Roberto V. Penaloza

Fertility Decline in Former “Asian Tigers”

The fertility opportunity hypothesis suggests that individuals and couples adjust family size in response to their perception that economic opportunity is increasing (or diminishing.) A sense that opportunities are expanding encourages a relatively high, even rising, family size target. On the contrary, the perception that opportunities and resources will fall short of satisfying the aspirations of oneself or family lead to lowering family size targets. The literature suggests that family size target translates into completed family size on the order of 85 to 90 percent. The economic collapse of former “Asian tigers” in late summer, 1997, offered a chance to test the hypothesis prospectively. In, 1998, an author (Abernethy) predicted that fertility rates in the nine Asian tiger economies would fall during the 1997-1999 interval at a faster rate than had been observed in immediately preceding two-year intervals. This paper reports the results of tests of the hypothesis with respect to the Asian tigers and several other country clusters for which no particular prediction was made. Preliminary findings appear to support the fertility opportunity hypothesis.

Leadership Practice in the Context of U.S. School Choice Reform

Choice schools provide a unique laboratory where variation in governance and management structure is predicted. We examine the results from principal surveys from traditional and choice public schools, and compare challenges faced by principals and their leadership practice. Analyses show that while differences across school types are small, there are noteworthy variations among different types of charter schools. Our study broadens the understanding of school leadership in a choice environment by examining not only the association between leadership practices and school types, but also the influence of school management structures on instructional development beyond school type differences.

Reassessing Cyclical Changes in Workers' Labor Market Status: Gross Flows and the Types of Workers Who Determine Them

This analysis, using Current Population Survey data, yields statistically compelling evidence that cyclical variations in gross flows of U.S. workers—that is, variations by business cycle phase in the number of workers transitioning from one labor market state to another each month—were substantially smaller in 1986–2005 than in 1968–86. The authors identify six types of workers who would be expected to contribute to cyclical variations in these flows. Counter-intuitively, one such group consists of individuals whose decisions to enter or exit the labor force are independent of labor market conditions. Estimates suggest that these “noncyclical movers” are an empirically important component of gross flows into the labor force. The authors contend that the presence of noncyclical movers precludes accurate measurement of the contributions of workers whose entry and exit decisions are consciously influenced by labor market conditions.