Life-Cycle Choices and the Evolution of Youth Labor Markets

生命周期选择和青年劳动力市场的演变

• 批准号: 9730657
• 负责人: Stephen Cameron
• 金额: $ 23.98万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 1998
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1998-04-01 至 2004-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9730657&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Life; Cycle; Choices; Evolution; Youth

The aim of this project is to empirically examine how changes in labor markets for young workers have affected their marriage, fertility, and housing decisions. The 1980s and 1990s have witnessed significant changes in the age of first marriage and the percentage of young households that own a house. Understanding these developments requires an understanding of how career developments for young individuals affect these other significant life decisions. There is a growing literature which documents that the 1980s involved a dramatic increase in income inequality in the United States. It is argued that declining real income prospects for workers at the outset of their careers do not appear to fully explain the new trends in marriage, fertility, and housing decisions. For example, using Census of Population data it is shown that the declines in home ownership for young men between 1980 and 1990 occurred across the income and education spectrum. To reconcile this, other broad changes in labor market outcomes are examined. This research will add to the emerging literature which argues that earnings variability increased in the 1980s. The trends in earnings variability are documented and analyzed using panel data from the National Longitudinal Surveys and matched Current Population Surveys. The recent investment literature emphasizes the importance of the option value of delay for investments that involve irreversibilities and must be made in an uncertain economic environment. A general prediction is that the option value of delay increases with the degree of uncertainty regarding the costs/payoffs from the investment. These option based models apply equally to an individual's decisions regarding marriage, fertility, and housing. All of these decisions involve significant transactions costs and other forms of irreversibilities. Increasing variability of labor market earnings increase the option value of delaying these decisions. To date, little empirical work has been carried out to test this prediction. This project will take an important step in the direction of filling in this gap. The research will also significantly advance the general statistical modeling used to study housing tenure decisions. Most of the existing empirical literature on housing tenure decisions is estimated with cross sectional data. It is argued that using panel data and transition models provides a much tighter integration between economic theory and measurement. These models can be simulated to provide meaningful estimates of the stock of homeowners at any given age. It is shown that for variables such as the user cost of housing which vary considerably over time, the traditional estimation methods lead to significantly biased inferences. It is also shown how the econometric framework can be extended to handle multiple housing transitions, and allowing household formation, marriage, and fertility decisions to be endogenous. u»

本研究的目的是实证研究劳动力市场的变化对年轻劳动者的婚姻、生育和住房决策的影响。1980年代和1990年代，初婚年龄和拥有住房的年轻家庭比例发生了重大变化。理解这些发展需要理解年轻人的职业发展如何影响这些其他重要的人生决定。越来越多的文献记载，20世纪80年代美国的收入不平等急剧增加。 有人认为，工人在职业生涯初期的真实的收入前景下降似乎不能完全解释婚姻、生育和住房决定的新趋势。例如，使用人口普查数据表明，1980年至1990年期间，年轻男子拥有住房的减少发生在收入和教育范围内。为了调和这一点，其他广泛的变化，劳动力市场的结果进行审查。这项研究将增加新兴的文献认为，在20世纪80年代的盈余波动性增加。使用国家纵向调查和匹配的当前人口调查的面板数据记录和分析了收入波动的趋势。 最近的投资文献强调延迟的期权价值的重要性，投资涉及不可逆性，必须在一个不确定的经济环境。一般的预测是，延迟的期权价值随着投资成本/收益的不确定性程度而增加。这些基于选择的模型同样适用于个人关于婚姻、生育和住房的决定。所有这些决策都涉及大量交易成本和其他形式的不可逆性。劳动力市场收入的可变性增加了推迟这些决定的期权价值。到目前为止，很少有实证研究来检验这一预测。该项目将朝着填补这一空白的方向迈出重要一步。 这项研究还将大大推进用于研究住房保有权决策的一般统计模型。大多数关于住房保有权决定的现有经验文献都是用横截面数据估计的。有人认为，使用面板数据和过渡模型提供了一个更紧密的经济理论和测量之间的整合。这些模型可以被模拟，以提供任何给定年龄的房主存量的有意义的估计。结果表明，如用户的住房成本随时间变化很大的变量，传统的估计方法会导致显着偏差的推论。它还表明如何计量经济学框架可以扩展到处理多个住房过渡，并允许家庭的形成，婚姻和生育的决定是内生的。 u»