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Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
June 25, 2009
Field Exam for Economic Demography
Please answer all parts of all questions, which will be weighted in the total grade as indicated in parentheses. Cite the literature where appropriate. You have three hours.
- (25) Three separate literatures address the consequences of popu- lation change. One considers the relation of population change to economic development, for example studies by the National Research Council (1986), Acemoglou and Johnson (2007), Kelley and Schmidt (2005). Another con- siders the economic consequences of immigration to industrial nations, for example studies by Borjas (2003), Card (2005, 2009),. A third considers the economic consequences of population aging, for example Cutler et al, 1990.
a) (5) In what ways do the sources of demographic variation considered by these literatures di§er?
b) (5) Do these literatures focus on similar potential consequences of population change, or on di§erent ones?
c) (5) If you Önd any di§erences in focus in your answer to b) are these purely idiosyncratic, or are they related in some logical way to the di§erent sources of population change under consideration?
d) (5) Do these literatures reach conclusions about the economic con- sequences o population change that are consistent or inconsistent with one another?
e) (5) Summarize and conclude: Are there good reasons for these sep- arate literatures to exist?
- (25) This question concerns sex bias in familial behavior:
a) (8) Beckerís economic theory of fertility does not distinguish be- tween male and female children. Discuss how you might introduce male and female children into his Quantity-Quality theory. You do not need to write down a mathematical model, but you should discuss any issues that arise and possible implications of your two-sex analysis for sex biased fertility, sex biased investments per child, and the e§ects on these of income.
b) b) (8) We know from many studies that in some cultures, there is a sex bias in fertility. Does this sex bias carry over to a bias in investment in the human capital of male and female children? Describe an empirical analysis you could do to investigate this question.
c) (9) Drawing on the theory of marriage, discuss the later consequences for female well being and other outcomes, including female labor force partic- ipation, of male-biased sex selection and investment.
- (25) Write brieáy about each of the following questions:
a) (8) Describe variations in health by socio-economic status over the life cycle in the US, and o§er explanations for this pattern.
b) (8) Explain why altruistic parents might invest less than the optimal amount (deÖne this) in their childrenís education.
c) (9) Discuss possible reasons for the decline of marriage in recent decades in the industrial nations, and the rise of out-of-wedlock childbearing.
- (25) A corporation provides new employees with an exciting but stressful year of training. Recruits are continually entering and exiting training throughout the calendar year, but the number of places is Öxed, so entrances have to equal exits (from dropouts and graduates) at all times.
Recognizing that entrances are like births and exits are like deaths, the CEO consults a demographer.
a) A selection of useful formulas is given at the end of this ques- tion. The probability of dropping out within the Örst quarter (the Örst three months) is 0 : 413. If rates were assumed to be constant across the period, what would be the monthly prob- ability of dropping out? What would be the corresponding hazard rate?
b) For those who complete their Örst quarter of training, the prob- ability of dropping out in the next three months is 0 : 343. After the training program has been running for a long time, the dis- tribution of trainees by duration of training at any given time reaches a stable state. In this stable state, what would be the ratio of all Örst-quarter trainees to all second quarter trainees?
Person-Years Lived: (^) nLx = (n)(lx+n) + (nax)(ndx)
Lifetable death rate: (^) nmx = (^) ndx=nLx
Expectation of Life: ex = Tx=lx
Brassís Logit System: lx =
1 + exp( 2 2 Yx)
Leslie Matrix Top Row: nL 0 2 l 0
nFx +^ nFx+n
nLx+n nLx
ff ab
Leslie Matrix Subdiagonal: n
Lx+n nLx
Lotkaís Equation: 1 =
X
(1=2) (nFxnLx + (^) nFx+nnLx+n) (ff ab=l 0 )e r(x+n)
Stable Age Pyramid : (^) nKxstable = B(nLx) e rx
Lotkaís Parameter: r log(N RR)=
0.1 For Reference: List of Readings Covered on the
Field Exam
Background
(*)-Ron Lee (2003) ìThe Demographic Transition: Three Centuries of Fundamental Changeî Journal of Economic Perspectives v.17 n.4 Fall 2003 pp.167-
Economics of Marriage and Divorce
