Essays on economics of marriage

A sociedade mudou nas últimas décadas abrindo a possibilidade para cientistas sociais estudarem essas mudanças e analisar os seus impactos na unidade familiar. Nesta tese pretendemos analisar como as decisões dos agentes com relação a decisão de casar e estudar pode estar conectado considerando que homens e mulheres têm preferências pelo casamento intragrupo. No modelo estudado encontramos que as preferências para o casamento intragrupo podem aumentar a proporção de homens e mulheres que decidem se casar e estudar. Mostramos também que empiricamente há um positive assortative mating entre pessoas com as mesmas características, tais como, educação, religião ou raça. Além disso, a probabilidade de casais casados na mesma religião aumenta a probabilidade dos casais estarem casados dentro do mesmo nível de escolaridade. Considerando as mudanças em como os casais se formam, a composição educacional e os retornos da educação que aconteceram no Brasil nos últimos anos, investiga-se os impactos dessas mudanças na desigualdade de renda dos casais. Calculamos cenários contrafactuais para o Coeficiente de Gini mantendo uma dessas três variáveis fixas em um determinado ano, comparando o contrafactual estimado com o Gini real. Se o casamento for formado aleatoriamente com relação à educação, o Coeficiente de Gini seria menor do que o real. Mantendo os retornos da educação fixos no ano de 2014 encontramos um Gini contrafactual menor do que o real.

Rural family living.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Politics and Policies of Reproductive Agency

This study examines the politics and policies of reproductive agency through a redescription of three Finnish policy documents dealing with the declining birth rate: the Government report on the future 'Finland for people of all ages' (2004), Business and Policy Forum EVA report 'Condemned to Diminish?' (Tuomitut vähenemään?) (2003), and the Family Federation's 'Population Policy Program' (2004). The redescription is done with the help of the notion of reproductive agency, which draws on Drucilla Cornell's concepts of the imaginary domain and bodily integrity. The imaginary domain is the moral and psychic space people need in order to form their personality, which is created in constant identificatory processes. The aim of the processes is imaginary coherence. As the personality is embodied, forming one s imaginary coherence always includes attempts for bodily integrity, also entailing attempts to arrive at an understanding of one's procreative capacities. Besides Cornell, I draw on Judith Butler's thinking and comprehend gender performatively as doing, and in relation to that agency as part of the performative process of one's personality. Reproductive agency is understood in this study as the possibilities to live differently the hegemonic forms of procreative life. I deal with three redescriptive themes: the family, economics and gender. The family is a central element in that it is considered the main location of reproduction. With regard to reproductive agency, the documents include problematic conceptions of the family. It is defined as a heterosexual, monogamous, conjugal relationship, which affects reproductive agency in that these notions do not allow for different modes of family life. The second prominent aspect, economics, features on two levels: the macroeconomic level of GDP, employment and competitiveness, and the level of family policies and concern about family finances. Macroeconomic-level argumentation is problematic in the context of reproductive agency because it implies that procreation is a duty of citizens, and thus has effects on values attached to reproductive potential. On the other hand, family policies may advance reproductive agency in supporting families financially. However, such policies also define how the family is understood, thereby affecting reproductive agency. The third theme, gender, intersects with many issues in the policy documents. All three texts consider the roles of men and women differently: women are primarily responsible for the family, and both men's and women's reproductive agency is affected in that the roles in the procreative process are predefined. EVA and the Family Federation see women as the main target of population policies, and consider it legitimate to try to change women s reproductive decisions. Implicit in the notion of reproductive agency is the idea that it should be possible to overcome and live differently the sex difference, but the three documents do not open up opportunities for that. The notion of reproductive agency makes it also possible to question the legitimacy of population policies in general and offers new perspectives on the vocabularies used in the three policy texts, providing insights into the values and logics that support the concepts.

Coherent Cost-Sharing Rules

We reconsider the discrete version of the axiomatic cost-sharing model. We propose a condition of (informational) coherence requiring that not all informational refinements of a given problem be solved differently from the original problem. We prove that strictly coherent linear cost-sharing rules must be simple random-order rules.

Maximal-Element Rationalizability

We examine the maximal-element rationalizability of choice functions with arbitrary do-mains. While rationality formulated in terms of the choice of greatest elements according to a rationalizing relation has been analyzed relatively thoroughly in the earlier litera-ture, this is not the case for maximal-element rationalizability, except when it coincides with greatest-element rationalizability because of properties imposed on the rationalizing relation. We develop necessary and sufficient conditions for maximal-element rationaliz-ability by itself, and for maximal-element rationalizability in conjunction with additional properties of a rationalizing relation such as re exivity, completeness, P-acyclicity, quasi-transitivity, consistency and transitivity.

