Tim Maloney

Children in the public benefit system at risk of maltreatment: Identification via predictive modeling

A growing body of research links child abuse and neglect to a range of negative short- and long-term health outcomes. Determining a childs risk of maltreatment at or shortly after birth provides an opportunity for the delivery of targeted prevention services. This study presents findings from a predictive risk model (PRM) developed to estimate the likelihood of substantiated maltreatment among children enrolled in New Zealands public benefit system. The objective was to explore the potential use of administrative data for targeting prevention and early intervention services to children and families. A data set of integrated public benefit and child protection records for children born in New Zealand between January 1, 2003, and June 1, 2006, was used to develop a risk algorithm using stepwise probit modeling. Data were analyzed in 2012. The final model included 132 variables and produced an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 76%. Among children in the top decile of risk, 47.8% had been substantiated for maltreatment by age 5 years. Of all children substantiated for maltreatment by age 5 years, 83% had been enrolled in the public benefit system before age 2 years. This analysis demonstrates that PRMs can be used to generate risk scores for substantiated maltreatment. Although a PRM cannot replace more-comprehensive clinical assessments of abuse and neglect risk, this approach provides a simple and cost-effective method of targeting early prevention services.

INTERGENERATIONAL WELFARE PARTICIPATION IN NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand panel data, which provide extensive information on the benefit histories of parents and their children, are used to estimate an intergenerational correlation coefficient in social welfare dependency. Recent estimation techniques for addressing issues of measurement error are applied to this analysis. The long-term benefit histories of parents and instrumental variable techniques provide useful lower and upper-bound estimates of the true intergenerational correlation. Our results suggest that the true correlation coefficient between the welfare participation of parents and their offspring is somewhere between one-third and two-thirds, but probably much closer to the lower limit in this range. Approximately one-quarter of this effect appears to operate through the lower educational attainment of children reared in families receiving social welfare benefits.

Does the adult minimum wage affect employment and unemployment in New Zealand

Most overseas studies on the minimum wage examine labour market outcomes among teenagers, because they are believed to be the age group most likely to experience any associated reductions in employment. However, teenagers in New Zealand were not covered by a minimum wage until March 1994. We examine data through the end of 1993 to see if the adult minimum wage had different labour market effects on young adults aged 20 to 24, compared to our “control group” of exempt teenagers. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the minimum wage reduces the employment of all young adults by 3.5 percent, and increases their unemployment rate by 3.5 percentage points. The same increase in the minimum wage reduces the employment of all young adults without school or post‐school qualifications by 5.7 percent, and increases their unemployment rate by 6.5 percentage points. Furthermore, we find the opposite effects among teenagers. A 10 percent increase in the adult minimum wage increases the employment of teenagers by 6...

Ethnicity and academic success at university

Differences in academic performance at university across several ethnic groups are examined using information from the transcripts of over 3,000 students at a large urban university. Both Grade Point Average (GPA) and the discontinuation of initial areas of study are used as indicators of academic success. Our results show that self‐reported ethnic identification is a significant factor in explaining variations in university grades. Observed background factors are unable to account for the substantial differences in GPA and dropout rates between minority and majority ethnic groups. Individual GPA is the single most important determinant of dropout behaviour, with poor grades accounting for higher dropout rates among minority groups.

Evaluating active labour market programmes in New Zealand

Purpose - The aims of this paper are to measure the impacts of subsidy, work experience and training programmes on New Zealand male registered unemployed, and to examine the sensitivity of these estimates to the amount of time that participants are followed after an intervention. Design/methodology/approach - The impact of an intervention on those who participate in an active labour market programme is the key question addressed in this paper. A New Zealand panel data set is used, which includes both intervention and individual characteristics of the unemployed. Both a potential outcomes and single nearest-neighbour difference-in-differences matching approach are used to estimate the impact of participation. Findings - The key findings are that work experience programmes are the most effective in the short-term. Training programmes are the least effective. Programmes are more effective for the long-term unemployed than for short-term unemployed. The results are sensitive to the point of time examined in the post-intervention period, with short-term benefits disappearing completely three years after the intervention. Originality/value - This paper examines the relative effect of active labour market programmes in New Zealand using a consistent evaluation framework. The sensitivity of the results to different time periods, and matching estimator specifications are examined.

Assessing the Possible Antipoverty Effects of Recent Rises in Age‐Specific Minimum Wages in New Zealand

Real minimum wages increased by nearly 33% for adults and 123% for teenagers in New Zealand between 1999 and 2008. Where fewer than 2% of workers were being paid a minimum wage at the outset of this sample period, now more than 8% of adult workers and 60% of teenage workers are receiving hourly earnings close to the minimum wage. These policy changes provide a unique opportunity to estimate the effects of the minimum wage on the characteristics of these workers and their location across the income distribution. We provide some evidence on the likely consequences of these rising minimum wages on the poverty rate in New Zealand. Although minimum wage workers are more likely to live in the poorest households, they are relatively widely dispersed throughout the income distribution. This is particularly true of teenage minimum wage workers. Furthermore, low-income households often do not contain any working members. We estimate that a 10% increase in minimum wages, even without any offsetting reduction in earnings due to a loss in employment or hours of work, would lower the relative poverty rate by less than one-tenth of a percentage point.

