----------------- JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS
----------------- Newsletter 1/2003
* Appears 4 times a year
* Edited at IZA, Bonn, Germany (address see below)
* Editor-in-chief: Klaus F. Zimmermann
* For correspondence, please use: popecon@iza.org
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Contents: 1) Free Paper Download
2) Abstracts of Volume 16, Number 1, 2003
3) ESPE 2003 Homepage
4) About the Journal of Population Economics
5) Editorial Board
For additional information (e.g. instructions for authors,
information about last issues) please visit our
NEW HOMEPAGE AT: http://www.popecon.org
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1) Free Paper Download
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"European integration and the welfare state"
Torben M. ANDERSEN
J Popul Econ (2003) 16: 001-19
http://www.popecon.org/download/andersen_01162003.pdf
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2) Abstracts of Volume 16, Number 1, 2003
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--- WELFARE
"European integration and the welfare state"
Torben M. ANDERSEN
University of Aarhus, Denmark
E-mail: tandersen@econ.au.dk
Abstract. It is vividly debated how the ongoing process of
European integration will affect the need and scope for
welfare state activities. To some this process signals that
welfare state activities have to be rolled back, while
others stress that international integration may increase
the need for (explicit or implicit) social insurance
arrangements. This paper discusses these issues by first
considering the possibilities of maintaining social welfare
systems which are collectively financed through taxes and
social security contributions, and the need for welfare
state activities which provide social insurance when
economies integrate. The paper ends by discussing some
policy options.
"Optimal food allocation in a slave economy"
Ray REES
University of Munich, Germany
John KOMLOS
University of Munich, Germany
E-mail: john.komlos@econhist.vwl.uni-muenchen.de
Ngo V. LONG
McGill University, Canada
E-mail: ngo.long@mcgill.ca
Ulrich WOITEK
University of Munich, Germany
Abstract. We propose a model of food allocation in an
economy in which property rights exist in human beings. We
assume that a slave-owner allocates food over the slave's
lifetime so as to maximize his own wealth. The slave's
productive capacity is determined endogenously by food
consumption. Food allotment during childhood and adolescence
determines productive capacity over the life course. The
slave owner chooses optimal time paths of food allotment in
light of the contribution food makes to both the level and
growth of physical capacity, as a function of the price of
food and of the value of the slave's productivity. Though
conceived for an economy in which property rights exist in
human beings, the model can be modified so as to apply to
resource allocation within a household economy in which
parents provide both nourishment and schooling for their
children, in order to enhance their current or future
productivity.
"Family size and optimal income taxation"
Helmuth CREMER
Université de Toulouse, France
E-mail: helmut@cict.fr
Arnaud DELLIS
Cornell University, USA
E-mail: ard23@cornell.edu
Pierre PESTIEAU
Université de Liège, Belgium
p.pestieau@ulg.ac.be
Abstract. This paper studies the role of family size in the
design of optimal income taxation. We consider a second best
setting where the government observes the number of children
and the income of the parents but not their productivity.
With a linear tax schedule the marginal tax rate is shown to
decrease with the number of children, while the relationship
between the demogrant and family size appears to be
ambiguous. With two ability levels, optimal non-linear
income tax implies zero marginal tax rates for the higher
ability parents; low ability parents have positive marginal
tax rates that decrease with family size.
"The roles of child support enforcement and welfare in non-
marital childbearing"
Irwin GARFINKEL
Columbia University, USA
E-mail: ig3@columbia.edu
Chien-Chung HUANG
Rutgers University, USA
huangc@rci.rutgers.edu
Sara S. MCLANAHAN
Princeton University, USA
McLanahan@princeton.edu
Daniel S. GAYLIN
The Lewin Group, USA
Abstract. This paper examines the effects of stronger child
support enforcement and declines in welfare benefits on
changes in non-marital childbearing between 1980 and 1996.
Economic theory suggests that stricter child support
enforcement will increase the costs of children for unwed
fathers, making them less likely to have a child outside
marriage. Reductions in welfare benefits also are expected
to increase the costs of non-marital childbearing for both
mothers and fathers. We examine these hypotheses, using
aggregate state-level data and fixed effects regression
models to identify the effects of policies on non-marital
birth rates. We find that both stricter child support
enforcement and declines in welfare benefits deter non-
marital births. However, the estimated effects of child
support enforcement are more robust and larger than those of
welfare. The estimates imply that in the 1980-1996 period,
increases in child support enforcement led to a decline in
non-marital birth rates in the range of 6% to 9%, whereas
decreases in welfare benefits led to a decline in the range
of 2% to 4%.
