e commerce measurement and measurement issues e commerce is a hot topic however little is known about the actual size and impact of ecommerce in the united states in part this is because e commerce is a recent and rapidly evolving phenomenon but it is also because the measurement of e commerce presents a number of challenges some of these challenges are essentially unique others are similar to or extensions of old economy measurement challenges

long run effects of public sector sponsored training in west germany between 1991 and 1997 west germany spent on average about 3 6 bn euro per year on public sector sponsored training programmes for the unemployed we base our empirical analysis on a new administrative data base that plausibly allows for selectivity correction by microeconometric matching methods we identify the effects of different types of training programmes over a horizon of more than seven years using bias corrected weighted multiple neighbours matching we find that all programmes have negative effects in the short run and positive effects over a horizon of about four years however for substantive training programmes with duration of about two years gains in employment probabilities of more than 10 points appear to be sustainable but come at the price of large negative lock in effects

does public insurance crowd out private insurance the cost of expanding public sector health programs depends critically on the extent to which public eligibility will cover just the uninsured or will crowd out existing private insurance coverage we estimate the extent of crowd out arising from the expansions of medicaid to pregnant women and children over the 1987 1992 period we estimate that approximately 50 percent of the increase in medicaid coverage was associated with a reduction in private insurance coverage this occurred largely because employees took up employer based insurance less frequently there is also some evidence that employers contributed less for insurance and that workers dropped coverage of dependents

labor market opportunities and women s decision making power within households abstract despite the perceived importance of labor market opportunities in shaping married women s outside option and their bargaining power within households as a result this link has received very little empirical attention using longitudinal data on who makes the decision on a wide range of issues within mexican households and data from the administrative records of the mexican social security institute this paper identifies the effects of relative changes in labor market opportunities for men and women on both working and non working women s decision making power i find that increases in labor market opportunities improve women s decision making power as well as children s health using differential labor demand shocks across mexican industries caused by china s admission to the wto gives similar results

education and crime over the life cycle we compare two large scale policy interventions aimed at reducing crime subsidizing high school completion and increasing the length of prison sentences to this purpose we use a life cycle model with endogenous education and crime choices we apply the model to property crime and calibrate it to u s data we find that targeting crime reductions through increases in high school graduation rates entails large efficiency and welfare gains these gains are absent if the same crime reduction is achieved by increasing the length of sentences we also find that general equilibrium effects explain roughly one half of the reduction in crime from subsidizing high school

information technology and growth the rapid diffusion of information technology it is a direct consequence of the swift decline in the price of computer related equipment which has led to a vast and continuing substitution of it equipment for other forms of capital and labor this substitution generates substantial returns for the economic agents who undertake it investments and restructure their activities in order to increase the role of it there is little evidence however that substitution is accompanied by technical change as this term is used by economists while this appears highly paradoxical to technologists who think of substitution of a more it intensive mode of production for a less itintensive mode as a change in technology it is entirely consistent with the economic framework developed by robert m solow 1957 what do economists mean by technical change and how could this exclude the substitution of a more it intensive production process for one that is less it intensive substitution represents movement along a given production function while technical change corresponds to a shift in the production function substitution takes place if the introduction of computer intensive equipment produces benefits that are fully captured or internalized by the users of it and their suppliers technical change occurs only if more

what factors drive individual misperceptions of the returns to schooling in tanzania some lessons for education policy evidence on educational returns and the factors that determine the demand for schooling in developing countries is extremely scarce building on previous studies that show individuals underestimati

the implications of risk and irreversibility for the measurement of marginal effective tax rates on capital the implications of risk and irreversibility for the measurement of marginal effective tax rates on capital are examined it is shown that when capital is irreversible the marginal effective tax rate is an increasing function of systematic and unsystematic capital and income risk the tax system may thus distort investments in risky capital to a much greater extent than is implied by previous research that ignored irreversibilities marginal effective tax rate calculations based upon the canadian corporate tax system are provided

the impact of psychological and human capital on wages historically economists have taken the position that psychological capital is either unobservable or immeasurable thus heretofore little evidence has been available on the contribution of psychological capital to wages using data drawn from two different waves of the national longitudinal survey of youth we offer evidence that psychological capital has both a direct effect via self esteem and an indirect effect through locus of control on an individual s real wage we find a person s wage is more sensitive to changes in self esteem than to comparable alterations in human capital both relative wages and human capital contribute to self esteem

