gender inequality and economic development fertility education and norms we document the evolution of gender inequality in labour market outcomes earnings labour supply and wage rates over the path of economic development and present evidence on the potential reasons for this evolution to this end we have created a micro database that compiles 248 surveys from 53 countries between 1967 and 2014 covering a wide range of per capita income levels there is large convergence in the earnings of men and women over the path of development driven by female labour force participation and wage rates we argue that the single most important factor behind this convergence is demographic transition the effects of children on gender gaps child penalties are large at both low and high levels of development but fertility declines drastically over the growth process and thus reduces the aggregate implications of children we also document gender convergence in educational attainment and consider its effects on earnings inequality arguing that these are significant but less dramatic than the effects of fertility finally we document striking changes in the values or norms surrounding the role of women with children implying that such changes could serve as a reinforcing mechanism for gender convergence

the gender gap fertility and growth changes in fertility have long been recognized as important correlates of economic growth with the relationship between the level of fertility and the level of income per capita being one of the strongest observable correlations in cross country data this paper examines the linkages between fertility and growth theory the structure of the model is presented in sections on production couples decision making system dynamics and steady state equilibria the first component of the model is that increases in capital per worker raise womens relative wages since capital is more complementary to womens labor input than to mens the second component is that increasing womens relative wages reduces fertility by raising the cost of children more than household income finally lower fertility raises the level of capital per worker a positive feedback loop generates demographic transition a rapid decline in fertility accompanied by accelerated output growth

parenthood and the gender gap in pay we compare the income and wage trajectories of women to those of their male partners before and after parenthood focusing on the within couple gap allows us to control for both observed and unobserved attributes of the spouse and to estimate both short and long term effects of entering parenthood we find that 15 years after the first child has been born the male female gender gaps in income and wages have increased by 32 and 10 percentage points respectively in line with a collective labor supply model the magnitude of these effects depends on counterfactual relative incomes or wages within the family

quality of service efficiency and scale in network industries an analysis of european electricity distribution quality of service qos is of major economic significance in natural monopoly infrastructure industries in this article we present an efficiency analysis of electricity distribution networks from seven european countries we apply the stochastic frontier analysis method to multi output translog input distance function models to estimate cost efficiency and scale economies we show that introducing the quality dimension into the analysis affects estimated efficiency significantly especially that smaller utilities efficiency seems to decrease our results emphasize that qos should be an integrated part of efficiency and economic analysis of regulated natural monopolies

social cost efficient service quality integrating customer valuation in incentive regulation evidence from the case of norway in order to overcome the perverse incentives of excessive maintenance reductions and insufficient network investments arising with incentive regulation of electricity distribution companies regulators throughout europe have started regulating service quality in this paper we explore the impact of incorporating customers willingness to pay for service quality in benchmarking models on cost efficiency of distribution networks therefore we examine the case of norway which features this approach to service quality regulation we use the data envelopment analysis technique to analyse the effectiveness of such regulatory instruments moreover we discuss the extent to which this indirect regulatory instrument motivates a socially desired service quality level the results indicate that internalising external or social cost of service quality does not seem to have played an important role in improving cost efficiency in norwegian distribution utilities

understanding the family gap in pay for women with children as the gender gap in pay between women and men has been narrowing the family gap in pay between mothers and nonmothers has been widening one reason may be the institutional structure in the united states which has emphasized equal pay and opportunity policies but not family policies in contrast to other countries that have implemented both the authors now have evidence on the links between one such family policy and women s pay recent research suggests that maternity leave coverage by raising women s retention after childbirth also raises women s levels of work experience job tenure and pay

the career costs of children this paper analyzes the life cycle career costs associated with child rearing and decomposes their eects into unearned wages as women drop out of the labor market loss of human capital and selection into more child friendly occupations we estimate a dynamic life cycle model of fertility occupational choice and labor supply using detailed survey and administrative data for germany for numerous birth cohorts across dierent regions we use this model to analyze both the male female wage gap as it evolves from labor market entry onward and the eect of pro fertility policies we show that a substantial portion of the gender wage gap is explainable by realized and expected fertility and that the long run eect of policies encouraging fertility are considerably lower than the short run eects typically estimated in the literature

the low cost of quality improvements in the electricity distribution sector of brazil abstract we analyze the impact of introducing output based incentives in the price cap regulatory regime of the brazilian electricity distribution sector we focus on the trade off between operating costs and quality improvement hypothesizing a positive relationship operating costs include maintenance and repair expenses the regulator sets limits for service continuity and non technical energy losses in each regulatory period service continuity refers to the average length of interruptions in electricity distribution non technical losses refer to losses due to factors specific to the distribution segment quality incentives include peer pressure and penalties rewards for compliance with minimum quality standards we model operating costs using a gmm framework to acknowledge endogeneity of variables the model is dynamic given the inclusion of regulatory lags to recognize past cost behavior findings reveal a small trade off between costs and quality we conclude that quality improvements are not costly relative to the potential savings from complying with quality standards we also find that the impact on operating costs is larger when energy losses increase compared to the cost effect due to increases in duration of outages these findings suggest areas of attention in managerial decision making and serve as valuable information to the regulator in tailoring quality incentives for this sector

