Costas Meghir

THE EFFECTS OF MALE AND FEMALE LABOR SUPPLY ON COMMODITY DEMANDS

The authors examine the effects of male and female labor supply on household demands and present a simple and robust test for the separability of demands from labor supply. Using data on individual households from six years of the U.K. Family Expenditure Survey, they estimate a demand system for seven goods that includes hours and participation dummies as conditioning variables. Allowance is made for the possible endogeneity of theses conditioning labor-supply variables. The authors find that separability is rejected. Furthermore, they present evidence that ignoring labor supply leads to bias in the parameter estimates. Copyright 1991 by The Econometric Society.

Dynamic investment models and the firm's financial policy

In this paper we investigate the sensitivity of investment to the availability of internal funds using the hierarchy of finance approach to corporate finance. We characterize the empirical implications of this approach for dynamic investment models and test these implications using firm-level data. The model we estimate is based on the Euler equation for optimal capital accumulation in the presence of convex adjustment costs. The theoretical model explicitly allows for debt finance and financial assets. The empirical investigation uses U.K. company panel data to estimate dynamic investment models using GMM and tests the derived implications.

Crime and Economic Incentives

In economic models of crime, changing economic incentives alter the participation of individuals in criminal activities. We critically appraise the work in this area. After a brief overview of the workhorse economics of crime model for organizing our discussion on crime and economic incentives, we first document the significant rise of the economics of crime as a research field and then go on to review the evidence on the relationship between crime and economic incentives. We divide this discussion into incentives operating through legal wages in the formal labor market and the economic returns to illegal activities. Evidence that economic incentives matter for crime emerges from both.

BIVARIATE ALTERNATIVES TO THE TOBIT MODEL

Abstract This paper discusses some generalisations of the Tobit model that allow for distinct processes determining the censoring rule and the continuous observations. The effect of different behavioural assumptions on the econometric model are examined and the alternatives are constructed. The paper concentrates on diagnostic tests for misspecification that are appropriate in each of our examples. These include tests of independence and normality. The empirical illustrations relate to household demand for clothing and to married womens labour supply. The data are drawn from the Family Expenditure Survey for 1981.

Collective labor supply with children

We extend the collective model of household behavior to allow for the existence of public consumption. We show how this model allows the analysis of welfare consequences of policies aimed at changing the distribution of power within the household. Our setting provides a conceptual framework for addressing issues linked to the “targeting” of specific benefits or taxes. We also show that the observation of the labor supplies and the household demand for the public good allow one to identify individual welfare and the decision process. This requires either a separability assumption or the presence of a distribution factor.

Education choices in Mexico: using a structural model and a randomized experiment to evaluate Progresa

In this paper we evaluate the effect of a large welfare program in rural Mexico. For such a purpose we use an evaluation sample that includes a number of villages where the program was not implemented for evaluation purposes. We estimate a structural model of education choices and argue that without such a framework it is impossible to evaluate the effect of the program and, especially, possible changes to its structure. We also argue that the randomized component of the data allows us to identify a more flexible model that is better suited to evaluate the program. We find that the program has a positive effect on the enrollment of children, especially after primary school. We also find that an approximately revenue neutral change in the program that would increase the grant for secondary school children while eliminating for the primary school children would have a substantially larger effect on enrollment of the latter, while having minor effects on the former. ∗This paper has benefitted from valuable comments from Gary Becker, Esther Duflo, Jim Heckman, Hide Ichimura, Paul Schultz, Miguel Székely, Petra Todd and many seminar audiences. Responsibility for any errors is ours. †UCL, IFS and NBER. ‡UCl and IFS §UCL and Sedesol

Female Labour Supply and On-the-Job Search: An Empirical Model Estimated Using Complementary Data Sets

We develop an empirical model of labour supply that is consistent with on-the-job search and which is identified and estimated by combining two data sets: the U.K. Family Expenditure Survey which contains information on income and expenditure and the U.K. Labour Force Survey, which has data on hours and job search behaviour. We provide statistical evidence on the compatibility of the two samples for the purposes of estimating our model. We find that search has a direct negative effect on hours of work and we establish a strong positive effect of wages on hours.

Labour Supply and Taxes

Labour Supply and Taxes In this paper we provide an overview of the literature relating labour supply to taxes and welfare benefits with a focus on presenting the empirical consensus. We begin with a basic continuous hours model, where individuals have completely free choice over their hours of work. We then consider fixed costs of work, the complications introduced by the benefits system, dynamic aspects of labour supply and we place the analysis in the context of the family. The key conclusion of this work is that in order to estimate the impact of tax reform and be able to generalise results, a structural approach that takes account of many of these issues is desirable. We then discuss the “new Tax Responsiveness” literature which uses the response of taxable income to the marginal tax rate as a summary statistic of the behavioural response to taxation. Underlying this approach is the unsatisfactory nature of using hours as a proxy for labour effort for those with high levels of autonomy on the job and who already work long hours, such as the self employed or senior executives. After discussing relevant theory we then provide a summary of empirical estimates and the methodology underlying the studies. Our conclusion is that hours of work are relatively inelastic for men, but are a little more responsive for married women and lone mothers. On the other hand, participation is quite sensitive to taxation and benefits for women. Within this paper we present new estimates form a discrete participation model for both married and single men based on the numerous reforms over the past two decades in the UK. We find that the participation of low education men is somewhat more responsive to incentives than previously thought. For men with high levels of education, participation is virtually unresponsive; here the literature on taxable income suggests that there may be significant welfare costs of taxation, although much of this seems to be a result of shifting income and consumption to non-taxable forms as opposed to actual reductions in work effort. JEL Classification: J22, H24, H31

Pension Incentives and the Pattern of Early Retirement

This mix of state and private pension provision in the United Kingdom provides a rare degree of variation in pension incentives for retirement. Using a sample of individuals from the UK Retirement Survey, the paper models the probability of retirement in terms of the incentives underlying the individuals pension plan as well as other socio-economic factors. It follows an option value approach and allows a separate role for pension wealth, for spouses economic characteristics and for demographic characteristics. It distinguishes between SERPS and private schemes and models eligibility to disability. The results point to significant retirement incentive effects from the pension system.

Intertemporal Nonseparability or Borrowing Restrictions? A Disaggregate Analysis Using a U.S. Consumption Panel

We propose a method to test for liquidity constraints which relies on using the within period marginal rate of substitution condition as a benchmark to evaluate the intertemporal Euler equation. If spot markets for nondurable goods exist, but financial markets either do not exist, or are imperfect, we show how the comparison of first order conditions involving the relevant spot and intertemporal prices can be used to detect the imperfection. We apply our methodology to a large sample of U.S. households, drawn from twelve years of the Consumer Expenditure Survey, allowing for a general nonseparable preference structure. Our estimates of first order conditions do not indicate the presence of liquidity constraints, with the possible exception of young households.