Household responses to adverse income shocks: Pensioner out-migration and mortality in South Africa

How do poor households respond to the cessation of cash transfers in developing countries? South Africa's generous social pension system results in most of the poor elderly being the primary 'breadwinner' in the household. I estimate the magnitude of the changes in household composition and labour force activity amongst the resident members of the household, that correlate with a pensioner leaving the household. I use nationally representative matched panel data from several waves of the South African Labour Force Surveys. Compositional changes include the out-migration of school-aged children, and in-migration of middle aged females and older adults of either gender. More than 1 in 4 losing households get an additional older adult. For people who maintain their residency status across waves, I nd large and statistically signi cant increases in employment rates for middle aged females and males (9.3 and 8.1 percentage points in each case), as well as for older adult females and males (10.3 percentage points in each case). For middle aged adults, this is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in labour supply.

Evidence on the impact of minimum wage laws in an informal sector: Domestic workers in South Africa

What happens when a previously uncovered labor market is regulated? We exploit the introduction of a minimum wage in South Africa and variation in the intensity of this law to identify increases in wages and formal contract coverage, and no significant effects on employment on the intensive or extensive margins for domestic workers. These large, partial responses to the law are somewhat surprising, given the lack of monitoring and enforcement in this informal sector. We interpret these changes as evidence that external sanctions are not necessary for new labor legislation to have a significant impact on informal sectors of developing countries, at least in the short-run.

Measuring the impact of Educational Interventions on the Academic Performance of Academic Development Students in Second-Year Microeconomics

This paper analyses the impact of educational interventions made in the first- and second-year microeconomics courses on academic development students’ final mark in the second-year course. It also addresses issues of methodology, specification, and statistical analysis with respect to other studies in the field. The results suggest that the educational interventions in the first-year had a positive impact on the academic performance of the academic development cohort, relative to the mainstream cohort for the first period (2000-2002). The results also suggest that the educational interventions introduced in the second period (2003-2005), in the form of voluntary workshops for the academic development cohort, also improved the academic performance of this cohort relative to that of mainstream students.

Labour Market Transitions in South Africa: What can we learn from matched Labour Force Survey data?

We generate a longitudinal dataset using the rotating panel component of the nationally representative Labour Force Surveys from 2001 to 2003. We then estimate the transition probabilities across different labour market states over a six month period. We find that unemployed searchers are more likely to find employment than the non-searching unemployed. Informal sector workers are more likely to find formal sector employment than the searching unemployed. Whites are more likely to find and remain in formal sector jobs. However, some part of the Black-White unemployment gap arises from unemployed Whites leaving the labour force at a higher rate.

Estimating the Responsiveness of College Applications to the Likelihood of Acceptance and Financial Assistance: Evidence from Texas.

This paper investigates the impact of Texas's Top Ten Percent Rule - which grants automatic to any public college in Texas for Texas high school graduates who graduate in the top decile - and subsequent targeted recruitment programs initiated by Texas's flagship universities. Using data on SAT test takers in Texas from 1996-2004, we find that the Top Ten Percent rule affects the set of colleges that students consider, and the targeted recruitment programs are able to attract the attention of students from poor high schools that were not traditional sources of students for the flagships in Texas.College Choice,Top Ten Percent Rule, Targeted Recruitment

Household responses to adverse income shocks: Pensioner out-migration and mortality in South Africa

How do poor households respond to the cessation of cash transfers in developing countries? South Africa's generous social pension system results in most of the poor elderly being the primary `breadwinner' in the household. I estimate the magnitude of the changes in household composition and labour force activity amongst the resident members of the household, that correlate with a pensioner leaving the household. I use nationally representative matched panel data from several waves of the South African Labour Force Surveys. Compositional changes include the out-migration of school-aged children, and in-migration of middle aged females and older adults of either gender. More than 1 in 4 losing households get an additional older adult. For people who maintain their residency status across waves, I find large and statistically significant increases in employment rates for middle aged females and males (9.3 and 8.1 percentage points in each case), as well as for older adult females and males (10.3 percentage points in each case). For middle aged adults, this is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in labour supply