long run effects of youth training programs experimental evidence from argentina we study the effect of a job training program for low income youth in cordoba argentina the program included life skills and vocational training as well as internships with private sector employers participants were allocated by means of a public lottery we rely on administrative data on formal employment employment spells and earnings to establish the effects of the program in the short term 18 months but also exceptionally for programs of this type in latin america and in developing countries in general in the medium term 33 months and in the long term 48 months the results indicate sizable gains of about 8 percentage points in formal employment in the short term about 32 higher than the control group although these effects dissipate in the medium and in the long term contrary to previous results for similar programs in the region the effects are substantially larger for men although they also seem to fade in the long run program participants also exhibit earnings about 40 higher than those in the control group and an analysis of bounds indicates that these gains result from both higher employment levels and higher wages the detailed administrative records also allow us to shed some light on the possible mechanisms underlying these effects a dynamic analysis of employment transitions indicates that the program operated through an increase in the persistence of employment rather than from more frequent entries into employment the earnings effect and the higher persistence of employment suggest that the program was successful in increasing the human capital of participants although the transient nature of these results may also reflect better matches from a program induced increase in informal contacts or formal intermediation jel j08 j24 j68 o15

the effects of business to business e commerce on transaction costs this paper studies transaction costs changes arising from the introduction of the internet in transactions between firms we divide transaction costs into coordination costs and motivation costs we classify coordination efficiencies into three categories process improvements marketplace benefits and indirect improvements for motivation costs we focus on informational asymmetries we apply this framework to internal data from an internet based firm to measure process improvements marketplace benefits and motivation costs our results suggest potentially large process improvements and marketplace benefits we find little evidence that informational asymmetries are more important in the electronic marketplace than in the existing physical ones

negotiating a better future how interpersonal skills facilitate intergenerational investment using a randomized controlled trial we study whether a negotiation skills training can improve girls educational outcomes in a low resource environment we find that a negotiation training given to eighth grade zambian girls significantly improved educational outcomes over the next three years and these effects did not fade out to better understand mechanisms we estimate the effects of two alternative treatments negotiation had much stronger effects than an informational treatment which had no effect a treatment designed to have more traditional girls empowerment effects had directionally positive but insignificant educational effects relative to this treatment negotiation increased enrollment in higher quality schooling and had larger effects for high ability girls these findings are consistent with a model in which negotiation allows girls to resolve incomplete contracting problems with their parents yielding increased educational investment for those who experience sufficiently high returns we provide evidence for this channel through a lab in the field game and follow up survey with girls and their guardians jel codes d13 i24 j16 o15

caste discrimination in the indian urban labour market abstract this the pioneering quantitative analysis of caste in the indian urban labour market examines the age old problem of caste in the light of discrimination theory and government policy using a survey of workers in delhi the gross wage difference between scheduled untouchable and non scheduled caste is decomposed into its explained and discrimination components and from a model of occupation choice into wage and job discrimination discrimination is found to exist and to operate at least in part through the traditional mechanism viz assignment to jobs with the scheduled castes entering poorly paid dead end jobs it is assisted by methods of recruitment based on contacts prevalent in the manual occupation which also cause past discrimination to carry over to the present its practice serves the economic interests of those who exercise a taste for discrimination

the effect of male migration on employment patterns of women in nepal what is the impact of male migration on the labor market behavior of women in nepal the instrumental variable full information maximum likelihood method is applied to data from the 2004 nepal household survey to account for unobserved factors that could simultaneously affect men s decision to migrate and women s decision to participate in the labor market the results indicate that male migration has a negative impact on the level of the labor market participation by women in the migrant sending household there is evidence of substantial heterogeneity based on both observable and unobservable characteristics in the impact of male migration the findings highlight the important gender dimension of the impact of predominantly male migration on the well being of sending households strategies for economic development in nepal should take into account such gender aspects of the migration dynamics

low schooling for girls slower growth for all cross country evidence on the effect of gender inequality in education on economic development using cross country and panel regressions this article investigates how gender inequality in education affects long term economic growth such inequality is found to have an effect on economic growth that is robust to changes in specifications and controls for potential endogeneities the results suggest that gender inequality in education directly affects economic growth by lowering the average level of human capital in addition growth is indirectly affected through the impact of gender inequality on investment and population growth some 0 4 0 9 percentage points of differences in annual per capita growth rates between east asia and sub saharan africa south asia and the middle east can be accounted for by differences in gender gaps in education between these regions