(**)Becker Gary, Elizabeth Landes, and Robert Michael (1977) ìAn Eco- nomic Analysis of Marital Instabilityî Journal of Political Economics 85(6): 1141-
(*)Lundberg, Shelly and Robert Pollack (2007) ìThe American Family and Family EconomicsîJournal o Economic Perspectives v.21 n.2 Spring pp.3-
(#)Stevenson Betsey, Justin Wolfers (2007) ìMarriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forcesî Journal of Economic Perspectives v.21 n.2 Spring pp.27-
(#)Angrist Josh (2002) ìHow do Sex Ratios A§ect Marriage and Labor Markets? Evidence from Americaís Second GenerationîQuarterly Journal of Economics. Vol. 117 No.3 (Aug 2002) pp..997-
(#)#Grossbard, Shoshana and Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes (2007) ìCohort- level sex ratio e§ects on womenís labor force participationî Review of Eco- nomics of the Household, v.5 n.3 (September), pp.249-278. (May need to get hardcopy from me; not sure.) [ ]
#DAN ARIELY, GUENTER J. HITSCH, ALI HORTACSU (2008) "Match- ing and Sorting in Online Dating" Working Paper. (bSpace) [ ]
#ALOYSIUS SIOW and CHASS.UTORONTO.CA (2008) "How Does the Marriage Market Clear? An Empirical Framework" Canadian Journal of Eco- nomics, Vol. 41, Issue 4, pp. 1121-1155, November/novembre 2008 [ ]
#NGUYEN VI CAO, EMMANUEL FRAGNIERE, JACQUES-ANTOINE GAUTHIER, MARL»NE SAPIN, ERIC WIDMER (2008) "Optimizing the Marriage Market Through the Reallocation of Partners: An Application of the Linear Assignment Model", Working Paper. (bSpace) [ ]
*Claudia Goldin (2006) ìThe ëQuiet RevolutioníThat Transformed Womenís Employment, Education, and Family,î American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, (Ely Lecture), 96 (May), pp. 1-21. (read lightly).
Causal Analysis in Economic Demography **Robert Mo¢ t (2005) ìThe Analysis of Causal Relationships in Popula- tion Researchî, Demography (Feb 2005), pp.91-108. (Read this article care- fully)
These next two on causality and natural experiments are optional. No need even to skim unless you want to.
Rosenzweig, Mark and Ken Wolpin (2000) ìNatural ëNatural Experimentsí in EconomicsîJournal of Economic Literature 38:827-74.
Andus Deaton (2009) ìINSTRUMENTS OF DEVELOPMENT: RANDOM- IZATION IN THE TROPICS, AND THE SEARCH FOR THE ELUSIVE KEYS TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENTîNBER WP 14690
This next one you should skim to get the basic idea.
Report: Kasey Buckles and Daniel M. Hungerman ìSEASON OF BIRTH AND LATER OUTCOMES: OLD QUESTIONS, NEW ANSWERSî NBER Working Paper 14573
*Make sure to read each of the three following illustrations of causal analy- sis in economic demography at least lightly, enough to Ögure out why there is a problem of causal inference, what is the research strategy for identiÖcation, and how the results change when this strategy is employed. Do not read each in detail, it would take you forever! These should be considered in relation to the Mo¢ t article on causal inference.
Arline Geronimus and Sanders Korenman (1992) ìThe Socioeconomic Con- sequences of Teen Childbearing Reconsidered,î Quarterly Journal of Eco- nomics CVII: pp.1187-1214.
Joe Hotz, S. McElroy and S. Sanders (1996) ìThe Costs and Consequences of Teenage Childbearing for Mothersî, in Kids Having Kids: Economic Costs and Social Consequences of Teen Pregnancy (Urban Institute Press).
Gertler P and J Molynueax (2000) ìThe Allocation and Impact of Planning Program Inputs in Indonesia,îin Cyrus Chu and Ronald Lee, eds., Population and Economic Change in East Asia, Population Development Review 2000, Vol. 26 (Sup) pp. 61-88.
Health and Mortality
*James Smith (2005) ìUnraveling the SES-Health Connectionî, Population and Development Review, Special Issue (February).
*Robert Fogel (2004) ìWhy the Twentieth Century Was So Remarkableî, Chapter 2 of Robert Fogel, The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge England), pp.20-42.
ìTHE SES HEALTH GRADIENT ON BOTH SIDES OF THE AT- LANTICî James Banks, Michael Marmot, Zoe OldÖeld, James P. Smith. NBER Working Paper 12674.
ìHEALTHY, WEALTHY, AND WISE: SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, POOR HEALTH IN CHILDHOOD, AND HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOP- MENTîJanet Currie, NBER Working Paper 13987. (A long, detailed paper; skim, but read enough to get main results.)
ìA Dynamic Model of Birth Weightî by Emilia Del Bono, John Ermisch, And Marco Francesconi, IZA Discussion Paper No. 3704 (September 2008).
ìBeing Born Under Adverse Economic Conditions Leads to a Higher Car- diovascular Mortality Rate Later in Life: Evidence Based on Individuals Born at Di§erent Stages of the Business Cycleî Gerard J. van den Berg, Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter, Kaare Christensen (IZA Discussion Paper No. 3635 Au- gust 2008.