--- SOCIAL SECURITY
"Voluntary income sharing and the design of unemployment
insurance"
Dan ANDERBERG
Heriot-Watt University, United Kingdom
E-mail: D.Anderberg@hw.ac.uk
Abstract. This paper uses a model of search unemployment to
discuss the interaction between publicly provided insurance
and informal insurance through voluntary income sharing,
e.g., between spouses. Income sharing reduces the optimal
level of public unemployment insurance. While it is always
individually rational for partners to share income, the
effect of voluntary income sharing on welfare will be
negative unless partners can either observe each other's
search behavior or are sufficiently altruistic towards each
other. The model is also used to examine a family-based
policy. The welfare gains from using such policy are argued
to be small.
"Population growth and social security financing"
Shuanglin LIN
Universityof Nebraska, USA
E-mail: slin@mail.unomaha.edu
Xiaowen TIAN
National Universityof Singapore, Singapore
E-mail: eaitianxw@nus.edu.sg
Abstract. By allowing the population growth to be flexible,
this paper analyzes the effect of a tax reform that involves
an introduction of consumption taxation for social security
financing. It is found that population growth and labor
supply play an important role in determining the effect of
the tax reform. If population growth and labor supply are
exogenous, then an introduction of a consumption tax for
social security financing, with the payroll tax rate being
endogenous, decreases the interest rate and increases
capital accumulation. However, if population growth and
labor supply are endogenous, then an introduction of a
consumption tax for social security financing increases the
interest rate and reduces capital accumulation.
"Pensions as a portfolio problem: fixed contribution rates
vs. fixed replacement rates reconsidered"
Andreas WAGENER
University of Siegen, Germany
E-mail: wagener@vwl.wiwi.uni-siegen.de
Abstract. Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension schemes can
contribute to better intergenerational risk-sharing and
diversification. However, different variants of PAYG schemes
entail different properties in these respects. In a
stochastic 2-OLG model we compare PAYG schemes with fixed
contribution rates and such with fixed replacement rates.
The literature has shown that the former are preferable to
the later from an ex ante perspective. We derive the
opposite result for the ex post perspective. Here, schemes
with fixed replacement rates are unambiguously preferable:
they enhance intergenerational risk-sharing, lead to a
higher savings and higher utility levels. We further show
that, from an ex ante (veil-of-ignorance), perspective both
schemes are non-comparable if the effect that fixed-
replacement schemes serve as an insurance device for old-age
income is properly accounted for.
"Overlapping generations models with realistic Demography"
Antoine BOMMIER
Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques, France
E-mail: bommier@ined.fr
Ronald D. LEE
University of California, USA
E-mail: rlee@demog.berkeley.edu
Abstract. This paper revisits the literature on overlapping
generations models in the demographic context of a
continuous age distribution and a general age schedule of
mortality. We show that most of the static results known for
the 3 or N age-group models can be extended to the
continuous model. Some results, previously established for
economies without capital, are extended to productive
economies. We also make some progress on the existence of
some steady states as well as on the dynamic properties.
--- MIGRATION
"Migration as a source of growth: The perspective of a
developing country"
Manon Domingues DOS SANTOS
Université d'Evry-Val-d'Essonne, France
E-mail: manondds@ensae.fr
Fabien POSTEL-VINAY
Ecole Normale Superieure, France
E-mail: fpostel@delta.ens.fr
Abstract. This paper analyses the dynamics of migratory
flows and growth in a developing economy. We show that when
workers freely choose their location, some natives can
rationally decide to return to their home country after they
have accumulated a certain amount of knowledge abroad, while
some prefer to stay permanently in the same economy(either
at home or abroad). We point out that worker mobility can
have an expansionary effect on the developing economy.
Moreover, we show that in the long-run, as the sending
economy develops, fewer natives are likely to emigrate and
more migrants are likely to return.
