Überraschend waren ab 3. April in Nordrhein-Westfalen (NRW) ca. 450.000 AstraZeneca Impfdosen für das Wochenende für Über-60-Jährige verfügbar. Eine schöne Osterüberraschung. Natürlich sinnvoll, sich sofort zur Verfügung zu stellen. Klar, daß das Ei zunächst gesucht werden mußte.
Nach regelmäßigen Versuchen über acht Stunden gelang die Terminvereinbarung noch am gleichen Tag. Sicher Glück angesichts des Massenansturms, der sich mit technischem Mißgeschick verband. Nun zahlte sich aus, daß man als erprobter Wanderer in den Online-Welten über geschulte Geduld und Routine verfügt.
Prima, daß dies trotz der zu erwartenden Schwierigkeiten in Angriff genommen wurde! Wir müssen das Virus rasch unter Kontrolle bekommen. Wir sollten froh sein, auf AstraZeneca zurückgreifen zu können. Der Ablauf im Bonner Impfzentrum war harmlos und ohne Nebenwirkungen auch am Folgemorgen.
Back: Three months later/Drei Monate später…..
Bonn, April 4, 2021. 2.15 pm.
Waiting for the AstraZeneca jab: scheduled for the early evening that day.
Bonn January 5, 2021. 2.15 pm.
In front of the Covid-19 Vaccination Centre Bonn, which is placed in the Bonn World Conference Center.
Hosted by the College of Population Studies, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, the GLO East Asia Cluster organizes an Online Webinar Seminar Series on Promoting Well-being During the COVID-19 Pandemic starting with a first Seminar on 9 April 2021.
A new GLO Discussion Paperestimates the degree of retirement age differentiation needed to compensate individuals for their career-related health handicap/advantage and get closer to “real” actuarial fairness.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: Population ageing in Europe calls for an overall rise in the age of retirement. However, many argue that this age should be differentiated to account for individuals’ career arduousness. This paper explores the relevance of this idea. It combines the 7th wave of the SHARE panel data on health at an older age and US occupational O*NET data. With these unique data it first quantifies the impact of entire career arduousness on health at typical retirement age, relative to other key determinants (gender, childhood health, parental longevity). It then estimates the degree of retirement age differentiation that would be needed to compensate individuals for their career-related health handicap/advantage and get closer to “real” actuarial fairness. Using the age of 65 as a reference, results point at the need for differentiation ranging from 60 to 71. But the paper also shows that systematic retirement age differentiation would fail to match a significant portion of the full distribution of health at an older age. In a world where retirement policy compensates for career-related arduousness there would still be a lot of unaccounted health differences; in particular those related to health endowment. Using variance decomposition methods, we estimate that career-arduousness represents at most 5.83% of the model-explained variance of health at an older age.
A new GLO Discussion Paperprovides directions for strategies targeting at improving the performance of firms in MENA countries.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper attempts to study the relationship between firm legal form and firm performance in the Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA) using the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) database. Our analysis shows that open shareholding, closed shareholding, partnership, and limited partnership companies demonstrate an advantage in terms of annual sales and annual productivity growth rates over sole proprietorship firms, and that medium-sized and large-sized firms also demonstrate an advantage over small ones. Our analysis also shows that foreign ownership, exporting activities, the usage of the web in communication with clients and suppliers, and the presence of full-time workers positively affect firm performance. These findings are robust when running the analysis for firms with female participation in ownership. This paper provides directions for strategists targeting at improving the performance of firms.
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds for Germany that the likelihood of consuming each of four types of alcohol (beer, wine, spirits, and mixed drinks) is higher for those receiving performance pay, and their total number of types of alcohol consumed is larger. This confirms previous results published in the Journal of Population Economics for the USA.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: We study the link between performance pay and alcohol use in Germany, a country with mandated health insurance. Previous research from the US argues that alcohol use as a form of “self-medication” may be a natural response to the stress and uncertainty of performance pay when many workers do not have access to health insurance. We find that the likelihood of consuming each of four types of alcohol (beer, wine, spirits, and mixed drinks) is higher for those receiving performance pay even controlling for a long list of economic, social and personality characteristics and in sensible IV estimates. We also show that the total number of types of alcohol consumed is larger for those receiving performance pay. We conclude that even in the face of mandated health insurance, the link found in the US persists in Germany.