Douglas Almond (2006) ìIs the 1918 Ináuenza Pandemic Over? Long- term E§ects of In Utero Ináuenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Populationî Journal of Political Economy, 114 (August 2006), 672-712.
Age Composition, Family Life Cycle, and Intergenerational Trans- fers
A.V. Chayanov, The Theory of Peasant Economy, Daniel Thorner et al translators, (University of Wisconsin Press, 1986; originally 1925); pp. 53- and bottom 76-81. (get main ideas; donít need detail)
Ronald Lee and Karen Kramer (2002) "Childrenís Economic Roles in the Context of the Maya Family Life Cycle: Cain, Caldwell, and Chayanov Revisited,ì Population and Development Review, 28 (3):475-499 (September 2002). (get main ideas; donít need detail.).
** Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy (1988), "The Family and the State,ì Supplement to Chapter 11 in A Treatise on the Family (Enlarged Edition), Harvard University Press, reprinted from Gary S. Becker and Kevin
Population and Economic Development (with introductions to many of the readings)
A. Background of the controversy and the revisionist view of the mid-1980s. This report was highly controversial in some circles but was generally accepted by economists, and marked the end of the view that population growth in the Third World was an economic catastrophe.
*National Research Council Working Group on Population and Economic Development (1986) Population and Economic growth Development: Policy Questions (National Academy Press, Washington D.C.) Read the ìIntroduc- tionîpp.1-10 (ignoring the description of the world population and economic trends of that day), and the ìConclusionî, pp.85-93. This book can be read for free on line, but one page at a time, at: http://search.nap.edu/nap- cgi/de2007.cgi?term=population+growth+and+economic+development&GO.x=0&GO.y=
B. Some analytic framework and cross-national results. This article synthe- sizes a substantial literature on cross-national regression studies of the e§ects of population growth on economic development, and highlights the ìtransla- tionîof population age distribution changes into per capita income.
*Allen C. Kelley, Robert M. Schmidt (2005) ìEvolution of recent economic- demographic modeling: A synthesisîJournal of Population Economics 18:275ñ 300
C. Searching for a natural experiment: Abortion, Contraception, and Health. In each case, think about the nature of the ìexperimentî, and how plausible you Önd it and the identiÖed supposedly causal e§ect. For the Acemoglu and Johnson reading, see if you can Önd the estimated e§ect of population growth in addition to the health result that they feature.
*Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson (2007) ìDisease and Development: the E§ect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growthî, Journal of Political Econ- omy, (December) volume 115, pp. 925-985.
*David E. Bloom, David Canning, G¸nther Fink, and Jocelyn E. Finlay (2007) ìFertility, Female Labor Force Participation, and the Demographic Dividendîworking paper (September).
*Grant Miller (forthcoming) ìContraception as Development? New Evi- dence from Family Planning in Colombia,îEconomic Journal.
D. Human capital *Ronald Lee and Andrew Mason (in press) ìFertility, Human Capital, and Economic Growth over the Demographic TransitionîEuropean Journal of Pop- ulation. (on bSpace).
Biology and Economic Demography
**Cox, Donald (2007) ìBiological Basics and the Economics of the Familyî Journal of Economic Perspectives v.21 n.2 Spring pp.91-108. Demography and demographic behavior have a strong biological basis. Here a theorist who did seminal work in the past on intergenerational transfers discusses biological ináuences on family behavior related to demography.
*ìImprovements and Future Challenges in the Field of Genetically Sensitive Sample Designsî, Frank M. Spinath November 2008. (GenesAndEconomics on bSpace)
ìIndividual di§erences in allocation of funds in the dictator game associ- ated with length of the arginine vasopressin 1a receptor RS3 promoter region and correlation between RS3 length and hippocampal mRNAî A. Knafoy, S. Israely, A. Darvasiz, R. Bachner-Melmany, F. Uzefovskyy, L. Cohenß, E. Feldmany, E. Lerer{, E. Laiba, Y. Razyy, L. Nemanovzz, I. Gritsenkozz, C. Dinaßß, G. Agam,*, B. Deanyyy, G. Bornsteiny and R. P. Ebstein in Genes, Brain and Behavior (2008) 7: 266ñ275 (GeneticsAndBehavior_ on bSpace). (Skim for main ideas; this is a highly technical biology article, but you can easily Önd the implications of the research.)
*Ronald Lee "Rethinking the Evolutionary Theory of Aging: Transfers, not Births, Shape Senescence in Social Species," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences v.100, n.16 (August 5, 2003), pp.9637-9642. (LeePNAS in bSpace). (This is short but very di¢ cult; read intro and conclusions, get the áavor of the argument.)
