Suchergebnisse

The increase in income per capita is accompanied, in virtually all countries, by two changes in the structure of the economy: an increase in the share of government spending in GDP and an increase in female labor force participation. This paper suggests that the changes in female labor force participation and government size are not just coincident in time, they are causally related. We develop a growth model with endogenous fertility, labor force participation and government size to illustrate this causal link. When government consumption and/or subsidies decrease the cost of performing household chores - including, but not limited to child rearing and child care - an increase in the female market wage leads to an increase in labor force participation by women and a demand for higher government spending. As women make the decision to work outside the home, they increase their demand for services typically provided by the government, such as education and health care, which, in turn, decrease the cost of home and family activities that are overwhelmingly performed by women. We show, for a wide cross-section of developed and developing countries, that higher female participation rates in the labor market are positively associated with larger governments. We investigate the causal link by instrumenting for female labor force participation with the prevalence of contraceptive methods and the relative price of household appliances. Female labor force participation is found to cause an increase in government size, with a 10 percent rise in the former leading to a 6.5 to 9 percent rise in the latter. This effect is stronger for government consumption than for government subsidies and is robust to the country sample, time period, and a set of controls in the spirit of Rodrik (1998). ; N/A

This paper studies what accounts for the recent business cycles phenomena in Portugal and why it is depressed relatively to the United States. The business accounting procedure applied here suggests that most of the changes in output per worker in Portugal over the period (mainly, from 1979 to 1991) can be attributed to changes in economic effi ciency. For instance, the strong economic recovery in output per worker just after Portugal joined the European Union until the first years of the 1990s can be essentially attributed to improvements in economic effi ciency. From 1979 to 2000, Portugal caught up with the industrial leader. Its output per worker is currently depressed by about 46% relative to the United States level (it was depressed by 57% in 1979). In the 1980s all of this depression in output per worker relative to the United States was due to the productivity factor. By 2000 Portugal depression relative to the United States was a mix of the French and Japanese depression. The labor factor accounted for roughly 24% of this depression, while the economic effi ciency accounted by about 89%. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Abstract
What is the role of family planning interventions on fertility, savings, human capital investment and development? To examine this, endogenous unwanted fertility is embedded in an otherwise standard quantity–quality overlapping generations model of fertility and growth. The model features costly fertility control and families can (partially) insure against a fertility risk by using costly modern contraceptives. In the event of unexpected pregnancies, households can also opt to abort some pregnancies, at a cost. Given the number of children born, parents decide how much education to provide and how much to save out of their income. We fit the model to Kenyan data, implement several family planning policies and decompose their aggregate effects. Our results suggest that with a small government budget (say, up to 0.5% of GDP), family planning interventions might be more cost-effective in improving long-run living standards than policies that subsidise basic education.

Brazil is going through a moment of political and institutional crisis and the adoption of corrosive policies to human rights. More than ever before, the Labour Judiciary must exercise its role as the guardian of these rights and as the protector of the dignity of the common working person. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the diffuse control of conventionality as an instrument for the protection of the human rights and, above all, to examine the conformity of the so-called «labour reform« with international treaties and conventions. Through the study of the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the research shows that it is the duty of the judiciary to protect and to make effective human rights, especially in times of discredit and uncertainty by the Legislative with the consent of the Executive. ; Brasil pasa por un momento de crisis política e institucional y de adopción de políticas corrosivas a los derechos humanos. Más que nunca, el poder judicial laboral debe ejercer el papel de guardián de estos derechos y de protector del postulado de la dignidad de la persona trabajadora. Este artículo tiene como objetivo principal analizar el control difuso de convencionalidad como instrumento de protección de los derechos humanos y, sobre todo, examinar la conformidad de la denominada «reforma laboral» con los tratados y convenciones internacionales. Por medio del estudio de las decisiones de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, la investigación demuestra que es deber del poder judicial proteger y hacer efectivos los derechos humanos, sobre todo en momentos de violación por el legislativo con el sello del ejecutivo.