Urban Institute

About: Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Medicaid & Population. The organization has 927 authors who have published 2330 publications receiving 86426 citations.

Remittances and Inequality

Abstract: In this paper the authors propose a framework and develop techniques for analyzing the impact of migrant remittances on the distribution of rural income by size and subsequently its impact on rural welfare. Household data are used to assign numerical coefficients to the impact of net remittances from both internal and international migrants on income inequality in 2 Mexican villages. The impact of migrant remittances on the distribution of rural income by size depends critically on the degree to which migration opportunities become diffused through the village population on the returns to human capital embodied in remittances and on the distribution of potentially remittance-enhancing skills and education across village households. Our empirical findings demonstrate that in a village where many households contain internal migrants but few have experience migrating to the U.S. remittances from Mexico-to-US migrants have an unequalizing impact on village incomes while remittances from internal migrants have a favorable effect on the village income distribution. By contrast in a village with a long historyh of sending migrants to the US and hence a more ready access to US labor markets US-to-Mexico remittances have an equalizing impact on incomes. Remittances from internal migrants in this village however embody a large human capital component and are highly correlated with household income. Hence internal migrant remittances account for a comparatively large share of inequalities in the 2nd village. The overall effect of remittances on income inequality is favorable in both villages. Migration type migration stage and interaction terms all appear to play a role in this context. The effects of small changes in remittances upon income inequality and rural welfare in the 2 villages are explored and some implications for migration and rural development policy are considered. (authors modified)

Sicker and poorer--the consequences of being uninsured: a review of the research on the relationship between health insurance, medical care use, health, work, and income.

Abstract: Health services research conducted over the past 25 years makes a compelling case that having health insurance or using more medical care would improve the health of the uninsured. The literature's broad range of conditions, populations, and methods makes it difficult to derive a precise quantitative estimate of the effect of having health insurance on the uninsured's health. Some mortality studies imply that a 4% to 5% reduction in the uninsured's mortality is a lower bound; other studies suggest that the reductions could be as high as 20% to 25%. Although all of the studies reviewed suffer from methodological flaws of varying degrees, there is substantial qualitative consistency across studies of different medical conditions conducted at different times and using different data sets and statistical methods. Corroborating process studies find that the uninsured receive fewer preventive and diagnostic services, tend to be more severely ill when diagnosed, and receive less therapeutic care. Other literature suggests that improving health status from fair or poor to very good or excellent would increase both work effort and annual earnings by approximately 15% to 20%.

Masculinity Ideology: Its Impact on Adolescent Males' Heterosexual Relationships

Abstract: Masculinity ideology or acceptance of culturally define standards for male behavior has an impact not only on the sexual and contraceptive behavior of adolescent males but also on the quality of close relationships. The importance of this social construct was revealed through an analysis of data from the US National Survey of Adolescent Males conducted in 1988 among 1880 never-married aged 15-19 years. 676 subjects were black and 386 were Hispanic. Subjects with a more traditional conception of manhood (as measured by the Male Role Attitudes Scale) reported significantly more sexual partners in the year preceding the interview had a less intimate relationship with their recent sexual partner viewed relationships between men and woman as more adversarial viewed condoms negatively as inhibiting male pleasure and used condoms less consistently with their current sexual partner regardless of her request that they be used than their counterparts with less traditional views of masculinity. They further viewed making a girl pregnant as a means of validating their masculinity. The inclusion of racial or ethnic interactions did not produce a significant increase in the variance explained for any of these outcomes. Moreover the associations persisted when more global gender role attitudes (assessed by response to the statement "It is much better for everyone if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and family") were controlled. Further analysis suggested that the relationship between masculinity ideology and consistency of condom use may be mediated by 3 attitudes about condoms: interference with pleasure value of partner desire for condom use and belief in the males contraceptive responsibility. These findings raise concern that culturally defined concepts of masculinity are contributing to an increase is unwanted pregnancy as well as sexually transmitted diseases among heterosexual adolescent males.

Growth Accounting with Intermediate Inputs

Abstract: accumulation of capital in an earlier paper, and the adjustment is found nearly to double the importance of technical progress as a source of growth.3 The present paper studies the interaction of productivity change and intermediate input.4 The expansion in the production of intermediate goods occurring because of increased factor efficiency makes it important to distinguish between productivity change originating in a sector and the impact of productivity change on the sector. Productivity change in the first sense refers to the shift in the sectoral technology and is measured by the conventional productivity residual. Productivity change in the second sense measures the equilibrium response to the shifting sectoral technologies, and includes (a) the induced reallocation of factor input between sectors, and (b) the induced expansion in intermediate input, which serves to magnify the effect of technical change. In assessing the importance of productivity change as a source of growth, it is the second sense which is relevant, since it is the impact of productivity change which affects the evolution of the sector, and not the change in factor efficiency occurring within that sector. The distinction between the two aspects of productivity change is analogous to the distinction between nominal and effective tax incidence. An ad-valorem excise tax imposed at a given statutory rate may be regarded as shifting the commodity supply curve upward; the distributional impact of the tax depends on the equilibrium adjustment to this shift. The well-known Harberger (1962) model of tax incidence was, in fact, specifically intended to take these adjustments into account. In an essentially parallel vein, this paper develops the distinction between nominal and effective rates of technical change from the point of view of productivity analysis. Effective rates of productivity change are defined in this paper using the reduced form of an N-sector growth model, where the rate of change of total factor supply, and the rate of change of technological efficiency are assumed to be given exogenously. The growth rates of the endogenous variables-prices and quantities-are expressed as linear combinations 511

The geography of metropolitan opportunity: A reconnaissance and conceptual framework

Abstract: We present a conceptual framework for metropolitan opportunity and a model of individual decision making about issues affecting youth's future socioeco‐nomic status. Decision making and its geographic context have objective and subjective aspects. Objective spatial variations occur in the metropolitan opportunity structure—social systems, markets, and institutions that aid upward mobility. Decisions are based on the decision‐maker's values, aspirations, preferences, and subjective perceptions of possible outcomes, which are all shaped by the local social network (e.g., kin, neighbors, and friends). We also review the psychological literature on decision making. We hypothesize that the decision‐making method varies with the range of opportunities considered: Those with fewer options adopt a less considered method wherein mistakes and short‐term focus are more likely. Our review also finds empirical evidence that the local social network has an important effect on youth's decisions regarding educat...