"Earnings assimilation of immigrants in Norway - A
Reappraisal"
Pal LONGVA
University of Oslo, Norway
E-mail: pal.longva@econ.uio.no
Oddbjorn RAAUM
Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research, Norway
E-mail: oddbjorn.raum@frisch.uio.no
Abstract. The relative earnings growth for immigrants in
Norway is computed. Unlike Hayfron (1998, this journal) we
define immigrants by country of origin rather than
citizenship and perform separate studies of immigrants from
inside and outside the OECD region. Replicating Hayfron
op.cit. we find that the earnings of OECD immigrants are
comparable to those of natives, while NON-OECD immigrants
earn considerably less than natives at the time of entry,
but that their relative earnings improve gradually over
time. Earnings of different immigrant cohorts converged from
1980 to 1990, indicating a non-linear rate of assimilation.
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3) ESPE 2003 Homepage
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The Seventeenth Annual Conference will take place on June
13-15, 2003, in New York City on the Washington Square
campus of New York University. The Conference is held for
the exchange of research results and ideas in a number of
fields, including household economics, labor economics,
public economics, demography, and health economics.
The conference homepage is located at:
http://www.econ.nyu.edu/cvstarr/conferences/ESPE/
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4) About the JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS
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The Journal of Population Economics is an international
quarterly that publishes original theoretical and applied
research and survey articles on topics dealing with broadly
defined relationships between economic and demographic
problems. Both extensive surveys of wider areas and shorter
reviews of important new developments are considered. The
Journal of Population Economics also encourages the
submission of shorter papers (not more than 8 printed pages)
which are reviewed more rapidly.
For more information please see: http://www.popecon.org
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5) Editorial Board 2003
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Editor-in-chief:
KLAUS F.ZIMMERMANN, IZA, Bonn
Fax: +49-228-3894 210 / E-mail: zimmermann@iza.org
Editors:
ALESSANDRO CIGNO, University of Florence, Italy
Fax: +39-055-47 21 02 / E-mail: cigno@unifi.it
DEBORAH COBB-CLARK, Australian National University, Canberra
Fax: +61-2-6125-0187 / Email: dcclark@coombs.anu.edu.au
CHRISTIAN DUSTMANN, University College London, UK
Fax: +44-20-79162775 / Email: c.dustmann@ucl.ac.uk
DANIEL S. HAMERMESH, University of Texas, USA
Fax: +1-512-471 3510 / E-mail: hamermes@eco.utexas.edu
JUNSEN ZHANG, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,
Fax: +852-26035805 / E-mail: jszhang@cuhk.edu.hk
Associate Editors:
PATRICIA APPS, University of Sydney, Australia
ORLEY ASHENFELTER, Princeton University, USA
GERARD J. VAN DEN BERG, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
FRANCOIS BOURGUIGNON, DELTA/ENS, Paris, France
DAVID CARD, University of California, Berkeley, USA
BARRY R: CHISWICK, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA
RICHARD A. EASTERLIN, University of Southern California, USA
GIL S. EPSTEIN, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
JOHN F. ERMISCH, ISER, University of Essex, UK
IRA N. GANG, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, USA
JEFF GROGGER, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA
JAMES J, HECKMAN, University of Chicago, USA
ARIE KAPTEYN, RAND, Santa Monica, USA
ANDERS KLEVMARKEN, University of Uppsala, Sweden
KAI A. KONRAD, Science Center Berlin, Germany
PETER KOOREMAN, Groningen University, The Netherlands
FRANCIS KRAMARZ, CREST/INSEE, France
RONALD D. LEE, University of California, Berkeley, USA
ROBERT A. MOFFITT, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA
PIERRE PESTIEAU, University of Liege, Belgium
GILLES SAINT-PAUL, GREMAQ-IDEI, France
CHRISTOPH M. SCHMIDT, AWI, University of Heidelberg, Germany
T. PAUL SCHULTZ, Yale University, New Haven, USA
BENGT-ARNE WICKSTROEM, Humboldt University, Germany
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JOURNAL OF POPULATION ECONOMICS
Office: Michael Vogler
Journal of Population Economics
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Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 7-9
D-53113 Bonn
Germany
Fax: +49-228-3894 510
email: popecon@iza.org
homepage: http://www.popecon.org
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