A Theory of Random Consumer Demand

This paper presents a new theory of random consumer demand. The primitive is a collection of probability distributions, rather than a binary preference. Various assumptions constrain these distributions, including analogues of common assumptions about preferences such as transitivity, monotonicity and convexity. Two results establish a complete representation of theoretically consistent random demand. The purpose of this theory of random consumer demand is application to empirical consumer demand problems. To this end, the theory has several desirable properties. It is intrinsically stochastic, so the econometrician can apply it directly without adding extrinsic randomness in the form of residuals. Random demand is parsimoniously represented by a single function on the consumption set. Finally, we have a practical method for statistical inference based on the theory, described in McCausland (2004), a companion paper.

Bayesian Analysis for a Theory of Random Consumer Demand: The Case of Indivisible Goods

McCausland (2004a) describes a new theory of random consumer demand. Theoretically consistent random demand can be represented by a \"regular\" \"L-utility\" function on the consumption set X. The present paper is about Bayesian inference for regular L-utility functions. We express prior and posterior uncertainty in terms of distributions over the indefinite-dimensional parameter set of a flexible functional form. We propose a class of proper priors on the parameter set. The priors are flexible, in the sense that they put positive probability in the neighborhood of any L-utility function that is regular on a large subset bar(X) of X; and regular, in the sense that they assign zero probability to the set of L-utility functions that are irregular on bar(X). We propose methods of Bayesian inference for an environment with indivisible goods, leaving the more difficult case of indefinitely divisible goods for another paper. We analyse individual choice data from a consumer experiment described in Harbaugh et al. (2001).

Rational Choice on Arbitrary Domains: A Comprehensive Treatment

The rationalizability of a choice function on arbitrary domains by means of a transitive relation has been analyzed thoroughly in the literature. Moreover, characterizations of various versions of consistent rationalizability have appeared in recent contributions. However, not much seems to be known when the coherence property of quasi-transitivity or that of P-acyclicity is imposed on a rationalization. The purpose of this paper is to fill this significant gap. We provide characterizations of all forms of rationalizability involving quasi-transitive or P-acyclical rationalizations on arbitrary domains.

Domain Closedness Conditions and Rational Choice

The rationalizability of a choice function on an arbitrary domain under various coherence properties has received a considerable amount of attention both in the long-established and in the recent literature. Because domain closedness conditions play an important role in much of rational choice theory, we examine the consequences of these requirements on the logical relationships among different versions of rationalizability. It turns out that closedness under intersection does not lead to any results differing from those obtained on arbitrary domains. In contrast, closedness under union allows us to prove an additional implication.

Actifs financiers et theorie de la consommation.

Dans cet article, pour etendre la theorie du consommateur a ses choix d'epargne et de placements, on utilise a la fois la theorie usuelle, celle des caracteristiques et celle du raisonnement quantitatif. on en deduit un systeme complet de demandes comprenant simultanement les quantites de biens et de services physiques, les quantites d'actifs financiers et les prix des actifs contingents elementaires eventuels.

Demand of children in Colombia : guessing or planning

El artículo analiza los determinantes de la presencia de hijos no deseados en Colombia. Se utiliza la información de la Encuesta Nacional de Demografía y Salud (ENDS, 2005), específicamente para las mujeres de 40 años o más. Dadas las características especiales de la variable que se analiza, se utilizan modelos de conteo para verificar si determinadas características socioeconómicas como la educación o el estrato económico explican la presencia de hijos no deseados. Se encuentra que la educación de la mujer y el área de residencia son determinantes significativos de los nacimientos no planeados. Además, la relación negativa entre el número de hijos no deseados y la educación de la mujer arroja implicaciones clave en materia de política social.

