{"title":"From Parent to Child? The Long-Lasting Effects of Social Support","authors":"A. Poggi, G. Kalb","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3760946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3760946","url":null,"abstract":"Social bonds and supportive relationships (social support) are widely recognised as being indispensable to healthy psychological functioning and wellbeing. Applying a multilevel approach to the 2001-2016 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) data, we assess the impact of social support experienced by the parents during an individual’s childhood on the individual’s capacity to establish adequate social support in adult life. The level of social support experienced by the parents is measured during childhood/adolescence. \u0000 \u0000Our findings show that, in addition to individual characteristics and other parental outcomes, the social support experienced by parents is an important predictor of the level of social support experienced by young adults. In particular, the mother’s social support is an important predictor of the level of social support experienced by young female adults, while the father’s social support is an important predictor of the level of social support experienced by young male adults. This evidence is further supported in an alternative specification based on sibling observations accounting for family fixed effects, finding that some individuals experience more social support when they are aged in their twenties than other individuals as a result of the family environment in childhood. In particular, social support experienced by parents explains about 16% of the initial family variance experienced by siblings.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"42 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125206306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects","authors":"Alexandra de Gendre, Nicolás Salamanca","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3760940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3760940","url":null,"abstract":"Studying with higher ability peers increases student performance, yet we have little idea why. We exploit random assignment of students to classrooms and find positive peer effects on test scores. With very rich data on seventeen potential mechanisms, we then estimate how peer effects on attitudes, parents, etc. could drive these results. Higher-achieving peers reduce student effort, increase student university aspirations, increase parental time investments, and have precise null effects elsewhere. None of these mechanisms, however, explain our peer effect on test scores. Our findings question the prevailing empirical approach to understanding the mechanisms underlying academic peer effects.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123025976","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Job Search Requirements on Welfare Receipt","authors":"N. Hérault, Ha Vu, R. Wilkins","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3690141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3690141","url":null,"abstract":"Many countries impose job search requirements on unemployment benefit recipients. Existing studies have evaluated only incremental changes to requirements. Australian reforms in 1995 saw groups of welfare recipients newly subjected to job search requirements, allowing us to produce the first causal estimates of the total effects of such requirements on welfare receipt. Using a quasi-experimental design and administrative data, we find large negative effects on welfare receipt for the mature-age partnered women targeted by the reforms. We also find large negative effects on welfare receipt of their partners, suggesting family labour supply decisions were considerably affected.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134260850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Impact of the Medicare Part D Coverage Gap Closure and Generic Entry on Medication Use","authors":"C. Kaplan, Yuting Zhang, Judith Liu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3690078","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3690078","url":null,"abstract":"The Affordable Care Act included a provision to eliminate the Medicare prescription drug coverage gap. The policy was phased in by gradually diminishing the gap each year between 2011-2020. This provides a natural experiment to conduct an in-depth study of how the policy affected medication use, which has implications for other benefit designs that vary cost sharing throughout the year. Using 2007-2016 Medicare claims data, we estimate the effects of closing-the-gap policy with a difference-in-differences approach that compares changes in medication use before and after policy between non-subsidized beneficiaries and a subset of Medicare beneficiaries who have not been affected by the policy. To account for the gradual phase-in of policy changes and possible learning effects, we examine the dynamic effects using an event study difference-in-differences model. Importantly, around the same time as the coverage gap closure, several blockbuster drugs that are commonly used by the Medicare population experienced patent expiration and began to see generic entry. To isolate the effect of coverage gap closure from patent expirations, we further use monthly prescription drug event data to more accurately track initial generic entry by therapeutic class. We find that filling the gap significantly reduced individuals’ out-of-pocket spending on branded drugs and increased the number of prescriptions filled for branded drugs. Consistent with the policy design, people who fell in the gap, were at older ages, or had coexisting chronic conditions saw a larger reduction in the amount they paid for prescription drugs. Without controlling for generic entry, the effect of the policy on utilization is underestimated for branded drugs and overestimated for generic drugs.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116982815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Literature Review on the Impact of Welfare Policy Design on Children and Youth","authors":"B. Broadway, Tessa LoRiggio, C. Ryan, Anna Zhu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3690069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3690069","url":null,"abstract":"We review the empirical literature on the causal effects of welfare-to-work policies on the employment of low-income parents and the intergenerational impacts on their children. We focus on welfare policies that change benefit levels, activity requirements, time-limits and inwork benefits. These policies may affect children through several mechanisms, including changes in family income, time spent with parents, and attitudes towards work or welfare. To unpack these mechanisms and understand the net effects of these policies, we assess how the impact on children varies across outcomes, home environments and institutional settings. Overall, the literature shows that income tax credits are an attractive policy, simultaneously increasing employment and improving child development outcomes. In contrast, other policies that boost employment either have no or negative impacts on child development.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"102 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127122501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aaron Blanco, J. Borland, Michael Bernard Coelli, James Maccarone
