Population ageing and immigration policy

In its simplest interpretation, population ageing is the increase in the average or median age of a population. It is the process by which there is a redistribution of relative population shares away from the younger to the older age groups

Starting life in Scotland in the new millennium : population replacement and the reproduction of disadvantage

Scotland, in line with the rest of Europe, is experiencing low rates of child-bearing and its population is ageing. This does not necessarily mean that people in Scotland are going grey at a faster rate than they used to. Rather, it means that there is an increasing proportion of elderly people in its population, with more people who are growing old than are growing up. The "birth dearth" and "population greying" are not unconnected: low fertility is the key influence on the age structure of a population as well as the rate of population growth

An optimal internet location strategy for markets with different tax rates

The traditional view that a high sales tax rate reduces trade by driving a wedge between the purchase and sale price may not apply to internet commerce for two reasons. The first reason is that the sales tax paid by buyers purchasing via the internet is determined by the tax rate in the region of the buyer. The second reason is that a high sales tax may lower the before-tax price if sellers absorb part of the tax. Taken together, this implies that internet distributors may profitably target customers in regions with low tax rates by locating their selling addresses in high tax regions. Consequently the optimal marketing strategy for a global internet distributor may include siting selling locations in regions with high tax rates in order to target customers in regions with low tax rates. An empirical analysis of the European car market suggests that this is more than a remote theoretical possibility by demonstrating that the before-tax prices recommended by manufacturers for new cars are lower in high tax countries

The Deadlist of Games: A Model of the Duel

Recent historical research indicates that ritualistic dueling had a rational basis. Basically, under certain social and economic conditions, individuals must fight in order to maintain their personal credit and social standing. A model of the duel, therefore, can be constructed. We model the duel as a two--players sequential game. This paper shows that the optimal strategy of each player depends upon the value of three parameters, namely, ``cost of fighting,'' ``cost of shame'', and ``value of courage.''teaching, game theory, general economics

School Quality, Educational Attainment and Aggregation Bias

Data from 31 countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is used to estimate education production functions for reading literacy.The analysis suggests that the probability of finding statistically significant and correctly signed class size effects increases the higher the level of aggregation used to measure class size.Class size, PISA data, bias

The Rate of Return to Private Schooling

This paper examines the relationship between ?school quality? and earnings in the United Kingdom. The specific focus is on evaluating the effect that private schooling has on hourly wage rates. It is well known that private (i.e. fee-paying) schools compared to state schools score higher on most measures of school quality. Therefore by comparing individuals with private schooling to those with state schooling (and controlling for other variables) it is possible to indirectly evaluate the effect of school quality. Panel data from five waves of the British Household Panel Survey are used in the analysis

Slaves in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

The Bucks County Register of Slaves includes the name, occupation, and township of enslavers as well as the name, gender, and age of persons enslaved in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Manumission dates, racial status, and other notes are also noted for some of the slaves

Consumer Decision Making with Limited Information: Purchasing “Tech” Swimsuits

Consumers are frequently involved in a purchase decision making process where they have limited information about the quality of the product being purchased. In such situations, consumers may resort to using a choice heuristic to simplify the decision making process. This paper discusses the situation where use of the anchor and adjustment heuristic may induce consumers to pay a high price for a product, based on using a high priced, high quality product as the anchor, and implications for marketer

Use It or Lose It: Irish Evidence. ESRI WP531. April 2016

A small but growing body of research suggests that retirement and cognitive decline are related. In fact, some have argued that retirement causes cognitive decline. The aim of this paper is to add to this literature using data of older women from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA). Ordinary least square (OLS) regressions show a significant negative association between retirement duration - defined as time elapsed since last job ended - and cognition. This association is, however, very small when compared to the association of age or education with cognition. As retirement is potentially endogenous to cognition, instrumental variable (IV) methods are also used. The instrument employed is the abolition of the so-called “Marriage Bar”. In simple terms, the Marriage Bar was the requirement that women leave paid employment on getting married. It was established in the 1930s and removed in the 1970s. When IV estimations are used, the effect of retirement duration is statistically insignificant. Differences between OLS and IV estimates are compared with a standard test. OLS estimates are preferred as there is no statistical evidence that retirement duration is endogenous. As OLS estimates are very small, it is extremely unlikely that working into old age has much of an impact on slowing cognitive decline amongst older people