Sankar Mukhopadhyay

Effects of school reform on education and labor market performance: Evidence from Chile's universal voucher system

This paper studies the effects of school reform in Chile, which adopted a nationwide school voucher program along with school decentralization reforms in 1981. Since then, Chile has had a relatively unregulated, competitive market in primary and secondary education. It therefore provides a unique setting in which to study how these reforms affected school attainment and labor market outcomes. This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model of school attendance and work decisions using panel data from the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Encuesta de Protección Social survey. Some individuals in the sample completed their schooling before the voucher reforms were introduced, while others had the option of using the vouchers over part or all of their schooling careers. The impacts of the voucher reform are identified from differences in the schooling and work choices made and earnings returns received by similar aged individuals who were differentially exposed to the voucher system. Simulations based on the estimated model show that the voucher reform significantly increased the demand for private subsidized schools and decreased the demand for both public and nonsubsidized private schools. It increased high school (grades 9-12) graduation rates by 3.6 percentage points and the percentage completing at least two years of college by 2.6 percentage points. Individuals from poor and non-poor backgrounds on average experienced similar schooling attainment gains. The reform also increased lifetime utility and modestly reduced earnings inequality.

The Value of an Employment-Based Green Card

The need for and role of highly skilled immigrant workers in the U.S. economy is fiercely debated. Proponents and opponents agree that temporary foreign workers are paid a lower wage than are natives. This lower wage partly originates from the restricted mobility of workers while on a temporary visa. In this article, we estimate the wage gain to employment-based immigrants from acquiring permanent U.S. residency. We use data from the New Immigrant Survey (2003) and implement a difference-in-difference propensity score matching estimator. We find that for employer-sponsored immigrants, the acquisition of a green card leads to an annual wage gain of about

Technology transfer in duopoly The role of cost asymmetry

11,860.

Urban Poor in China

Abstract This article examines the possibility of a profitable technology transfer deal in a duopoly. We show that under a fixed fee contract, technology transfer will be always profitable if the products are sufficiently differentiated or the firms behave sufficiently cooperatively or both. Under a profit sharing contract, however, a profitable technology transfer deal always exists even in a market characterised by Cournot duopoly with homogeneous goods.

Evaluating an employee wellness program

Since the late 1970s, many employees of state-owned enterprises have been laid off, and more and more rural people have migrated to urban areas. Many laid-off and migrant workers have become the urban poor. This paper discusses the general situation of the urban poor in China by examining how many there are, how poor they are, who they are, and what creates their situation. Using data from a January 2007 survey on 1,641 relatively low-income households in Changsha, the paper investigates features of migrant workers and their city counterparts regarding income, employment, social support, housing, most-needed government assistance, and reasons for migration. Based on the empirical findings, the paper gives some policy recommendations.

The Effects of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act on Female Labor Supply

What criteria should be used to evaluate the impact of a new employee wellness program when the initial vendor contract expires? Published academic literature focuses on return-on-investment as the gold standard for wellness program evaluation, and a recent meta-analysis concludes that wellness programs can generate net savings after one or two years. In contrast, surveys indicate that fewer than half of these programs report net savings, and actuarial analysts argue that return-on-investment is an unrealistic metric for evaluating new programs. These analysts argue that evaluation of new programs should focus on contract management issues, such as the vendor’s ability to: (i) recruit employees to participate and (ii) induce behavior change. We compute difference-in-difference propensity score matching estimates of the impact of a wellness program implemented by a mid-sized employer. The analysis includes one year of pre-implementation data and three years of post-implementation data. We find that the program successfully recruited a broad spectrum of employees to participate, and it successfully induced short-term behavior change, as manifested by increased preventive screening. However, the effects on health care expenditures are positive (but insignificant). If it is unrealistic to expect new programs to significantly reduce healthcare costs in a few years, then focusing on return-on-investment as the gold standard metric may lead to early termination of potentially useful wellness programs. Focusing short-term analysis of new programs on short-term measures may provide a more realistic evaluation strategy.

Is post-smoking-cessation weight-gain a significant trigger for relapse?

This article analyzes the effects of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) on the labor force participation rates of married women by estimating a dynamic model of labor force participation. Results show that the PDA increased the labor force participation rate of pregnant women by 8.2 percentage points, of women with a child less than one year old by 3.4 percentage points, and of women with older children by 1.5 percentage points. Counterfactual policy simulations show that the provision of unpaid leave will increase the labor force participation rate of women with older children by an additional 3.7 percentage points.

An Application of Difference-in-Difference-Difference Model Effects of Prevailing Wage Legislation in Mountain States of the United States

While the Surgeon Generals Consumer Guide lists weight-gain as an important relapse trigger, the 2001 Surgeon Generals Report on Women and Smoking concludes, paradoxically, that actual weight-gain during cessation does not appear to predict relapse. This dichotomous view reflects longstanding scientific uncertainty about the role of weight-gain in triggering relapse. This scientific uncertainty, which stems from mixed clinical trial results, is problematic for insurance coverage decisions such as state Medicaid programme decisions to cover or exclude smoking-cessation and weight-control pharmaceuticals. Analysts hypothesize that selection bias may explain the inconsistency between the negative clinical results and the persistent view that weight-gain triggers relapse, if weight-concern is both a key determinant of the transition from ‘smoker’ to ‘ex-smoker,’ and a key moderating variable in the relationship between weight-gain and relapse. We therefore use the nationally representative 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) to test the relapse-trigger hypothesis, and conclude that post-smoking-cessation weight-gain triggers relapse among weight-concerned white women, but it is associated with quitting success among Hispanic women. In addition, our results do not support the hypothesis that the mixed clinical trial results reflect selection bias based on weight-concern.

Are prenatal care resources distributed efficiently across high-risk and low-risk mothers?

Institutional laws and arrangements such as prevailing wage laws influence the employment levels and wage rates of the local labor supply. Conflicting research, however, has shown that prevailing wage laws lead to higher construction costs, while others show little to no relationship. Most of these studies are completed at the national level whose results at the regional level may not be applicable. This article examines the impact of prevailing wage laws on construction wages in the Mountain States of the nation. Difference-in-difference-difference models were used, and results indicate that for the Mountain States, removal of prevailing wage laws decreased wages by 4.4% after 10 years of the repeal. However, because of the available data used in this analysis, the impacts of repealing the prevailing wage laws on benefits could not be determined, which from previous research could be significant.

Do women value marriage more? The effect of obesity on cohabitation and marriage in the USA

The Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement recommends reducing the number of prenatal care visits recommended for low-risk women, citing evidence from a randomized clinical trial indicating that the reduction would not adversely impact infant health. We investigate the implicit hypothesis that prenatal care resources are not distributed efficiently across high-risk and low-risk women. Using clinic-reported prenatal care and an inclusive measure of infant health, we report evidence indicating inefficient resource utilization: prenatal care only boosts infant health when mothers have specific pre-existing diagnoses, but women with high potential to benefit from care do not obtain more care than other women.