business to business electronic commerce just as the industrial revolution mechanized the manufacturing functions of firms the information revolution is automating their merchant functions four types of potential productivity gains are expected from business to business b2b electronic commerce cost efficiencies from automation of transactions potential advantages of new market intermediaries consolidation of demand and supply through organized exchanges and changes in the extent of vertical integration of firms the article examines the characteristics of b2b online intermediaries including categories of goods traded market mechanisms employed and ownership arrangements and considers the market structure of b2b e commerce

e commerce trends and impacts across europe abstract this study investigates patterns in electronic commerce e commerce activities and their impact on labour productivity growth for a group of 14 european countries at hand for the exercise is a unique panel of micro aggregated firm level data spanning the years 2002 2010 the empirical approach involves two main elements a static specification and a dynamic panel data model the former is a difference specification estimated by ols and the latter model uses the system gmm estimator to account for endogeneity of e commerce activities for the impact analysis e commerce is defined specifically as e sales that is orders firms receive electronically through edi or websites descriptive statistics reveal that the proportion of firms engaging in e sales activities after starting from a low level is slowly growing over time the ols estimates which control for industry time and country effects show that the changes in e sales activities and labour productivity growth are significantly positively related specifically an increase in e sales by one percentage point raises labour productivity growth by 0 3 percentage points over a two year period service industries experience a larger impact than does manufacturing similar results are produced by the dynamic panel data estimations which show that the increase in e sales activities during the period studied accounts for 18 per cent of the total growth in labour productivity in addition the results demonstrate that smaller firms gain the most from increases in e sales overall the magnitude of the estimates differs less across methods than it does between industries or over time

do labor market opportunities affect young women s work and family decisions experimental evidence from india do labor market opportunities for women affect marriage and fertility decisions we provided three years of recruiting services to help young women in randomly selected rural indian villages get jobs in the business process outsourcing industry because the industry was so new at the time of the study there was almost no awareness of these jobs allowing us in effect to exogenously increase women s labor force opportunities from the perspective of rural households we find that young women in treatment villages were significantly less likely to get married or have children during this period choosing instead to enter the labor market or obtain more schooling or postschool training women also report wanting to have fewer children and to work more steadily throughout their lifetime consistent with increased aspirations for a career copyright 2012 oxford university press

the value of bilingualism in the u s labor market much is surmised but little is known about the value of bilingualism in today s u s economy the authors use the national adult literacy survey nals to provide the first rigorous estimates of t

do wage subsidies provide a stepping stone to employment for recent college graduates evidence from a randomized experiment in jordan abstract this study examines the impact of a randomized experiment in jordan in which female community college graduates were assigned to receive a wage subsidy voucher the wage voucher led to a 38 percentage point increase in employment in the short run but the average effect is much smaller and no longer statistically significant after the voucher period has expired the extra job experience gained as a result of the wage subsidy does not provide a stepping stone to new jobs for these recent graduates which appears to be due to productivity levels not rising above a binding minimum wage

quantifying the impact of ict capital on output growth a heterogeneous dynamic panel approach using industry data for the united states and the united kingdom we provide new evidence on the impact of information and communications technology ict capital on real output growth the traditional industry panel data analysis fails to find a positive contribution we argue that this is due to heterogeneity across industries particularly in the time dimension pooling the data for the two countries and using a dynamic panel data estimation method yield a positive and significant effect of ict on output growth individual country estimates suggest a strong impact in the united states while results are less conclusive in the united kingdom

vocational training programs and youth labor market outcomes evidence from nepal abstract lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty in response policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in effort to enhance skill formation among the youth using a regression discontinuity design we examine a large youth training intervention in nepal we find twelve months after the start of the training program that the intervention generated an increase in non farm employment of 10 percentage points itt estimates and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers late estimates we also detect sizeable gains in monthly earnings women who start self employment activities inside their homes largely drive these impacts we argue that low baseline educational levels and non farm employment levels and nepal s social and cultural norms towards women drive our large program impacts our results suggest that the program enables otherwise underemployed women to earn an income while staying at home close to household errands and in line with the socio cultural norms that prevent them from taking up employment outside the house

earnings and caste an evaluation of caste wage differentials in the nepalese labour market abstractthis paper examines the sources of wage differentials among castes in nepal a country which had until 1963 an age old caste based social division of labour we use an extended oaxaca decomposition model with occupation and firm size augmenting the conventionally used measures of human capital endowments our results indicate that caste wage differentials in nepal are large and that human capital endowments and lack of access to better paying occupations and larger firms have a significant impact furthermore we find mixed evidence that the government policy of affirmative action has narrowed down the caste wage differential

