These findings reflect that “short” banks, with potentially large net liquidity needs after the LTRO bid more aggressively. Other counterparties with liquidity needs in that particular operation are forced, as a best response reaction, to bid also at higher rates. Although size plays a considerable role for bidding behaviour, the conclusions are valid for banks of different size

Online Appendix to "Demographic Change, Human Capital and Welfare"

This appendix of our paper, "Demographic Change, Human Capital and Welfare", contains further material that could not be included in the paper due to space limitations. It is organized as follows. Section A contains the formal equilibrium definition. Section B provides more results on the fit of our model to observed life-cycle profiles of hours and wages, the implied labor-supply elasticities of our model, additional results on predicted aggregate variables during the demographic transition as well as the associated welfare effects and a sensitivity analysis. Our population model is explained in Section C. Details on our computational procedures can be found in Section D.Population aging; Human capital; Rate of return; Distribution of welfare

Demographic Change, Human Capital and Endogenous Growth

This paper employs a large scale overlapping generations (OLG) model with endogenous education to evaluate the quantitative role of human capital adjustments for the economic consequences of demographic change. We find that endogenous human capital formation is an important adjustment mechanism which substantially mitigates the macroeconomic impact of demographic change. Welfare gains from demographic change for newborn households are approximately three times higher when households endogenously adjust their education. Low ability agents experience higher welfare gains. Endogenous growth through human capital formation is found to increase the long-run growth rate in the economy by 0.2-0.4 percentage points.

Human capital investment and population dynamics

This thesis consists of four self-contained papers in macroeconomics and population dynamics. The first two chapters deal with long run endogenous growth whereas the last two chapters deal with accumulation of human and physical capital in modern economies. The first essay analyses the interaction of child mortality, child labor and human capital investment. The second essay analyses the evolution of fertility as a function of adult life expectancy depending on the availability of a formal schooling system. The third essay studies investment into human capital and physical capital in an aging society within the framework of a 2-period OLG model. The last essay quantifies the welfare effects of aging in a calibrated model with endogenous labor supply and endogenous human capital accumulation

Caracterización de las Posibles Causas de Deserción en Primer, Segundo y Tercer Año en una Universidad Pública.

64 p.La deserción universitaria tiene importantes implicancias a nivel del estudiante y de las instituciones con repercusiones económicas, sociales y psicológicas.Diversos estudios concluyen que las variables vocacionales, motivacionales, económicas, la educación previa y la integración social, son algunas de las más importantes a la hora de explicar la deserción. Sin embargo, la mayoría de estos estudios recurren a un análisis estático y generalista del fenómeno, sin considerar los distintos tipos de deserción, como sería, por ejemplo aquella que ocurre en etapas iniciales de la carrera versus la que ocurre en etapas más tardías. Ante esta problemática, la presente investigación buscó diferenciar las características de la deserción en distintos niveles. Para ello se analizó la deserción del primer, segundo y tercer año de manera diferenciada en una universidad pública Chilena. Los análisis de regresión logística múltiple, indicaron que las variables que condicionan la deserción son parcialmente diferentes para cada nivel, mientras para el primer año los aspectos vocacionales, la nota de egreso de enseñanza media y el promedio PSU resultan significativos, para el segundo año, la deserción es condicionada por el área de mejor desempeño del estudiante, la nota de egreso de enseñanza media y el promedio PSU. Para la deserción de tercer año, sólo la nota de egreso de enseñanza media resulta significativa.Según estos resultados se concluye que, dado que hay factores diferenciadores importantes, el estudio de la deserción debe distinguir entre niveles, lo que permite diseñar políticas más efectivas en función de controlar y reducir la deserción universitaria

Caracterización de la satisfacción laboral y propuesta de intervención en relación a la adecuación de los cargos en una empresa de comercio de metales

128 p.Propósito: Evaluar los niveles de satisfacción laboral y su relación con las características del puesto de trabajo en los trabajadores de una empresa de comercio metalúrgico de la ciudad de Talca y proponer un programa de intervención organizacional basado en los resultados de esta evaluación. Método: Se realizó una evaluación diagnóstica de los niveles de satisfacción laboral y las características del puesto de trabajo (Hackman y Oldham, 1980) de 38 operarios y administrativos de la empresa quienes respondieron los cuestionarios Job Diagnostic Index (JDI), Job General Scale (JIG) y el Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS). Resultados: Según los resultados arrojados la dimensión de satisfacción laboral, el porcentaje más alto de satisfacción general con el trabajo (48,6%), las evaluadas más negativamente fueron la satisfacción con el ascenso (50,0%), satisfacción con el sueldo (50,0%) y satisfacción con los compañeros de trabajo (43,2 %). En cuanto a las características del puesto la que es evaluada como menos satisfactoria fue la dimensión retroalimentación del supervisor (44,4%), y la mejor evaluada o más presente en su puesto fue identidad de la tarea (38,9%). Conclusión: A partir de los resultados obtenidos, es posible apreciar que existe déficit en la satisfacción laboral relacionada con motivadores extrínsecos como los incentivos económicos, ascenso y la calidad de supervisor. En cuanto a las dimensiones del puesto, se hace relevante intervenir en los procesos de retroalimentación, autonomía y la importancia de la tarea ligada a la centralidad del trabajo. Se elabora una propuesta de intervención para mejorar estas deficiencias y aumentar así la satisfacción laboral