infonet-economy

A new parametric model for the econometric analysis of non-negative integers is proposed. Its distinguishing feature is that it allows for more flexible variance-mean relationships than the models used hitherto. Estimation with maximum likelihood is illustrated using a dataset on ship damage incidents.

The study introduces a distinction between two types of labor mobility: direct job to job changes (which are assumed to be voluntary) and job changes after experiencing an unemployment spell (assumed to be involuntary). Exploiting the close relationship between those two phenomena we adopt a bivariate regression framework for our empirical analysis of data on male individuals in the German labor market. To account for the non-negative and discrete nature of the two counts of job changes in a ten year interval a new econometric model is proposed: the bivariate Poisson regression proves to be superior to the univariate specification. Further, the empirical content of distinguishing between two types of mobility is subject to a test, and, in fact, supported by the data: The hypothesis that both measures are observationally equivalent can be rejected.

Key demographic variables, such as the number of children and the number of marriages or divorces, can only take integer values. This papers deals with the estimation of single equation models in which the counts are regressed on a set of observed individual characteristics such as age, gender, or nationality. Most empirical work in population economics has neglected the fact that the dependent variable is a nonnegative integer. In the few cases where this feature was recognized, the authors advocated the use of the Poisson regression model. The Poisson model imposes, however, the equality of conditional mean and variance, a restriction which is often rejected by the data. We propose a generalized event count model to simultaneously allow for a wide class of count data models and account for over- and underdispersion. This model is successfully applied to German data on fertility, divorces and mobility.

This paper explores the relation between non-exponential waiting times between events and the distribution of the number of events in a fixed time interval. It is shown that within this framework the frequently observed phenomenon of overdispersion, i.e. a variance that exceeds the mean, is caused by a decreasing hazard function of the waiting times, while an increasing hazard function leads to underdispersion. Using the assumption of i.i.d. gamma distributed waiting times, a new count data model is derived. Its use is illustrated in two applications: the number of births, and the number of doctor consultations.

We use data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to investigate how individual happiness is affected by unemployment. Unemployment has a large and negative effect even after controlling for individual specific fixed effects. Nonparticipation, in contrast, is much less harmful to happiness. Further, we decompose the total well-being costs of unemployment and find that well above three quarters are non-pecuniary, and below one quarter pecuniary. One implication is that income support programs for the unemployed do very little at mitigating the adverse effects of unemployment, and such transfers are unlikely to generate unemployment.

In current welfare state analysis there is little theory to explain the action of exclusive groups. This article explores the possibilities of a theory that focuses on the interaction between individual choices and strategies, the formal systems, policies and rules of governments and the informal norms and practices of groups. The argument is that club theory, a branch of public choice concepts, represents a promising new element in such an approach. A theoretical frame has to account for both collectivisation and fragmentation processes - how mass solidarities in welfare states come to be created and in turn to be broken up into narrower mutualities. Migration is used as an example to show how the actions of migrants and policy decisions about them affect these dynamics or are affected by them.

In this paper, I discuss the interpretation of qualification related income differentials from income functions that control for age rather than the theoretically more appropriate variable years of labour market experience. I reestimate income functions for New Zealand that were originally reported by Maani (1997) with changed specification, and I update her results by also estimating an income function with data from the 1996 census.

This paper reports quantitative information on the effects of tariffs and quotas on prices of individual goods. The analyses uses the natural experiment provided by a comprehensive unilateral trade policy reform in New Zealand to examine the response of foreign exporters to an incident of liberalisation that is unique in the developed world. The price effects of tariffs and quotas are estimated using a multidestination 7-digit longitudinal product-level dataset on export values and quantities. The effects are found to be by no means equivalent: whereas tariffs display no significant effect, the impact that quantitative restrictions have on the terms-of-trade of the country that imposes them are unequivocally detrimental and quantitatively important.

In the literature on optimal indemnity schedules, indemnities are usually restricted to be non-negative. Keeler [1974] and Gollier [1987] show that this constraint might well bind: insured could get higher expected utility if insurance contracts would allow payments from the insured to the insurer at some losses. This paper extends Collier’s findings by allowing for negative indemnity payments for a broader class of insurers’ cost functions and argues that the indemnity schedule derived here is more appropriate for practical applications (e.g. in health insurance).

This paper applies the five standard criteria for assessing the performance of an economy to one of its sectors, namely, the provision of health care. They are (1) matching of consumer preferences, (2) technical efficiency, (3) adaptive capacity, (4) dynamic efficiency, and (5) a distribution of income that provides incentives for producers to attain criteria (1) through (4).

Being insurance-based, the Swiss healthcare system comprises three contractual relationships that can be judged in the light of these criteria.

First, the relationship between consumers and health insurers satisfies criterion (1) to a high degree, not least thanks to the managed-care (MC) options that were introduced with the new law on health insurance (effective 1996). However, it fails with regard to (2) because cost reductions achieved by MC cannot be passed on to consumers but to a very limited degree. The relationship between health insurers and service providers, by way of contrast, does not fully satisfy any of the five criteria, mainly because health insurers continue to operate under an any-willing-provider clause for conventional fee-for-service care. This makes it difficult for them to find MC providers. Finally, the relationship between consumers and healthcare providers match consumer preferences well (criterion 1) but do not result in an income distribution in the healthcare sector that is conducive to the attainment of criteria (2) through (4).

The total score for the Swiss healthcare system amounts to 13 points out of a maximum of 30, to which the relationship between insurers and providers contributes only 3 points. Therefore, performance could be improved by granting health insurers freedom to contract not only with domestic but also foreign healthcare providers offering a favorable benefit cost ratio.