canadian monetary policy will the checklist approach ever get us to price stability the purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the checklist approach that the bank of canada has followed in one way or another over the last two decades is likely to lead us to the stated objective of price stability the analysis of canadian monetary policy is performed through the estimation of a bayesian var model of a set of important canadian macroeconomic variables in their international context to estimate the model the authors borrowed form c sims 1989 but they also transposed his methodology to take into account canadian features the results suggest that the exchange rate has been high on the checklist of the bank of canada over the years and that rather the bank should concentrate its attention on broad monetary aggregates if it really wants to deliver price stability

women s career choices social norms and child care policies our model explains the observed gender specific patterns of career and child care choices through endogenous social norms we study how these norms interact with the gender wage gap we show that via the social norm a couple s child care and career choices impose an externality on other couples so that the laissez faire is inefficient we use our model to study the design and effectiveness of three commonly used policies we find that child care subsidies and women quotas can be effective tools to mitigate or eliminate the externality parental leave however may even intensify the externality and decrease welfare

deriving natural rates of unemployment for sub national regions the case of canadian provinces in order to pursue informed stabilization policies it is vital for policy markers to have estimates of how much of the total unemployment rate can be classified as cyclical rather than natural unemployment this paper describes a method for generating regional natural rate estimates and applies this method to the case of canadian provinces results indicate that unemployment insurance generosity and relative minimum wages play an important role in determining natural unemployment rates in canadian provinces one of the enduring characteristics of the canadian labour market has been substantial and peresistent unemployment rate disparities across provinces the results of this study indicate that these disparities are primarily explained by differences in provincial values of structural variables such as unemployment generosity and by differences in provincial sensitivities to these structural variables a furher result is that variation in cyclical unemployment rates is substantially less in the traditio

innovation accounting for the impact of fluctuations in u s variables on the canadian economy innovation accounting is conducted on a nine variable vector autoregression estimated using u s and canadian monthly data for january 1971 to december 1983 this reveals inter alia a positive impact of the u s interest rate on the canadian rate with the role the exchange rate plays in cushioning this impact being clearly apparent a positive effect of the u s money supply on both u s and canadian interest rates a positive albeit muted response of canadian production to a shock in u s production and a persistent influence of u s prices on production negatively and prices positively in canada are also detected l impact des fluctuations dans les variables americaines sur l eonomie canadienne une analyse utilisant la technique d innovation accounting les auteurs utilisent la technique d innovation accounting dans le cadre d un systeme a neuf variables estime comme autoregression vectorielle a l aide de donnees mensuelles canadiennes et americaines couvrant la periode de janvier 1971 a decembre 1983 cette analyse revl un effet positif de la masse monetaire americaine a la fois sur les taux d interet canadiens et americains une reaction positive mais en sourdine du niveau de production au canada a un choc dans le niveau de production americaine et une influence persistence des niveaux de prix americains sur le niveau de production au canada influence negative ainsi que sur les niveaux de prix canadiens influence positive we should like to thank gordon anderson douglas clarke john kennan john kuszczak angelo melino and stanely winer for a number of helpful discussions earlier versions of the paper were presented at the meetings of the canadian economics association in vancouver in june 1983 at the winter meetings of the econometric society in san francisco in december 1983 and in a session of invited papers at the meetings of the canadian economics association in guelph in june 1984 our discussants jacques raynauld in vancouver thomas doan and stephen king in san francisco and allan gregory in guelph offered many useful comments as too did the members of the money macro workshop at the university of western ontario alan harrison also thanks the economics department at the university of warwick for its hospitality and the social science and humanities research council of canada for financial support canadian journal of economics revue canadienne d economique xviii no 4 november novembre 1985 printed in canada imprime au canada 0008 4085 85 784 98 1 50 canadian economics association this content downloaded from 40 77 167 14 on fri 16 sep 2016 06 02 12 utc all use subject to http about jstor org terms impact of fluctuations in us variables 785

canadian regional cycles the quebec ontario case revisited canadian economists have devoted some attention to the study of regional cycles in the quebec ontario case the wid ening hypothesis has emerged as the empirical consensus this hypot hesis states that the gap between the two regional economies increase s in a recessionary period this paper reexamines this question using recent data and bayesian vector autoregression models the results o btained monthly data on total employment 1966 84 do not support th e prevailing position a u s recession rapidly and strongly affects the ontario economy while the impact on quebec is much weaker conseq uently a recession narrows the gap between the two provinces