Related paper published ONLINE FIRST 2020 in the Journal of Population Economics: Does performance pay increase alcohol and drug use? by Benjamin Artz, Colin P. Green and GLO Fellow John S. Heywood
Forthcoming in a regular issue 2021: Read for free — READLINK: https://rdcu.be/chTbM
A new GLO Discussion Paper finds for Belgiuma negative effect of households’ indebtedness on their consumption.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This paper investigates the potentially non-linear relation between households’ indebtedness and their consumption between 2010 and 2014 in Belgium, using panel data from the two waves of the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. Unlike previous studies, we find a negative effect of households’ indebtedness on their consumption, even in the absence of negative shock on their assets. Our findings suggest that, without such a shock, it is the day-to-day sustainability of the debt, rather than its overall sustainability, that leads households to reduce their consumption. We perform as well a threshold analysis, whose results suggest that households should not have a debt-service-to-income ratio greater than 30%. The effect appears to be robust to various specifications, to result from a trade-off between housing and consumption, and to be more prevalent among more fragile households.
A new GLO Discussion Paper studies for Italy the impact of robotization on the shares of workers employed as robot operators and in occupations deemed exposed to robots to reveal for the first time reinstatement effects among robot operators and heterogeneous results among exposed occupations.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Author Abstract: This work investigates the impact that the change in the exposure to robots had on the Italian local employment dynamics over the period 2011-2018. A novel empirical strategy focusing on a match between occupations’ activities and robots’ applications at a high level of disaggregation makes it possible to assess the impact of robotization on the shares of workers employed as robot operators and in occupations deemed exposed to robots. In a framework consistently centered on workers’ and robots’ activities, rather than on their industries of employment, the analysis reveals for the first time reinstatement effects among robot operators and heterogeneous results among exposed occupations.
Blanchflower provides global evidence that the U-shaped happiness-age curveis everywhere.
Blanchflowerand Clarkfind thatchildren may cause unhappiness because of challenging family finances.
Watch the GLO Virtual Seminar presentation of Danny Blanchflower on Despair, Unhappiness and Age explaining this work. Video of seminar. Report of the event.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration supporting the Journal of Population Economics.
Danny Blanchflower
Happiness U-shaped Everywhere? Age and Subjective Well-being in 145 Countries
by Blanchflower, David G.
Published April 2021: Journal of Population Economics. Free Readlink. https://rdcu.be/b7kyO
GLO Fellow David G. Blanchflower & Research Director GLO
Author Abstract: A large empirical literature has debated the existence of a U-shaped happiness-age curve. This paper re-examines the relationship between various measures of well-being and age in 145 countries, including 109 developing countries, controlling for education and marital and labor force status, among others, on samples of individuals under the age of 70. The U-shape of the curve is forcefully confirmed, with an age minimum, or nadir, in midlife around age 50 in separate analyses for developing and advanced countries as well as for the continent of Africa. The happiness curve seems to be everywhere. While panel data are largely unavailable for this issue, and the findings using such data largely confirm the cross-section results, the paper discusses insights on why cohort effects do not drive the findings. I find the age of the minima has risen over time in Europe and the USA.
Andrew Clark
Children, Unhappiness and Family Finances by Blanchflower, David G. & Clark, Andrew E.
