The paper tests for external effects of local economic activity on consumption and income growth at the farm household level using panel data from four provinces of post-reform rural China. The tests allow for nonstationary fixed effects in the consumption growth process. Evidence is found of geographic externalities, stemming from spillover effects of the level and composition of local economi...

The Changing Distribution of Job Satisfaction The distribution of job satisfaction widened across cohorts of young men in the U.S. between 1978 and 1988, and between 1978 and 1996, in ways correlated with changing wage inequality. Satisfaction among workers in upper earnings quantiles rose relative to that of workers in lower quantiles. An identical phenomenon is observed among men in West Germ...

The Impact of Alcohol Consumption on Occupational Attainment in England In this study we provide evidence on the effect of alcohol consumption on occupational attainment in England. To do this we use samples of employees from the Health Survey for England between 1992 and 1996. We find that due to the endogenous nature of alcohol consumption, OLS estimates may provide a biased picture of the im...

Identifying the Common Component of International Economic Fluctuations: A New Approach In this paper, we develop an aggregation procedure using time-varying weights for constructing the common component of international economic fluctuations. The methodology for deriving time-varying weights is based on some stylized features of the data documented in the paper. The model allows for a unified ...

Children's School Placement in Germany: Does Kindergarten Attendance Matter? The positive effects of early childhood programs on children's school success have been demonstrated in the literature. However, most studies were completed in the U.S.A., where early childhood programs vary widely, based on differing auspice, regulation, cost, and other factors. In European countries, early childhood ...

Racial Harassment, Job Satisfaction and Intentions to Quit: Evidence from the British Nursing Profession This paper investigates the determinants of racial harassment at the workplace and its impact, via job satisfaction, on intentions to quit. Using data for ethnic minority nurses in Britain, we find that nearly 40% of nurses have experienced racial harassment from work colleagues, whilst more...

Fertility, Female Labor Supply and Public Policy Historically, in virtually all developed economies there seems to be clear evidence of an inverse relationship between female labor supply and fertility. However, particularly in the last decade or so, the relationship across countries has been positive: for example countries like Germany, Italy and Spain with the lowest fertility rates also have...

Fertility Assimilation of Immigrants: Evidence from Count Data Models This study applies count data estimation techniques to investigate the fertility adjustment of immigrants in the destination country. Data on completed fertility are taken from the 1996 wave of the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP). While the economic literature stresses the role of prices and incomes as determinants of fert...

The Response of Consumption in Russian Households to Economic Shocks This paper examines the extent to which consumption in Russian households responds to exogenous income shocks. During the time period studied in this paper (1994 – 1998), Russia experienced two major economic crises. Both featured extreme movements in the real ruble-dollar exchange rate. The price of oil, which is typically th...