active labor market policy evaluations a meta analysis this article presents a meta analysis of recent microeconometric evaluations of active labour market policies we categorise 199 programme impacts from 97 studies conducted between 1995 and 2007 job search assistance programmes yield relatively favourable programme impacts whereas public sector employment programmes are less effective training programmes are associated with positive medium term impacts although in the short term they often appear ineffective we also find that the outcome variable used to measure programme impact matters but neither the publication status of a study nor the use of a randomised design is related to the sign or significance of the programme estimate

the impact of vocational training for the unemployed experimental evidence from turkey this brief summarizes the updates from the 2014 paper entitled the impact of vocational training for the unemployed experimental evidence from turkey conducted between between 2010 and 2011 in turkey a randomized experiment is used to evaluate a large scale active labor market policy turkey s vocational training programs for the unemployed a detailed follow up survey of a large sample with low attrition enables precise estimation of treatment impacts and their heterogeneity the average impact of training on employment is positive but close to zero and statistically insignificant which is much lower than either program officials or applicants expected over the first year after training the paper finds that training had statistically significant effects on the quality of employment and that the positive impacts are stronger when training is offered by private providers however longer term administrative data show that after three years these effects have also dissipated

all school finance equalizations are not created equal school finance equalization has probably affected american schools more than any other reform of the last 30 years understanding it is a prerequisite for making optimal social investments in human capital yet it is poorly understood in this paper i explain why it differs from conventional redistribution because it is based on property values which are endogenous to schools productivity taste for education and the school finance system itself i characterize equalization schemes and show why some level down and others level up schemes that strongly level down have unintended consequences even poor districts can end up worse off i also show how school finance equalization affects property prices private school attendance and student achievement

the internet and local wages a puzzle how did the diffusion of the internet affect regional wage inequality we examine the relationship between business investment in advanced internet technology and local variation in us wage growth between 1995 and 2000 we identify a puzzle the internet is widespread but the economic payoffs are not advanced internet technology is only associated with substantial wage growth in the 6 percent of counties that were already highly wealthy educated and populated and had it intensive industry advanced internet and wage growth appear unrelated elsewhere overall advanced internet explains over half the difference in wage growth between already well off counties and all others jel j31 l86 o33 r11 r23

computing productivity firm level evidence we explore the effect of computerization on productivity and output growth using data from 527 large us firms over 1987 1994 we find that computerization makes a contribution to measured productivity and output growth in the short term using one year differences that is consistent with normal returns to computer investments however the productivity and output contributions associated with computerization are up to five times greater over long periods using five to seven year differences the results suggest that the observed contribution of computerization is accompanied by relatively large and time consuming investments in complementary inputs such as organizational capital that may be omitted in conventional calculations of productivity the large long run contribution of computers and their associated complements that we uncover may partially explain the subsequent investment surge in computers in the late 1990s

health insurance eligibility utilization of medical care and child health two economists applied data from the current population survey and the national health interview survey and state level data on child mortality to a simulation model of utilization of medical care that varies only with the states legislative environment to examine the utilization of medical care and health effects of medicaid eligibility on low income children the models took into consideration the recent expansions of medicaid to low income children 38 of those ineligible for medicaid in 1984 who became eligible due to changes during 1984 1992 were uninsured between 1984 and 1992 expansions of the medicaid program increased the proportion of children eligible for medicaid almost two fold 16 1 vs 31 2 yet coverage rates were always lower than eligibility rates 13 2 vs 16 1 in 1984 and 20 3 vs 31 2 in 1992 and the increase in coverage rates was only about 50 of the increase in eligibility rates during 1984 1992 the probability that a child was eligible for medicaid increased the probability of health insurance coverage by 29 77 when the model considered bias in variables e g a recession in a state the take up rate was only 22 73 nevertheless medicaid markedly increased use of medical care for example eligibility for medicaid increased the likelihood of making a visit to a physicians office in the last two weeks by about 50 it also increased the probability of a child visiting the hospital suggesting inefficiency in the way that providers deliver care to medicaid enrollees medicaid eligibility had a significant effect on reducing child mortality the 15 1 percentage point increase in eligibility during 1984 1992 reduced child mortality by 4 5 when the researchers examined parent assessed subjective health measures medicaid eligibility had no effect on child health medicaid eligibility reduced race and education based disparities in the number of visits and racial differences in mortality yet it may actually intensify current disparities in health care delivery site