The impact of welfare reform on labour supply behaviour in New Zealand

Abstract New Zealand recently implemented sweeping reforms to its social welfare programmes by cutting benefits and tightening eligibility criteria. Regression analysis is used in this paper to isolate the effects of these reforms on several dimensions of labour supply behaviour. Overseas research in this area has often been hindered by the difficulty of boiling complex work disincentives down to a manageable set of regressors, or the lack of true variation in programme parameters. The structure of the benefit system and the nature of the reforms in New Zealand provide a unique opportunity to identify these behavioural responses. Quarterly random samples of individuals between 1985:4 and 1995:4 are used to isolate the effects of these policies, while controlling for a wide variety of other influences. This study finds compelling evidence that these reforms increased aggregate labour supply in this country.

The Impact of Free Music Downloads on the Purchase of Music CDs in Canada

This report examines data on the effects of Internet peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing activities on music purchasing which were obtained from a survey commissioned by Industry Canada. The survey was designed to “inform Industry Canadas policy development work” and ultimately therefore support better policy decisions regarding the copyright law in Canada. In order to support its policy decisions regarding the copyright regime in Canada, Industry Canada commissioned a survey by Decima Research in 2006 which was designed to measure the extent to which peer to peer (P2P) file-sharing activities act as substitutes or complements to music purchases. We focus our analysis on how reported changes in P2P downloading by individuals related to their reported changes in CD demand between 2004 and 2005 to test the hypothesis whether P2P downloading may be reducing CD demand. All of our regression results (reported in Tables 2 and 3 below) show a negative association between P2P downloading and CD demand as might be expected. We consistently find a negative and statistically significant partial correlation between CD purchases and P2P downloads. The range of these estimated correlations is between -0.039 and -0.050, with more consistent, mid-range values coming from the difference on difference regressions (-0.041 and -0.043). This implies a 10% increase in P2P downloads reduces CD demand by around 0.4%. This paper we believe corrects for two fundamental errors in previous analysis by Anderson and Frenz (AF) which led them to their erroneous conclusions that the Industry Canada data showed “… no association between the number of P2P files downloaded and CD album sales,” and “… that P2P file-sharing is not to blame for the decline in CD markets. Music markets are not simply undermined by free music downloading and P2P file-sharing.” In particular, we first correct for the fact AF biased their results by excluding from their analysis the group of consumers who had completely stopped purchasing CD’s (potentially because of P2P activity) prior to 2005. This is the very group who were most responsive, or likely to have substituted P2P downloading for CD purchases. Second, we control for the fact that the level of an individual’s demand for CD’s, and the level of an individual’s P2P downloading may be correlated simply because they are both affected by the same third factor, such as love of music, so that high (or low) levels of CD demand is likely to be associated with high (low) levels of P2P demand. Such a positive association between the level of demand and level of P2P downloading may have led AF to mistakenly conclude they had found evidence of a positive market creation effect, as AF regressed the level of individuals CD demand against the level of individuals P2P downloading. Instead we focused on the changes in CD demand and changes in P2P downloading, using data in the survey that AF ignored on 2004 and 2005 behaviours of participants. By focusing on a longitudinal analysis of how the change in individual P2P downloading behaviour affected the change in CD demand we were better able to isolate the true relationship between increases or changes in P2P downloading and CD demand.

Using Validated Measures of High School Academic Achievement to Predict University Success

ABSTRACT Administrative data from a New Zealand university are used to validate the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Rank Score used in university admissions and scholarship decisions. We find no statistical evidence to corroborate the specific weighting scheme used in this index. For example, our regression analysis suggests that too much weight is attached to the lowest category of credits in predicting both successful completion outcomes and letter grades. To show the potential importance of this validated measure of high school achievement, we run several simulations on these first-year student outcomes at this university. We show that the use of an alternative, empirically-validated measure of NCEA results to select students would lead to only slight improvements in course completion rates and letter grades. These higher entry standards would lead to declines in the proportions of Pacifica students, but minimal impacts on the proportion of Māori students enrolled at this university.

The impact of recent changes in family assistance on partnering and women's employment in New Zealand

This paper estimates the effects of recent changes to Family Assistance tax credits on the partnering and employment outcomes for New Zealand women. We use a difference‐in‐differences approach to control for economic and other confounding factors. Specifically, we investigate differences in partnering, employment and work hours over time across groups who are and are not likely to be affected by these policy changes. We define groups based on education, wages, and presence of children. Subject to qualifications, we conclude that the Family Assistance expansion beginning in 2005 had little effect on partnering, but increased work hours for both partnered and unpartnered women.