计量经济分析 = Econometric analysis

A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

Offering a unifying theoretical perspective not readily available in any other text, this innovative guide to econometrics uses simple geometrical arguments to develop students' intuitive understanding of basic and advanced topics, emphasizing throughout the practical applications of modern theory and nonlinear techniques of estimation. One theme of the text is the use of artificial regressions for estimation, reference, and specification testing of nonlinear models, including diagnostic tests for parameter constancy, serial correlation, heteroscedasticity, and other types of mis-specification. Explaining how estimates can be obtained and tests can be carried out, the authors go beyond a mere algebraic description to one that can be easily translated into the commands of a standard econometric software package. Covering an unprecedented range of problems with a consistent emphasis on those that arise in applied work, this accessible and coherent guide to the most vital topics in econometrics today is indispensable for advanced students of econometrics and students of statistics interested in regression and related topics. It will also suit practising econometricians who want to update their skills. Flexibly designed to accommodate a variety of course levels, it offers both complete coverage of the basic material and separate chapters on areas of specialized interest.

Estimation and Inference in Econometrics

Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries

Land policies are of fundamental importance to sustainable growth, good governance, and the well-being of, and the economic opportunities open to, both rural and urban dwellers - particularly the poor. To this end, research on land policy, and analysis of interventions related to the subject, have long been of interest to the Bank's Research Department, and other academic, and civil society institutions. The report aims to strengthen the effectiveness of land policy in support of development, and poverty reduction, by setting out the results of recent research in a way that is accessible to a wide audience of policymakers, nongovernmental organizations, academics in the Bank's client countries, donor agency officials, and the broader development community. Its main message rests on three principles: 1) provision of secure tenure to land improves the welfare of the poor, particularly by enhancing the asset base of those whose land rights are often neglected, and, creates incentives needed for investment, paramount to sustainable economic growth; 2) facilitation of land exchange, and distribution, whether as an asset or for current services, at low cost, through markets, and non-market channels, will expedite land access by productive, but land-poor producers, so that once economic growth improves, financial markets would rely on the use of land as collateral; and, 3) governments' contribution to the promotion of socially desirable land allocation, and utilization. The report discusses mechanisms to promote tenure security, demonstrates the importance of rental market transactions, arguing the removal of impediments to these can generate equity advantages, and positive investments. It also illustrates mechanisms, ranging from taxation, to regulation and land use planning to address these issues.

Land policies for growth and poverty reduction

https://users.monash.edu.au/~maitra/healthpaper_June_15_2010_JDE_resubmit.pdf

Health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households: Does microcredit have a role to play?

https://users.monash.edu.au/~maitra/JHE2005Maitra.pdf

Parental bargaining, health inputs and child mortality in India.

https://users.monash.edu.au/~maitra/JDE2003MaitraRay.pdf

The effect of transfers on household expenditure patterns and poverty in South Africa

This paper uses data from Peru, Pakistan and Ghana to analyse simultaneously child labour and child schooling, and compares them between these countries. We use a multinomial logit estimation procedure that analyses the participation and non-participation of children in schooling and in employment and, in particular, allows the possibility that a child combines schooling with employment or does neither. We also use an ordered probit estimation procedure based on a ranking of the various child schooling/employment/non-schooling/non-employment outcomes. The results point to both similarities and striking dissimilarities in the nature of child labour and child schooling between the chosen countries. For example, in Pakistan, but not in Peru, the girl child's ordering of schooling/employment outcomes shows her at a position of extreme disadvantage. Household poverty discourages a child from achieving superior outcomes, but the effect varies markedly across the three countries.

/pdf/the-joint-estimation-of-child-participation-in-schooling-and-4przadkleg.pdf

The joint estimation of child participation in schooling and employment: comparative evidence from three continents

We adopt an inter-generational approach to the public goods game where one generation of subjects leave advice for the succeeding generation via free form messages. Such advice can be private knowledge (advice left by one player in generation t is given only to her immediate successor in generation t+1), almost common knowledge (advice left by players of generation t is made available to all members of generation t+1) and common knowledge (where the advice from the preceding generation is not only made public but also read aloud by the experimenter). We find that when advice is common knowledge it generates a process of social learning and norm creation that leads to high contributions over time and also mitigates problems of free riding. Such high contributions are sustained by advice that is generally exhortative, suggesting high contributions, which in turn create optimistic beliefs, especially among conditional co-operators, about the contributions to be made by other subjects. Our results suggest that socially connected communities may be able to achieve high contributions to a public good even in the absence of any punishment opportunities of norm violators.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm?abstractid=580481

Pushkar Maitra

Papers

Health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households: Does microcredit have a role to play?

Parental bargaining, health inputs and child mortality in India.

The effect of transfers on household expenditure patterns and poverty in South Africa

The joint estimation of child participation in schooling and employment: comparative evidence from three continents

Social Learning and Norms in a Public Goods Experiment with Inter-Generational Advice