Essays in empirical macroeconomics [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Alexander Bick

Informations

• Publié par: goethe_universitat_frankfurt_am_main
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 25
• Langue: English

Extrait

Essays in
Empirical Macroeconomics
Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades des
Fachbereichs Wirtschaftswissenschaften der
Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universit¨at
Frankfurt am Main
vorgelegt von
Alexander Bick
aus Frankfurt am Main
Juni 2009List of Original Working
Papers
This thesis consists of the following working papers:
a) Bick, Alexander (2009):
Threshold Effects of Inflation on Economic Growth
in Developing Countries
b) Bick, Alexander and Dieter Nautz (2008):
Inflation Thresholds and Relative Price Variability:
1Evidence from U.S. Cities
c) Bick, Alexander (2009):
Fertility, Female Labor Force Participation and Child Care
1Published in the International Journal of Central Banking, September 2008
IIContents
List of Original Working Papers II
Danksagung VIII
Overview IX
Deutsche Zusammenfassung X
1 Threshold Effects of Inflation on Economic Growth in De-
veloping Countries 1
1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The Panel-Threshold-Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 The Single Threshold Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.2 Multiple Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Regime Intercepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 The Inflation-Growth Nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
A.1 Coefficient Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
A.2 Hansen’s (1999) Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Inflation Thresholds and Relative Price Variability: Evi-
dence from U.S. Cities 16
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2 Inflation and RPV in U.S. Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.1 The Data Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.2.2 Relative Price Variability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2.3 The Linear Relation Between Inflation and RPV . . . 21
2.3 Inflation Thresholds and the Inflation-RPV
Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.1 The Threshold Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.2 The Number of Inflation Thresholds . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.3 A Double Threshold Model for the Relation Between
Inflation and RPV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.4 Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
IVContents V
3 Fertility, Female Labor Supply and Child Care 29
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.2.1 German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) . . . . . . . 31
3.2.2 Sample Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2.3 Sample Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2.4 Sample Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.3 Stylized Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.3.1 Child Care Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3.2 Female LaborForce Participation andChildCareEn-
rollment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.3 Summary Key Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.4 The Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.5 Taking the Model to the Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.6 Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.1 Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.6.2 Data Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6.3 Parameter Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.6.4 Model Fit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.6.5 Comparative Statics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
3.7 Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.7.1 East Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.7.2 100% Subsidized Child Care Provision . . . . . . . . . 66
3.7.3 The 2007 Maternal Leave Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.8 Model Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
3.9 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
A.1 Sample Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
A.2 Sample Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A.2.1 Period Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A.2.2 Labor Force Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A.2.3 Child Care Enrollment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A.3 Stylized Facts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A.3.1 Child Care Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A.3.2 Provision Rate of Subsidized Child Care . . . . . . . . 79
Bibliography 83List of Figures
2.1 Inflation Rates Across U.S. Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.2 Distribution of City Inflation Rates in the U.S. . . . . . . . . 20
3.1 A Child’s Life from Birth to Adulthood . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.2 Labor Force Participation and Child Care Enrollment Rates . 40
3.3 Part- vs. Full-time Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.4 Life Cycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.5 Income Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.6 Model Fit – Participation and Enrollment . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.7 Model Fit – Part- vs. Full-time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.8 Model Fit – By Number of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
3.9 Comparative Statics Exercise – Participation and Enrollment 62
3.10 Comparative Statics Exercise – Fertility Rate . . . . . . . . . 64
3.11 Model West vs. Model East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.12 Model East vs. Data East . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.13 100% Subsidized Child Care Provision . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
3.14 2007 Maternity Leave Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
VIList of Tables
1.1 Inflation-Growth Nexus in Developing Countries . . . . . . . 11
1.2 Hansen’s (1999) Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 The Linear Relation Between Inflation and RPV . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Test Procedure Establishing the Number of Thresholds. . . . 23
2.3 A Double Threshold Model for the Inflation-RPV Linkage . . 25
2.4 U.S. Cities and Inflation Regimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.1 Sample Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.2 Child Care Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.3 Provision Rates for Subsidized Child Care . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.4 Subsidized and Non-Subsidized Child Care . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.5 Conditional Child Care Enrollment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.6 Income Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.7 Child Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.8 Preference Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.9 Model Fit – Subsidized and Non-Subsidized Child Care . . . 56
3.10 Model Fit – Conditional Child Care Enrolllment . . . . . . . 56
3.11 Model Fit – Fertility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
3.12 100% Subsidized Child Care Provision – Fertility . . . . . . . 67
3.13 2007 Maternity Leave Benefits – Fertility . . . . . . . . . . . 69
3.14 Sample Selection in Detail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
3.15 Access to Subsidized Child Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
3.16 Annual and Period Provision Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
VIIDanksagung
Ich m¨ochte mich bei meinen Betreuern Dieter Nautz und Dirk Kru¨ger
fu¨rihreUnterstu¨tzung bedanken, die nicht besserha¨tte sein ko¨nnenundfu¨r
alles, was ich von ihnen gelernt habe.
Mein Dank gilt ebenso meinen Mitstudenten des Ph.D. Programs, ins-
besondere Jorgo Georgiadis. Ohne seine Unterstu¨tzung und die unza¨hligen
Diskussionen wa¨re Vieles schwerer gewesen.
Ichm¨ochtemichfu¨rdieGastfreundschaftdesEconomicsDepartmentsan
derUniversityofPennsylvaniabedanken,woichvielewertvolle Erfahrungen
sammeln konnte, sowie beim Deutschen Akademischen Auslandsdienst fu¨r
die finanzielle Unterstu¨tzung dieses Aufenthaltes.
Mein Dank gilt ebensomeinenFreunden, die michwa¨hrendmeiner Dok-
torarbeit immer unterstu¨tzt haben, insbesondere Bertrand, Fane, Florian,
Karim, Mike, Robert, Roberto, Sven und Thomas sowie meinem Bruder
Benjamin.
Zuletzt mo¨chte ich mich bei meinen Eltern bedanken, einfach fu¨r alles.
Dies gilt auch fu¨r meine Freundin. Danke, Isabel.
VIIIOverview
This dissertation consists of three chapters. The first two chapters in-
vestigate the real effects of inflation and the third chapter the role of child
care for fertility and female female labor supply.
Chapter 1 introduces a generalized panel thresholdmodel to analyze the
relation between inflation and economic growth for a sample of developing
countries. It is demonstrated that allowing for regime intercepts can be
crucial for obtaining unbiased estimates of both, inflation thresholds and
its marginal effects on growth in the various regimes. The empirical results
confirm that the omitted variable bias of standard panel threshold models
2can be statistically