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

This paper provides an introduction and “user guide” to Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs for empirical researchers. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when RD is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a “quasi-experimental” design, and summarizes different ways (with their advantages and disadvantages) of estimating RD designs and the limitations of interpreting these estimates. Concepts are discussed using examples drawn from the growing body of empirical research using RD. ( JEL C21, C31)

/pdf/regression-discontinuity-designs-in-economics-5foiogfcmd.pdf

Regression discontinuity designs in economics

This paper provides an introduction and "user guide" to Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs for empirical researchers. It presents the basic theory behind the research design, details when RD is likely to be valid or invalid given economic incentives, explains why it is considered a "quasi-experimental" design, and summarizes different ways (with their advantages and disadvantages) of estimating RD designs and the limitations of interpreting these estimates. Concepts are discussed using examples drawn from the growing body of empirical research using RD.

Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics

The concept of 'employability' plays a crucial role in informing labour market policy in the UK, the EU and beyond. This paper analyses current and previous applications of the term and discusses its value as an exploratory concept and a framework for policy analysis. It then traces the development of the concept, discusses its role in current labour market and training strategies (with particular reference to the UK) and seeks to identify an approach to defining employability that can better inform labour market policy, by transcending explanations of employment and unemployment that focus solely on either supply-side or demand-side factors. Although the literature offers a range of definitions of 'employability', many policy-makers have recently used the term as shorthand for 'the individual's employability skills and attributes'. It is argued that this 'narrow' usage can lead to a 'hollowing out' of the concept of employability. The paper concludes by presenting a broad framework for analysing employability built around individual factors, personal circumstances and external factors, which acknowledges the importance of both supply- and demand-side factors.

/pdf/the-concept-of-employability-2xpc822nfd.pdf

The Concept of Employability

Externalities in leisure are an important determinant of partners’ retirement strategies. This is the first study that quantifies the extent to which partners actually spend more leisure time 'together' upon retirement. Exploiting the law on retirement age in France, we apply a regression discontinuity approach to identify the effect of retirement on partners’ hours of leisure, separate or together. Using four different definitions of 'togetherness' of partners’ leisure hours, we find that the separate leisure demand of the husband increases dramatically upon his retirement and this effect is robust to all sample cuts and specification checks. The wife’s retirement increases significantly her separate leisure demand as well as the partners’ joint leisure time. However, the latter effects are sensitive to the sample cut adopted. We conclude that upon controlling for the endogeneity of retirement in partners’ leisure demands, retirement increases only moderately the leisure time truly together of partners and by no more than other activities such as notably separate leisure or house work hours.

/pdf/partners-leisure-time-truly-together-upon-retirement-3l3otjhquj.pdf

Partners' Leisure Time Truly Together Upon Retirement

Moving into and out of flexible and permanent jobs : An empirical analysis of labour market mobility patterns in the Netherlands using Dutch panel-data

Du fait du vieillissement de la population, l’emploi des seniors devient un enjeu primordial de la politique du travail dans les pays europeens. Retarder l’âge de fin d’activite permettrait d’augmenter le niveau de production et d’equilibrer les systemes de retraite sans reduire le niveau des retraites. Encore faut-il que les seniors soient effectivement employes. Les reformes en cours des systemes de retraite font courir le risque qu’une partie importante des travailleurs seniors ne trouvent pas d’emploi et soient contraints de partir a la retraite avec un faible niveau de pension. Aussi, l’article etudie-t-il la strategie suivie par les pays qui ont reussi a maintenir un taux d’emploi des seniors eleve (Suede, Danemark, Royaume-Uni) ou qui ont connu des relevements importants de ce taux durant ces dernieres annees (Finlande, Pays-Bas). Ceux-ci sont generalement des pays proches du plein emploi, meme si les facteurs de plein emploi different : temps partiel, strategie macroeconomique qui allie recherche de la competitivite et politique expansionniste, liberalisation du marche du travail ou gestion par les partenaires sociaux, developpement d’emplois sociaux. Ils ont beneficie d’institutions favorables (faiblesse des hausses de salaire a l’anciennete, meilleures conditions de travail). La strategie liberale diminue les retraites, ce qui incite les seniors a travailler, quitte a accepter des salaires plus bas, ce qui est permis par la flexibilite du marche du travail. La strategie des pays nordiques, le vieillissement actif, organise une mobilisation sociale afin d’augmenter les emplois disponibles pour les seniors et d’inciter ceux-ci a prolonger leurs carrieres : amelioration des conditions de travail, formation permanente, refonte des carrieres, lutte contre les discriminations liees a l’âge, campagne de sensibilisation, accords au niveau des branches et des entreprises. La France n’a guere cette tradition d’accord entre Etat et partenaires sociaux. Or un compromis social fructueux est un prealable necessaire. Il devrait comporter une differentiation des conditions de depart a la retraite selon les professions et des garanties sur l’evolution du taux de remplacement.

Emploi des seniors: les leçons des pays de réussite

We study the impact of income taxation on both partners’ allocation of time to market work and unpaid house work in households with two adults. We estimate a structural household utility model in which the marginal utilities of leisure and house work of both partners are modelled as random coefficients, depending on observed and unobserved characteristics of the household and the two partners. We use a discrete choice model with choice sets of 2,401 points for each couple, distinguishing seven market work intervals and seven house work intervals for each partner. The model is estimated using data for France, which taxes incomes of married couples jointly, like, for instance, Germany and the US. We find that both partners’ market and non-market time allocation decisions are responsive to changes in the tax system or other policy changes that change the financial incentives. Women’s time allocation is more responsive to the own and the partner’s wage rate than men’s. Tax policy simulations suggest that moving from joint taxation for married couples to separate taxation of each spouse would go a small step in the direction of equalizing market and non-market work of spouses. Selective taxation with smaller tax rates for women than for men would magnify these effects.

Does income taxation affect partners’ household chores?

One of the reasons for setting up an unemployment insurance scheme is to allow job losers to smooth consumption. However, very little is known to date on the consumption smoothing impact of unemployment benefits. Here, we test for the impact of unemployment benefits on changes in household food expenditure of individuals that have recently experienced a job loss, allowing for different levels of household’s financial wealth. We also study the relationship between unemployment benefits and financial wealth of the unemployed. We use for the empirical analysis a unique dataset rich on information on financial assets and debt of the unemployed. We conclude that there is significant heterogeneity in the consumption responses of job losers to the income shock. For households without financial wealth at the time of job loss, unemployment benefits help smoothing food consumption. The results of estimation also suggest considerable heterogeneity in the relationship between borrowing and the level of benefits. For households running debt before job loss, there is evidence that higher replacement rates lead to postponing of paying off debt.

Financial Wealth, Consumption Smoothing, and Income Shocks due to Job Loss

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