the brazilian electrical system reform abstract although the brazilian electrical system has been a public monopoly the threat of electricity shortages from a lack of investment triggered a comprehensive reform in 1993 the government began a series of laws decrees and regulations reforming the tariff policy allowing privatization of utilities foreign investments and independent power produces and creating an independent transmission grid and a new electricity regulatory agency aneel the new regulatory framework is not completely defined but the proposed model intends to transform bulk electricity supply into a competitive market similar to that adopted in england our objective is to evaluate whether the proposed reform will succeed in attracting the required private capital will allow an unregulated wholesale electricity market and will require a strict regulatory framework the reform has been quite successful in privatizing the distribution companies but is allowing monopolistic rents and has failed until now to attract private investments to expand generation capacity the risk of black outs has increased and the proposed wholesale electricity market may not be appropriate because of barriers to constructing new hydroelectric units now 90 of the system therefore a new regulatory framework and a strong regulatory agency with a well defined tariff policy should have proceeded the privatization

mothers and sons preference formation and female labor force dynamics this paper argues that the growing presence of a new type of man one brought up in a family in which the mother worked has been a significant factor in the increase in female labor force participation over time we present cross sectional evidence showing that the wives of men whose mothers worked are themselves significantly more likely to work we use variation in the importance of world war ii as a shock to women s labor force participation as proxied by variation in the male draft rate across u s states to provide evidence in support of the intergenerational consequences of our propagation mechanism

women in top incomes evidence from sweden 1971 2017 abstract using yearly register data on the full population of sweden we study gender differences in top incomes down to the top 0 01 percentile group over the period 1971 2017 we find that while women are still a minority of the top decile and typically make up a smaller share the higher up in the distribution we move their presence has steadily increased in all top groups over the past half century at the beginning of the period top income women relied more on capital incomes but the rise in the share of top women is not due to the growing importance of capital instead women have increased their presence in the top by gains in the top of labour incomes while top income men have captured most of the growth in capital incomes studying gender differences in observable characteristics we find small gender differences in some respects convergence in others but also some important remaining differences overall our results suggest that many findings in the top income literature have a clear gender component and that understanding gender equality in the top of the distribution requires studying not only earnings and labour market outcomes but also incomes from other sources as well as family circumstances

quality frontier of electricity distribution supply security best practices and underground cabling in finland electricity distribution is a prime example of local monopoly in most countries the costs of electricity distribution operators are regulated by the government however the cost regulation may create adverse incentives to compromise the quality of service to avoid this cost regulation is often amended with quality incentives this study applies theory and methods of productivity analysis to model the frontier of service quality a semi nonparametric estimation method is developed which does not assume any particular functional form for the quality frontier but can accommodate stochastic noise and heteroscedasticity the empirical part of our paper examines how underground cabling and location affect the interruption costs as expected higher proportion of underground cabling decreases the level of interruption costs the effects of cabling and location on the variance of performance are also considered especially the location is found to be a significant source of heteroscedasticity in the interruption costs finally the proposed quality frontier benchmark is compared to the current practice of finnish regulation system the proposed quality frontier is found to provide more meaningful and stable basis for setting quality targets than the average practice benchmarks currently in use

the implicit costs of motherhood over the lifecycle cross cohort evidence from administrative longitudinal data it is well known that the explicit costs of raising a child have grown over the past several decades less well understood are the implicit costs of having a child and how they have changed over time in this article we are the first to examine the evolution of the implicit costs of motherhood over the lifecycle and across generations using high quality administrative data we estimate that the lifetime labor market income gap between mothers and women who never have children never mothers decreases from around 350 000 to 280 000 between women born in the late 1940s and late 1960s gaps tend to increase monotonically over the lifecycle and decrease monotonically between cohorts our evidence suggests that changes in the gaps are caused by changing labor force participation rates

having it all for all child care subsidies and income distribution reconciled abstract we study the design of child care policies when redistribution matters traditional mothers provide some informal child care whereas career mothers purchase full time formal care the sorting of women across career paths is endogenous and shaped by a social norm about gender roles in the family via this social norm traditional mothers informal child care imposes an externality on career mothers so that the market outcome is inefficient informal care is too large and the group of career mothers is too small so that inefficiency and gender inequality go hand in hand in a first best world redistribution across couples and efficiency are separable redistribution is performed via lump sum transfers and taxes which are designed to equalize utilities across all couples the efficient allocation of child care is obtained by subsidizing formal care at a pigouvian rate however in a second best setting a trade off between efficiency and redistribution emerges the optimal uniform subsidy is lower than the pigouvian level conversely under a nonlinear policy the first best pigouvian rule for the marginal subsidy on informal care is reestablished while the share of high career mothers continues to be distorted downward for incentive reasons this policy is effective in reconciling the objectives of reducing the child care related inefficiency and achieving a more equal income distribution across couples our results continue to hold when the norm is defined within the mothers social group rather than being based on the entire population

the motherhood earnings dip evidence from administrative records using spanish social security records we document the channels through which mothers fall onto a lower earnings track such as shifting into part time work accumulating lower experience or transitioning to lower paying jobs and are able to explain 71 percent of the unconditional individual fixed effects motherhood wage gap the earnings trajectories analysis reveals that mothers to be experience important relative earnings increases several years before giving birth but this earnings advantage falls right after birth taking in average nine years to recover heterogeneity matters as most of the motherhood dip is driven by workers with permanent contracts