Michael Baker

What Do Self-Reported, Objective, Measures of Health Measure?

Survey reports of the incidence of chronic conditions are considered by many researchers to be more objective, and thus preferable, measures of unobserved health status than self-assessed measures of global well being. In this paper we evaluate this hypothesis by attempting to validate these “objective, self-reported” measures of health. Our analysis makes use of a unique data set that matches a variety of self-reports of health with respondents’ medical records. We find that these measures are subject to considerable response error resulting in large attenuation biases when they are used as explanatory variables.

Earnings Dynamics and Inequality Among Canadian Men, 1976-1992: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Records

Several recent studies have found that earnings inequality in Canada has grown considerably since the late 1970s. Using an extraordinary data base drawn from longitudinal income tax records, we decompose this growth in earnings inequality into its persistent and transitory components. We find that the growth in earnings inequality reflects both an increase in long-run inequality and an increase in earnings instability. The large size of our earnings panel allows us to estimate and test richer models of earnings dynamics than could be supported by the relatively small panel surveys used in U.S. research. The Canadian data strongly reject several restrictions commonly imposed in the U.S. literature, and they also suggest that imposing these evidently false restrictions may lead to distorted inferences about earnings dynamics and inequality trends.

The Highs and Lows of the Minimum Wage Effect: A Time-Series Cross-Section Study of the Canadian Law

We examine the effects of minimum wage legislation in Canada over the period 1975–93. For teenagers we find that a 10% increase in the minimum wage is associated with roughly a 2.5% decrease in employment. We also find that this result is driven by low frequency variation in the data. At high frequencies the elasticity is positive and insignificant. The difference in the elasticity across the bandwidth has implications for the interpretation of employment dynamics as a result of minimum wage policy and experimental design in minimum wage studies. It also provides a simple reconciliation of the “new minimum wage research,” which reports very small negative, or positive, elasticities.

Duration Dependence and Nonparametric Heterogeneity: A Monte Carlo Study

We examine the behaviour of the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE) for a discrete duration model with unobserved heterogeneity and unknown duration dependence. We find that a nonparametric specification of either the duration dependence or unobserved heterogeneity, when the other feature of the hazard is known to be absent, leads to estimators that are well behaved even in modestly sized samples. In contrast, there is a large and systematic bias in the parameters of these components when both are specified nonparametrically, as well as a complementary bias in the coefficients on observed heterogeneity. Furthermore, these biases diminish very gradually as sample size increases. We find that a minor modification of the quasilikelihood that penalizes specifications with many points of support leads to a dramatic improvement.

How Does Job-Protected Maternity Leave Affect Mothers' Employment?

We examine the impact of maternity leaves on the period mothers are away from work postbirth and the likelihood they return to their prebirth employer. We use the introduction and expansion of statutory job‐protected maternity leave entitlements in Canada to identify these effects. We find that modest leave entitlements of 17–18 weeks do not change the amount of time mothers spend away from work. In contrast, longer leaves do have a substantive impact on behavior, leading to more time spent at home. We also find that all entitlements we examined increase job continuity with the prebirth employer.

Evidence from Maternity Leave Expansions of the Impact of Maternal Care on Early Child Development

We study the impact of maternal care on early child development using an expansion in Canadian maternity leave entitlements. Following the leave expansion, mothers who took leave spent 48-58 percent more time not working in their childrens first year of life. This extra maternal care primarily crowded out home-based care by unlicensed nonrelatives and replaced full-time work. Our estimates suggest a weak impact of this increase in maternal care on indicators of child development. For example, measures of temperament and motor and social development show changes that are small and statistically insignificant.

How do retirement tests affect the labour supply of older men

Abstract We analyze the sequential elimination of retirement/earnings tests from Canadas public pension plans. Our empirical framework potentially overcomes the obstacles encountered analyzing the tests within the context of a national social security system. Our results indicate that the removal of the tests were associated with relatively large shifts from part year full time to full year full time work. We are unable to reconcile these results within the context of a traditional labour supply model. Instead, they are consistent with a model which incorporates fixed costs of work, or labour market rigidities which preclude continuous reductions in labour supply around retirement.

Employment Spells and Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Requirements

In this paper we examine whether the requirements that workers must satisfy to qualify for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in any succeeding period of joblessness affect the duration of employment spells. This behavioral consequence of a UI system has been neglected in empirical research, which has instead focused on the effects of UI parameters on the actions of the unemployed. The effect is identified by a unique change in the eligibility requirements of the Canadian UI system in 1990, which increased the weeks of employment required to establish UI eligibility. We provide a variety of estimates of this behavioral effect. In our preferred set of results, we find a significant increase in the employment hazard in the week that an individual satisfies the eligibility requirement in many regions of the country. In the spirit of Feldsteins (1976) study of temporary layoffs, the results provide new evidence of the impact of UI system parameters on the actions of employers and workers.

Early Retirement Provisions and the Labor Force Behavior of Older Men: Evidence from Canada

We examine the (sequential) introduction of early retirement provisions to Canadas two public pension plans. These reforms provide a unique opportunity to assess the effect of public pension plan parameters on labor supply behavior, free of the biases that potentially affect the simple time‐series or cross‐section inference presented in many previous studies. We find that the reforms led to an increase in pension receipt but had little immediate effect on labor market behavior. This is due to the fact that men who initially took advantage of the early retirement provisions would otherwise have had limited labor market participation.

Innis Lecture: Universal early childhood interventions: what is the evidence base?

Universality is a hallmark of Canadian social policy for very young children. The evidence base for these policies is small, non�?experimental, and offers mixed results. In contrast, the evidence base for targeted early childhood interventions is largely experimental and offers strong guidance. Policy makers and advocates often cite the research on targeted programs in support of universal programs, although this is problematic for a number of reasons. Universal programs require a better understanding of the developmental trajectories of more advantaged children. Evidence from the NLSCY suggests there are some potentially important differences in the association of early and later childhood developmental outcomes by family economic resources. (L’universalité est une caractéristique de la politique sociale canadienne pour la petite enfance. Les résultats sur lesquels on peut construire ces politiques sont minces et non�?expérimentaux, et pas toujours cohérents. D’autre part, les résultats pour les interventions ciblées sont largement expérimentaux et fournissent des directions claires. Les définisseurs de politiques ainsi que leurs supporteurs citent souvent les résultats de recherches sur les programmes ciblés pour articuler leur support pour des programmes universels, même si c’est problématique pour diverses raisons. Les programmes universels réclament une meilleure compréhension des trajectoires de développement des enfants plus avantagés. Les résultats de l’Enquête longitudinale nationale sur les enfants et les jeunes suggèrent qu’il y a des différences potentiellement importantes dans le développement des enfants de familles qui ont des ressources économiques différentes.)Universality is a hallmark of Canadian social policy for very young children. The evidence base for these policies is small, non-experimental and offers mixed results. In contrast the evidence base for targeted early childhood interventions is largely experimental and offers strong guidance. Policy makers and advocates often cite the research on targeted programs in support of universal programs, although this is problematic for a number of reasons. Universal programs require a better understanding of the developmental trajectories of more advantaged children. Evidence from the NLSCY suggests there are some potentially important differences in the association of early and later childhood developmental outcomes by family economic resources.