Peter Burton

What's mine is yours? The influence of male and female incomes on patterns of household expenditure

This paper uses microdata from the 1992 Statistics Canada Family Expenditure Survey to provide evidence that male and female incomes do not always exert identical influences on household expenditures. The novelty of the paper lies in its demonstration that, while incomes may be pooled for some categories of consumption (e.g., housing), the income pooling hypothesis must be rejected for others. The authors also go beyond simply rejecting the pooling hypothesis to ask how male versus female income is used. Their results stress the on-going importance of traditional gender roles. For example, the authors find that expenditures on child care increase only with womens incomes--higher male income is not associated with higher expenditure on child care even when both spouses are full-time, full-year paid workers. Copyright 1998 by The London School of Economics and Political Science

Poverty and the extent of child obesity in Canada, Norway and the United States

The goal of this paper is to compare the extent of child obesity in Canada, Norway and the United States. As child poverty is an important correlate of child obesity, we wish to examine the potential role of international differences in child poverty in explaining international differences in the extent of child obesity. We use three representative microdata surveys containing parental reports of child height and weight collected in the mid‐1990s in Canada, Norway and the US. We calculate both the prevalence and proportional severity of child obesity for 6–11‐year‐old children in each country, and represent the ‘extent’ of obesity diagrammatically. Differences in patterns of child poverty are similarly depicted. Obesity extent is also compared for poor and non‐poor children in Canada and the US. Finally, child obesity in the three countries is compared using only non‐poor children where we find that the extent of child obesity is much lower in Norway than in Canada or the US. The pattern apparent for obesity is remarkably similar to that found for child poverty. In Canada and especially in the US, we find a much greater extent of obesity for poor than non‐poor children. However, when we compare only non‐poor children in the three countries, although the magnitude of difference is smaller, it remains clear that Norwegian children are much less likely to be obese. Policy and research directed towards reducing the extent of child obesity in both Canada and the US should pay particular attention to issues of child poverty.

Social/institutional variables and behavior within households: An empirical test using the Luxembourg income study

High on the research agenda of feminist economists is the development of better models of what goes on within families. This paper contributes by conducting empirical tests of the impact of social/institutional factors on behavior within marriage. As one example, “divorce-threat” bargaining models predict that greater certainty of receiving child support should increase a womans bargaining power within a marriage and hence observable behavioral outcomes. Within a single country, there is limited variation in the social/institutional factors which might affect bargaining power, but across countries identifying variation can be found. Thus, we use a micro-data set constructed using seven countries from the Luxembourg Income Study database in order to estimate a probit model of the labor-force participation of married women. Our conclusions suggest that, contrary to the predictions of Becker-style unitary models, some social/institutional factors do influence individual behavior within the household.

All in the Family: A Simultaneous Model of Parenting Style and Child Conduct

The upbringing of children is modeled as a modified principal agent problem in which children attempt to maximize their own well-being when faced with a parenting strategy chosen by the parent, to maximize parents perception of family well-being. Thus, children as well as parents are players, but children have higher discount rates than parents. The simultaneity of parenting and child behaviour is confirmed using the 1994 Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children.

Measuring Obesity in Young Children

Child obesity is currently an important policy problem in Canada. Making the best evidence-based policy choices in response requires having the best possible evidence. Yet, we point out how easy it can be to make serious mistakes when measuring child obesity, particularly for young children. We demonstrate that parental reports of child height and weight very likely overestimate obesity prevalence for very young children. Given the importance of child obesity as a policy issue, our main conclusion is that it is critical for national surveys in Canada to provide interviewers with appropriate equipment and ask them to weigh and measure children very accurately. While this would certainly increase survey costs, the costs to society of making less than the best policy choices are likely to be even higher.

Economic Costs of Caring for Children with Disabilities in Canada

This paper uses the child sample of Statistics Canada’s 2001 Participation and Activity Limitations Survey to study the economic costs of caring for children with disabilities in Canada. Both explicit out-of-pocket expenditures and implicit costs in the form of foregone labour market opportunities are considered. Results indicate that, despite universal health insurance in Canada, a majority of families of children with disabilities incur significant economic costs. Additional financial support might be offered, particularly when the child’s condition is severe, and costly therapy and specialized aids could be covered. Our results also support the need for respite as well as help in balancing work and caregiving for Canadian parents of children with disabilities.

Community enforcement of fisheries effort restrictions

This paper models the use of community sanctions to restrict effort in a simple Gordon-Shaefer style model of the fishery with heterogeneous fishing costs.

Families, Time, and Well-Being in Canada

Dans cet article, nous analysons les changements qui se sont produits, entre 1971 en 2006, sur le plan du temps et de l’argent dont disposaient les familles avec enfants au Canada. Depuis le milieu des années 1990, on constate une augmentation des revenus au sommet de la distribution des revenus sans que ce phénomène s’accompagne d’une hausse significative du nombre d’heures consacrées au travail rémunéré par les parents. Par contre, dans les familles qui se situent au milieu de la distribution des revenus, on observe une hausse significative du nombre d’heures consacrées au travail rémunéré par les deux parents, alors que les revenus de ces familles n’augmentent pas. Si l’on considère que le temps et l’argent disponibles sont tous les deux des facteurs de bien-être pour les familles, ces résultats suggèrent que les inégalités en matière de bien-être ont augmenté de façon plus importante que les inégalités de revenus.

In Children's Voices

Economics, as a discipline, has paid relatively little attention to children. Several explanations for this inattention are plausible: (1) economics tends to focus on models of individual choice and children are typically given limited agency; (2) economics focuses on analysis of markets while children live in a world largely outside the market as traditionally defined (e.g., home production activities and publicly provided schools and parks are central for children’s well-being); (3) households are often taken as the basic unit of account in studies of income or poverty, perhaps since data are seldom available at any other level (Phipps, 1999). Where attention has been paid to children, it has typically been in the context of “investing in children” to secure better outcomes in the future (e.g., Haveman & Wolfe, 1995). Particular attention has been given to the study of children at risk for future negative attainments as a result of growing up poor (e.g., Duncan & BrooksGunn, 1997). While understanding and investing in positive future outcomes for children is without doubt extremely important, this does not mean we should neglect the study of children’s well-being now, while they are children. As Jen Qvortrup (1999) argues, children should not be reduced to “human becomings.” Too much focus on the future might, for example, mean children are drilled for very long hours in school, leaving no time for socialization and fun in the present. Childhood is, in itself, an important life stage to be lived and enjoyed. It has its own unique characteristics, both biological (e.g., children are small and rapidly growing both mentally and physically) and cultural (e.g., children in Canada must attend school; parents have authority over most aspects of a child’s life, from residence to medical treatment; children can’t choose their political leaders). Thus, being a child “makes a difference in terms of one’s activities, opportunities, experiences and identities”

Product Portfolios and the Introduction of New Products: An Example from the Insecticide Industry

This article explores how the introduction of new products by multiproduct firms might be affected by existing goods in each firms portfolio. A logit analysis is conducted to estimate the effects of local monopoly power, cost advantages, and learning. Characteristics theory is used to determine whether the addition of a new product by a firms existing portfolio creates the potential for local monopoly power. While the chemical similarity of products has the largest effect, results nonetheless indicate the empirical significance of potential monopoly power in influencing product introductions by multiproduct firms.