Suchergebnisse

This thesis consists of three independent essays, unified by the common theme of the distributional impacts of government. The first paper estimates the price elasticity of demand for pharmaceuticals amongst high-income older people in Australia. It exploits a natural experiment by which some people gained entitlement to a price reduction through the Commonwealth Seniors Health Card (CSHC). The preferred model is a nonlinear Instrumental Variable (IV) difference-in-difference regression, estimated on repeated cross sectional survey data using the Generalised Method of Moments. No significant evidence is found for endogenous card take-up, and so cross-sectional estimates are also considered. Taking all of the results and possible sources of bias into account, the 'headline' estimate is -0.1, implying that quantity demanded is not highly responsive to price. The elasticity estimate is a key input into the second paper which analyses the distributional impact of the CSHC. I consider the trade-off between moral hazard and risk pooling. There have been few previous attempts internationally to address this trade-off empirically for any health insurance scheme. The utility gain through risk-pooling is found to be negligible. However, the deadweight loss through moral hazard may be considerable. I also use an illustrative model to demonstrate the possible effects of the CSHC on inter-temporal savings behaviour. While the CSHC may induce some people to save, it may have the opposite effect on others. The net impact was not determined. The third paper estimates the Australian public sector wage premium. It includes a detailed critical review of the methods available to address this issue. The chosen approach is a quasi-differenced panel data model, estimated by nonlinear IV, which has many advantages over other methods and has not been used before for this topic. I find a positive average public sector wage premium for both sexes. The best estimates are 10.0% for men and 7.1% for women. The estimate for men is ...

We estimate the effect of Vietnam-era Army service on mortality, exploiting Australia's conscription lotteries for identification. We utilize population data on deaths during 1994–2007 and military personnel records. The estimates are identified by over 51,000 compliers induced to enlist in the Army. We find no statistically significant effects on mortality overall, nor for any cause of death. The estimated relative risk (RR) of death associated with Army service is 1.03 (95% CI: 0.92, 1.19). On the assumption that Army service affected mortality only for those who served in Vietnam, the estimated RR is 1.06 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.51).

AbstractWe present the first estimates of intergenerational wealth mobility for Australia. The rank correlation is 0.253, compared to 0.306 for the United States using comparable methods. This correlation varies greatly by child age when wealth is observed, from 0.1 before age 30, to 0.5 after age 40. This sharp increase with age is stronger than for other countries, is not explained by sample selection bias and is not specific to particular types of wealth. We also argue that neither income mobility nor wealth mobility, as operationalised in empirical work, align neatly with the wealth concept in the Becker & Tomes framework.

Outside of the United States, few studies have estimated the effects of World War II service. In Australia, general war-time conscription and minimal involvement in the Korean War led to large cohort differences in military service rates, which we use for identification. We find a small, temporary negative effect on employment and a substantial positive effect on post-school qualifications, but not at the university level. While service increased home ownership slightly, it greatly reduced outright home ownership, consistent with the incentives provided by veterans' housing benefits. We also find a positive effect on marriage, but only from 1971.

The effects of military service have been studied for decades, but surprisingly few studies have estimated the effects of World War II (WW2) service, where the focus has been on the impact of this 'total war' on the broader civilian population. Over 90% of Australian males born in the early 1920s served in the military during WW2. Almost none of those born in the late 1920s served. Treating such cohort differences as exogenous, we conduct one of the first econometric studies of WW2 service. We consider major life outcomes including employment, marital status and home ownership, all measured in 1966, while the economy was strong and male employment was very high. We find a significant negative effect on employment, half of which is accompanied by pensioner status. We find positive effects on home ownership and on separation/divorce. A feature of our analysis is a novel visual depiction of the variation which identifies the estimates, drawing on the Frisch-Waugh theorem.