Readiness for school: A study of parent, teacher, and preschool provider perspectives

A possible gap exists between what parents and preschool providers know concerning children's readiness for school and what they should know when compared to teacher expectations. Students are experiencing difficulty in early schooling as a result of this gap in perspectives. This study's purpose was to describe, explain, and analyze the perspectives of parents, teachers, and preschool providers concerning school readiness. The qualitative strategy of interviewing was used with six parents, six teachers, and two preschool provider participants. Interview transcripts, field notes, member checking, and document analysis were used to interpret data and support findings. Categorization and coding organized data and aided in theory development. ^ Major findings of the study include: (a) All participant groups stress social skills, communication skills, and enthusiasm as most valuable for school readiness; (b) All participant groups agree parents have primary responsibility for readiness preparation; (c) Many participants suggest variables concerning family, economics, and home life contribute to a lack of readiness; (d) Parents place greater value on academic skills than teachers or preschool providers; (e) Preschool programs are identified as having the potential to significantly influence readiness; (f) Communicating, providing positive learning experiences, and providing preschool experience are valuable ways to prepare students for school, yet, differences were found in the types of experiences noted; (g) Participant perspectives indicate that informing parents of readiness expectations is of major importance, and they offer suggestions to accomplish this goal such as using public libraries and pediatrician offices as houses for written information and having kindergarten teachers make presentations at preschools. ^ This study concludes that parents and preschool providers do have knowledge concerning readiness for school. They may not, however, be in a position to carry out their responsibilities due to the intervening variables that inhibit the amount of time, interaction, and communication they have with the children in their care. This study discloses the beliefs of parents and preschool providers that children are ready for school, while teachers conclude that many children are not ready. Suggestions for readiness preparation and information dissemination are significant findings that offer implications for practice and future study. ^

Embedding graphic organisers in the teaching and learning of family and consumer sciences (home economics) in Kuwait

Educational reforms currently being enacted in Kuwaiti Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) in response to contemporary demands for increased student-centred teaching and learning are challenging for FCS teachers due to their limited experience with student-centred learning tools such as Graphic Organisers (GOs). To adopt these reforms, Kuwaiti teachers require a better understanding of and competency in promoting cognitive learning processes that will maximise student-centred learning approaches. This study followed the experiences of four Grade 6 FCS Kuwaiti teachers as they undertook a Professional Development (PD) program specifically designed to advance their understanding of the use of GOs and then as they implemented what they had learned in their Grade 6 FCS classroom. The PD program developed for this study was informed by Nasseh.s competency PD model as well as Piaget and Ausubel.s cognitive theories. This model enabled an assessment and evaluation of the development of the teachers. competencies as an outcome of the PD program in terms of the adoption of GOs, in particular, and their capacity to use GOs to engage students in personalised, in-depth, learning through critical thinking and understanding. The research revealed that the PD program was influential in reforming the teachers. learning, understanding of and competency in, cognitive and visual theories of learning, so that they facilitated student-centred teaching and learning processes that enabled students to adopt and adapt GOs in constructivist learning. The implementation of five GOs - Flow Chart, Concept Maps, K-W-L Chart, Fishbone Diagram and Venn Diagram - as learning tools in classrooms was investigated to find if changes in pedagogical approach for supporting conceptual learning through cognitive information processing would reduce the cognitive work load of students and produce better learning approaches. The study as evidenced by the participant teachers. responses and classroom observations, showed a marked increase in student interest, participation, critical thought, problem solving skills, as a result of using GOs, compared to using traditional teaching and learning methods. A theoretical model was developed from the study based on the premise that teachers. knowledge of the subject, pedagogy and student learning precede the implementation of student-centred learning reform, that it plays an important role in the implementation of student-centred learning and that it brings about a change in teaching practice. The model affirmed that observed change in teaching-practice included aspects of teachers. beliefs, as well as confidence and effect on workplace and on student learning, including engagement, understanding, critical thinking and problem solving. The model assumed that change in teaching practice is inseparable from teachers. lifelong PD needs related to knowledge, understanding, skills and competency. These findings produced a set of preliminary guidelines for establishing student-centred constructivist strategies in Kuwaiti education while retaining Kuwait.s cultural uniqueness.

The transaction cost economics theory of the family firm: family-based human asset specificity and the bifurcation bias

We develop a transaction cost economics theory of the family firm, building upon the concepts of family-based asset specificity, bounded rationality, and bounded reliability. We argue that the prosperity and survival of family firms depend on the absence of a dysfunctional bifurcation bias. The bifurcation bias is an expression of bounded reliability, reflected in the de facto asymmetric treatment of family vs. nonfamily assets (especially human assets). We propose that absence of bifurcation bias is critical to fostering reliability in family business functioning. Our study ends the unproductive divide between the agency and stewardship perspectives of the family firm, which offer conflicting accounts of this firm type's functioning. We show that the predictions of the agency and stewardship perspectives can be usefully reconciled when focusing on how family firms address the bifurcation bias or fail to do so.

Family values for democratic living : a home economics course designed for high school seniors by the University of the State of New York, the State Education Department, Bureau of Home Economics, Albany.

Mode of access: Internet.