The Effects of the Kalamazoo Promise on College Choice

To the surprise of the residents of Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Kalamazoo Promise was announced on November 10, 2005. Fully funded by anonymous donors, the Kalamazoo Promise offers to pay both the tuition and mandatory fees of graduates of Kalamazoo public high schools at any public college or university located in Michigan. To be eligible for the scholarship program students must graduate from a Kalamazoo public high school, reside in the school district, and have been enrolled in the Kalamazoo Public School (KPS) district for four years or more. Enrollment and residency must be continuous to be eligible for the nancial support. Students must gain admission to and enroll in a public State of Michigan community college, or four-year college or university. They must make regular progress toward a degree or certi cation and maintain a 2.0 grade point average at their postsecondary institution. Students must complete a minimum of 12 credit hours per semester, and if their cumulative grade point average drops below 2.0, they lose the funding, but it may be reinstated if the student is able to bring her grade point average up to at least a 2.0.

Can minimum wages effectively reduce poverty under low compliance? A case study from the agricultural sector in South Africa

What were the effects of a 52 per cent increase in the minimum wage in the agricultural sector in South Africa in 2013? We estimate the short run effects of this policy change on the income, employment, and poverty rate of farmworkers, using individual-level panel data from the Quarterly Labour Force Surveys (QLFS). Before the implementation date, 90 per cent of farmworkers were paid below the new minimum wage level. We find that the wage gain of farmworkers is strongly quadratically related to pre-implementation wages, suggesting lower compliance as the gap between the minimum and the pre-implementation wage increases. We estimate that farmworkers received a median wage increase of 9 per cent as a result of the policy, and we find no evidence of job losses. Overall, farmworkers were 7 per cent less likely to have household income per person below the poverty line. One possible explanation for these outcomes is that endogenous compliance may mitigate against unemployment effects. While the minimum wage literature is large, our paper adds to the small subset of this literature on large increases, partial compliance, and poverty effects

Essays in Education and Labor Economics.

The first chapter of the dissertation investigates how poor households in developing countries respond to adverse income developments. I use nationally representative longitudinal data to investigate behavioral responses to the loss of an Old Age Pensioner in South Africa. I find that household composition adjusts, with an outflow of school aged children and an inflow of middle-aged females and older adults. The household, on aggregate, also has more people employed. Conditional on compositional stability within demographic groups, I find large and significant increases in both labor supply and employment. Policy makers might be concerned with the impact of cash transfers on the labor supply of non-recipients. The second chapter examines the effect of the Old Age Pension on retirement behavior of elderly South Africans. I make use of the rules on age eligibility to measure changes in various dimensions of labor supply that occur when people reach the pensionable age. I find significant decreases in employment rates and labor supply. Those who remain employed beyond the pensionable age are more likely to work in jobs with flexible hours of work, and work even fewer hours than people in similar jobs who are not pension age-eligible. The final chapter investigates the impact of changes in the probability of being admitted into a selective college on students' SAT score sending behavior. We capture this using a student's class rank combined with the Texas Top Ten Percent Rule. In response to dwindling minority enrollment rates, the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M College Station embarked on targeted recruitment programs at previously under-represented high schools. We evaluate the effectiveness of these programs using individual level SAT data. We find that score sending is affected by the legal change, and that both targeted recruitment programs were successful in attracting scores. In each case, the effects were manifest most strongly amongst the students in the top decile of the class. This suggests that students from poor schools face multiple barriers to obtaining postsecondary schooling at selective colleges.Ph.D.EconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/57598/2/vranchho_1.pd

Measuring the impact of educational interventions on the academic performance of academic development students in second-year microeconomics

This is the accepted version of the following article: Smith, L. & Ranchhod, V. 2012. Measuring the impact of educational interventions on the academic performance of academic development students in second-year microeconomics. South African Journal of Economics. 80(3): 431-448., which has been published in final form at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1813-6982.2011.01287.x.This paper analyses the impact of educational interventions made in the first- and second-year microeconomics courses on academic development students' final mark in the second-year course. It also addresses issues of methodology, specification, and statistical analysis with respect to other studies in the field. The results suggest that the educational interventions in the first year had a positive impact on the academic performance of the academic development cohort, relative to the mainstream cohort for the first period (2000-2002). The results also suggest that the educational interventions introduced in the second period (2003-2005), in the form of voluntary workshops, improved the academic performance of the academic development and mainstream cohorts