Why Are the Elderly More Averse to Immigration When They Are More Likely to Benefit? Evidence across Countries

Using household surveys for 25 countries over a 12-year period, this paper investigates why the elderly are more averse to open immigration policies than their younger peers. We find that the negative correlation between age and pro-immigration attitudes is mostly explained by a cohort or generational change. In fact, once we control for year of birth, the correlation between age and pro-immigration attitudes is either positive or zero in most of the countries of our sample. Under certain assumptions, our estimates suggest that aging societies will tend to become less averse to open immigration regimes over time

When Coal Leaves Town: Can Local Governments Help?

This article provides new evidence on the impacts of coal mine closures on local labor markets and the role of mitigation policies. Using data on 285 Polish municipalities from 1995 to 2016, the results show that the employment rates of men falls by 3 and 8 percentage points in the short- and long-term, respectively, in municipalities that experience a mine closure. Mining communes –having greater privileges over revenue collection– receive more intergovernmental transfers and increase their expenditures on family benefits during a coal mine closure. These policies are associated with smaller job losses in the short-term but with a sluggish recovery in the long-term. Given the low levels of labor mobility and wage flexibility that characterize the Polish labor market, the findings are consistent with local fiscal policies cushioning the negative impacts of coal mine closures on the demand for local goods and services in the short-term. In contrast, they may contribute to raise the reservation wage and thereby to slow down employment growth in the long-term

The Effect of Rising Income Inequality on Taxation and Public Expenditures: Evidence from U.S. Municipalities and School Districts, 1970–2000

The income distribution in many developed countries widened dramatically from 1970 to 2000. Some scholars argue that income inequality contributes to a host of social ills by undermining voters\u27 willingness to support public expenditures. In contrast, we find that growing income inequality is associated with an expansion in government revenues and expenditures on a wide range of services in U.S. municipalities and school districts. Results are robust to a number of model specifications, including instrumental variables that address the endogeneity of the local income distribution. Our results are inconsistent with models predicting that heterogeneous societies provide lower levels of public goods

Income Inequality and Local Government in the United States, 1970-2000

The income distribution in many developed countries widened dramatically from 1970 to 2000. Scholars speculate that inequality contributes to a host of social ills by weakening the public sector. In contrast, we find that growing income inequality is associated with an expansion in revenues and expenditures on a wide range of services at the municipal and school district levels in the United States. These results are robust to a number of model specifications, including instrumental variables that deal with the endogeneity of local expenditures. Our results are inconsistent with models that predict heterogeneous societies provide lower levels of public goods.

Is Labor Income Responsible for Poverty Reduction? A Decomposition Approach

Demographics, labor income, public transfers, or remittances: Which factor contributes the most to observed reductions in poverty? Using counterfactual simulations, this paper accounts for the contribution labor income has made to the observed changes in poverty over the past decade for a set of 16 countries that have experienced substantial declines in poverty. In contrast to methods that focus on aggregate summary statistics, the analysis generates entire counterfactual distributions that allow assessing the contributions of different factors to observed distributional changes. Decompositions across all possible paths are calculated so the estimates are not subject to path-dependence. The analysis shows that for most countries in the sample, labor income is the most important contributor to changes in poverty. In ten of the countries, labor income explains more than half of the change in moderate poverty; in another four, it accounts for more than 40 percent of the reduction in poverty. Although public and private transfers were relatively more important in explaining the reduction in extreme poverty, more and better-paying jobs were the key factors behind poverty reduction over the past decade

Decomposing Distributional Changes in Pakistan

This paper quantifies the contributions to distributional changes observed in Pakistan over the last decade. In contrast to methods that focus on aggregate summary statistics, the method adopted in this paper generates entire counterfactual distributions to account for the contributions of demographics, labor and non-labor incomes in explaining poverty reduction. The results show that the most important contributor was the growth in income. Moreover, this growth in income seems to be driven by returns to individual and household endowments, pointing to productivity increases as the driving force behind poverty reduction. Lower dependency ratios, transfers and remittances also contributed to poverty reduction, albeit to a smaller extent. Growth in productivity, particularly between 2001-02 and 2005-06 is consistent with estimates from aggregate accounts, which points to productivity growth led by movements of labor force away from agriculture and into industry and services. If the objective is to reach similar or accelerated poverty reduction and productivity growth going forward, increased investment in rural areas will be needed

The effect of rising income inequality on taxation and public expenditures: evidence from US municipalities and school districts, 1970–2000

This file contains the dataset and stata codes to replicate the results of the paper "The effect of rising income inequality on taxation and public expenditures: evidence from US municipalities and school districts, 1970–2000

Explaining the Evolution of Job Tenure in Europe, 1995–2020

During the last quarter century, job tenure in Europe has shortened. Using data from Eurostat Labor Force Surveys of 29 countries from 1995 to 2020 and applying an age-period-cohort decomposition to analyze changes in tenure for specific birth cohorts, we show that tenure has shrunk for cohorts born in more recent years. To account for compositional changes within cohorts, we estimate the probability of holding jobs of different durations, conditional on individual and employment-related characteristics. The estimations demonstrate that, over time, the likelihood of having a medium- or long-term job decreased and holding a short-term job increased. We also find that stricter job protection legislation appears to decrease the probability of holding a short-term job, and higher trade openness and ICT-related technological change are correlated with an increase of that probability