Life-Cycle Choices and the Evolution of Youth Labor Markets

该项目的目的是对年轻工人劳动力市场的变化如何影响他们的婚姻、生育和住房决定进行实证研究。1980年代和1990年代见证了初婚年龄和拥有住房的年轻家庭比例的重大变化。要了解这些发展，就需要了解年轻人的职业发展如何影响其他重要的人生决定。越来越多的文献记载，1980年代美国的收入不平等程度急剧上升。有人认为，工人在职业生涯开始时实际收入前景的下降似乎不能完全解释婚姻、生育和住房决策的新趋势。例如，使用人口普查数据显示，1980至1990年间，年轻男子住房拥有率下降的情况发生在收入和受教育程度的范围内。为了协调这一点，我们考察了劳动力市场结果的其他广泛变化。这项研究将补充新出现的文献，这些文献认为，盈利变异性在20世纪80年代有所增加。收入变异性的趋势被记录下来，并使用来自国家纵向调查和匹配的当前人口调查的小组数据进行分析。最近的投资文献强调了延迟的期权价值对于涉及不可逆性的、必须在不确定的经济环境下进行的投资的重要性。一个普遍的预测是，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。所有这些决定都涉及巨额交易成本和其他形式的不可逆转性。劳动力市场收入的变化性增加了推迟这些决定的期权价值。到目前为止，还没有开展什么实证工作来验证这一预测。该项目将朝着填补这一空白的方向迈出重要的一步。这项研究还将极大地推进用于研究住房保有权决策的一般统计模型。现有的大多数关于住房保有权决策的经验文献都是用横截面数据进行估计的。有人认为，使用面板数据和过渡模型可以在经济理论和计量之间提供更紧密的结合。可以对这些模型进行模拟，以提供对任何给定年龄的房主存量的有意义的估计。研究表明，对于像住房使用者成本这样随时间变化较大的变量，传统的估计方法会导致显著的偏向推断。它还展示了如何将计量经济学框架扩展到处理多个住房过渡，并允许家庭组建、婚姻和生育决定是内生的。U？

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»