Published April 2021: Journal of Population Economics. Free Readlink. https://rdcu.be/b7Z4b GLO Fellow Andrew E. Clark, Associate Editor of the Journal of Population Economics
Author Abstract: The common finding of a zero or negative correlation between the presence of children and parental well-being continues to generate research interest. We consider international data, including well over one million observations on Europeans from 11 years of Eurobarometer surveys. We first replicate this negative finding, both in the overall data and then for most different marital statuses. Children are expensive: controlling for financial difficulties turns our estimated child coefficients positive. We argue that difficulties paying the bills explain the pattern of existing results by parental education and income and by country income and social support. Last, we underline that not all children are the same, with stepchildren commonly having a more negative correlation with well-being than children from the current relationship.
Posted inNews, Research|Comments Off on Lifetime Wellbeing & Family Unhappiness. Two articles in the April issue of the Journal of Population Economics.
Europe decided to abolish daylight saving time in 2021, since the save energy impact is debatable; but so far concrete actions remained elusive. Some evidence should not be overlooked. Based on natural experiments: Stratified demographic analyses for Indiana/USA indicate that daylight saving time had reduced mortality among males, females, and whites, but only among those aged 65 years and older. For Montevideo/Uruguay research identified a strong and statistically significant decrease in robbery. Two articles in the Journal of Population Economics take up these issues.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Saving lives: the 2006 expansion of daylight saving in Indiana by Adam Cook
Published ONLINE FIRST 2021: Journal of Population EconomicsFREE READ LINK.
Author Abstract: Using data provided by the Indiana State Department of Vital Statistics, this study examines the mortality effects of daylight saving time observance using the April 2006 expansion of daylight saving time in Indiana as a natural experiment. The expansion of daylight saving time to all Indiana counties lowered the average mortality rate in the treatment counties during the months in which daylight saving time was observed. Stratified demographic analyses indicate that daylight saving time reduced mortality among males, females, and whites, but only among those aged 65 years and older. Specific-cause analysis indicates that daylight saving time lowered mortality primarily via reduced cancer mortality. The results of this study suggest a novel solar UVB-vitamin D mechanism could be responsible for the reduction in treatment county mortality following the expansion of daylight saving time in Indiana.
Author Abstract: This paper studies the relationship between ambient light and criminal activity. A Becker-style crime model is developed where it is shown that in areas with less public lighting a sudden increase in ambient light produces a higher reduction in crime. The Daylight Saving Time, the natural experiment used, induces a sharp increase in natural light during crime-intense hours. Using geolocated data on crime and public lighting for the city of Montevideo in Uruguay, regression discontinuity estimates identify a strong and statistically significant decrease in robbery of 17-percent. The decrease is larger in poorly lit areas. Computing the level of public lighting at which DST has no effect on crime reduction, we identify the minimum level of public lighting that an area should target.
Hyperbolic utility discounting has emerged as a leading alternative to exponential discounting because it can explain time-inconsistent behaviors. A new paper published in the Journal of Population Economics uses hyperbolic discounting in an intergenerational model with altruistic parents to find that in the steady state it decreases fertility, increases human capital investment, and shifts consumption towards younger ages.
The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.
Hyperbolic discounting in an intergenerational model with altruistic parents
by Jia Cao & Minghao Li
Published ONLINE FIRST 2021: Journal of Population EconomicsFREE READ LINK.
Author Abstract: Hyperbolic utility discounting has emerged as a leading alternative to exponential discounting because it can explain time-inconsistent behaviors. Intuitively, hyperbolic discounting should play a crucial role in intergenerational models characterized by intertemporal trade-offs. In this paper, we incorporate hyperbolic discounting into a dynamic model in which parents are altruistic towards their children. Agents live for four periods and choose levels of consumption, fertility, investment in their children’s human capital, and bequests to maximize discounted utility. In the steady state, hyperbolic discounting decreases fertility, increases human capital investment, and shifts consumption towards younger ages. These effects are more pronounced in the time-consistent problem (in which agents cannot commit to a course of action) than in the commitment problem, which can be interpreted as realized and intended actions, respectively. The preference-based discrepancy between intended fertility and realized fertility has important implications for the empirical literature that compares the two.
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