{"title":"The Impact of International Trade on Manufacturing Employment in Australia: Evidence From the China Shock","authors":"Aaron Blanco, J. Borland, Michael Bernard Coelli, James Maccarone","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3607713","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3607713","url":null,"abstract":"We examine how the rapid growth in imports of manufactured goods from China affected industry-level employment in Australia from 1991 to 2006. Our analysis incorporates both the direct effect from increased import competition, and indirect spill-over effects from input-output linkages. We estimate that growth in imports from China caused a loss in total manufacturing employment of between 89,900 and 209,800 workers – accounting for 8.5 to 19.8 per cent of manufacturing employment in 1991. Such an effect seems best described as sizable, but not one that by itself spelled the end of manufacturing industry in Australia. The largest impacts from growth in Chinese imports are found for manufacturing industries most exposed to import competition; and for the sub-period from 2001 to 2006.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"130-132 1-3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-04-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116370466","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Four Dimensions of Quality in Australian Jobs","authors":"D. Ribar, M. Wooden","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3472759","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3472759","url":null,"abstract":"We develop and analyse comprehensive, multi‐item scales of the quality of Australian jobs, using the rich measures of job characteristics from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Through exploratory methods and multidimensional item response theory modelling, we uncover four gender‐specific scales that describe the autonomy, demands/engagement, compensation adequacy and security of jobs. From 2001 to 2016, women’s job demands/engagement and compensation adequacy grew noticeably, and men’s job demands/engagement grew somewhat. Since the mid‐2000s, job security has fallen for both women and men. Job quality rises with job tenure, work experience and health, and falls following involuntary job changes.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"119 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123261635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Dynamic Properties of Economic Preferences","authors":"Nicolás Salamanca","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3164693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3164693","url":null,"abstract":"The time-stability of preferences is a crucial and ubiquitous assumption in economics, yet to date there is no method to test its validity. Based on a model of the dynamics of individual preferences, I develop a simple method to test this assumption. Time-persistance in preferences is captured via an autoregressive parameter that accounts for observable characteristics and is unattenuated by measurement error, which forms the basis of the test. The method also estimates the variance of persistent shocks to latent preferences, which measures unobserved heterogeneity, and preference measurement error. I illustrate the use of this method by testing the stability of risk aversion and patience using micro-level data, and find that patience is time-stable but risk aversion is not. However, change very slowly over time. This method provides researchers with a simple tool to properly test the assumption on preference stability, and to measure the degree of preference changes due to observable and unobservable factors.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128396564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effect of Homelessness on Employment Entry and Exits: Evidence from the Journeys Home Survey","authors":"Neha Swami","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3132028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3132028","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides new insights into the association between homelessness and poor employment outcomes by examining how homelessness affects employment transitions. The study uses longitudinal data from the Journeys Home survey and methods that address concerns related to reverse causality and endogenous selection into homelessness. The findings reveal that low levels of employment among homeless people can be attributed primarily to their higher probabilities of exiting employment. The negative association between homelessness and employment entry is much weaker in both magnitude and significance. This finding contrasts with what one would expect given the perception in the literature, i.e. that the difficulty of finding employment is a major contributing factor behind the poor rates of employment among homeless people. The significant positive association between homelessness and the probability of exiting employment seems to be mainly driven by unobserved person-specific characteristics, which increase a person’s chances of being homeless and of leaving employment. Once the effect of these unobserved confounding characteristics is considered, homelessness per se has no s gnificant impact on either employment entry or exit.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133298651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Uncertainty-Dependent Effects of Monetary Policy Shocks: A New Keynesian Interpretation","authors":"Efrem Castelnuovo, Giovanni Pellegrino","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3134156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3134156","url":null,"abstract":"We estimate a nonlinear VAR model to study the real effects of monetary policy shocks in regimes characterized by high vs. low macroeconomic uncertainty. We find unexpected monetary policy moves to exert a substantially milder impact in presence of high uncertainty. We then exploit the set of impulse responses coming from the nonlinear VAR framework to estimate a medium-scale new-Keynesian DSGE model with a minimum-distance approach. The DSGE model is shown to be able to replicate the VAR evidence in both regimes thanks to different estimates of some crucial structural parameters. In particular, we identify a steeper new-Keynesian Phillips curve as the key factor behind the DSGE model’s ability to replicate the milder macroeconomic responses to a monetary policy shock estimated with our VAR in presence of high uncertainty. A version of the model featuring firm-specific capital is shown to be associated to estimates of the price frequency which are in line with some recent evidence based on micro data.","PeriodicalId":331095,"journal":{"name":"Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research Working Paper Series","volume":"20 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125625890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}