Knowledge that Transforms

This paper exploits the introduction of a pronatalist transfer policy in the Canadian province of Quebec that paid up to C$8,000 to families having a child. I implement a quasi-experimental strategy by forming treatment and control groups defined by time, jurisdiction, and family type. The incentive was available broadly, rather than to a narrow population as studied in previous work, providing an exceptional opportunity to investigate heterogeneous responses. I find a strong effect of the policy on fertility, and some evidence of a heterogeneous response that may help reconcile these results with previous estimates.

We construct a novel data set matching occupational data from separate establishments to the establishments' corporate parents, in order to study labor market links across establishments within diverse firms. We find substantial wage components common to all establishments within firms, even after netting out industry and occupation effects. However, employment changes are localized to establishments. The data suggest that internal labor markets of multiestablishment firms are linked throughout their entire organizations, but that establishment-level demand shocks do not permeate the firm.

This paper estimates the effect of Wal-Mart expansion on retail employment at the county level. Using an instrumental variables approach to correct for both measurement error in entry dates and endogeneity of the timing of entry, I find that Wal-Mart entry increases retail employment by 100 jobs in the year of entry. Half of this gain disappears over the next five years as other retail establishments exit and contract, leaving a long-run statistically significant net gain of 50 jobs. Wholesale employment declines by approximately 20 jobs due to Wal-Mart's vertical integration. No spillover effect is detected in retail sectors in which Wal-Mart does not compete directly, suggesting Wal-Mart does not create agglomeration economies in retail trade at the county level.

This paper addresses the link between trade exposure and wage volatility. First, it shows, in a simple model, that trade exposure magnifies the impact of domestic productivity shocks on industry-specific labor demand, particularly for the less export-intensive industries, and that, if labor is not perfectly mobile, this implies a rise in wage volatility. Then, it tests these predictions, using industry data. The empirical results confirm that wage volatility increases with an industry's degree of openness, and that it declines with an increase in the industry's export intensity.

This paper presents a structural econometric framework for discrete and continuous consumer choices in which unobserved intrapersonal and interpersonal preference heterogeneity is modeled explicitly. It outlines a simulation-assisted estimation methodology applicable in this framework. This methodology is illustrated in an application to analyze data from the U.C. Berkeley Internet Demand Experiment.

February 01 2005 “Measuring Poverty”: Discussion Michael Kremer Michael Kremer Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Michael Kremer Harvard University Received: May 26 2004 Accepted: July 28 2004 Online ISSN: 1530-9142 Print ISSN: 0034-6535 © 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2005 The Review of Economics and Statistics (2005) 87 (1): 23–25. https://doi.org/10.1162/0034653053327630 Article history Received: May 26 2004 Accepted: July 28 2004 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Michael Kremer; “Measuring Poverty”: Discussion. The Review of Economics and Statistics 2005; 87 (1): 23–25. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/0034653053327630 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Review of Economics and Statistics Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2005 President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2005 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This paper evaluates the use of measures of regional economic activity to forecast tax revenues for New York State and New York City at 3-, 6-, and 12-month horizons. We construct sales- and withholding-tax base series and then apply the methodology of Stock and Watson (1989, 1991) to estimate regional indexes of coincident economic indicators. Employing an out-of-sample forecasting framework, we find that the use of the coincident indexes leads to statistically and economically significant improvements in tax base forecasts compared to those generated from univariate autoregressions. In addition, the coincident indexes produce forecasts that are generally more accurate than forecasts that rely on the use of the coincident indicators separately. Though our analysis focuses on forecasting movements in tax revenue at the state or local level, it is also intended to draw attention to the value the indexes may provide in other applications.

We estimate returns to human capital during communism and the transition using data on 2,284 men in the Czech Republic. We show: (a) extremely low and constant rates of return to education under the communist wage grid and dramatic increases in transition, which do not differ by firm ownership, (b) radical changes in returns to several fields of study and “sheepskin effects” in both regimes, (c) identical wage experience profile in both regimes, (d) similar 1996 returns to human capital obtained in communism and in transition, and (e) changes in the interindustry wage structure. A decomposition of the variance of wages finds individuals' unobservable effects from communism to persist into transition, but most of the variance is due to unobservable effects introduced in the transition.

We analyze the technology shocks identified by two different structural VAR models and compare them with classical and refined Solow residuals. The measures of technology are reasonably highly correlated. Alternative identifying restrictions in the VARs, however, have different theoretical as well as empirical consequences for the technology shocks. King et al.'s (1991) model and the classical Solow residual capture a mixture of technology and labor supply shocks, whereas the technology shocks from Galí's model and the refined Solow residuals are robust to the latter phenomenon. Moreover, we find that the two robust measures of technology are negatively correlated with hours worked.

We develop a model of GDP growth under which regime changes are triggered stochastically by an observable tension index, constructed as the geometric sum of deviations of actual GDP growth from a corresponding sustainable rate. Within expansionary regimes, the tension index tends to increase, which heightens the probability of a regime change. Given a regime change, the process becomes reversed, and the tension index begins to decline along a newly established path. Linking the behavior of the tension index to GDP growth enables us to capture floor and ceiling effects.