Targeting Fertility and Female Participation Through the Income Tax

We evaluate the effect of a 2003 reform in the Spanish income tax on fertility and the employment of mothers with small children. The reform introduced a tax credit for working mothers with children under the age of three, while also increasing child deductions for all households with children. Theoretically, given the interplay of these two components, the expected effect of the reform is ambiguous on both outcomes. We find that the combined reforms significantly increased both fertility (by almost five percent) and the employment rate of mothers with children under three (by two percent). These effects were more pronounced among less-educated women. In addition, to disentangle the impact of the two reform components, we use an earlier reform that increased child deductions in 1999. We find that the child deductions affect mothers' employment negatively, which implies that the 2003 tax credit would have increased employment even more (up to five percent) in the absence of the change in child deductions.child subsidy, tax credit, female labor force participation, fertility, family policy

The Provision of Relative Performance Feedback Information: An Experimental Analysis of Performance and Happiness

This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individuals' performance and affective response, under both piece-rate and flat-rate incentives. In a laboratory setup, agents perform a real effort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousal and feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, while the treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session. Under piece-rate, performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided. Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content (i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for the affective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and the feeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the average increases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively. Under flat-rate, we do not find any effect on either of the outcome variables.Relative performance, feedback, piece-rate, flat-rate, happiness

The provision of relative performance feedback information: An experimental analysis of performance and happiness

This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individual performance and on individual affective response, when agents are rewarded according to their absolute performance. In a laboratory set-up, agents perform a real effort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousal and feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, while the treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session. Performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided. Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content (i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for the affective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and the feeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the average increases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively.relative performance, piece-rate, feedback, social comparison, happiness., leex

Dynamical Analysis of Cylindrically Symmetric Anisotropic Sources in f(R,T)f(R,T) Gravity

In this paper, we have analyzed the stability of cylindrically symmetric collapsing object filled with locally anisotropic fluid in $f(R,T)$ theory, where $R$ is the scalar curvature and $T$ is the trace of stress-energy tensor of matter. Modified field equations and dynamical equations are constructed in $f(R,T)$ gravity. Evolution or collapse equation is derived from dynamical equations by performing linear perturbation on them. Instability range is explored in both Newtonian and post-Newtonian regimes with the help of adiabetic index, which defines the impact of physical parameters on the instability range. Some conditions are imposed on physical quantities to secure the stability of the gravitating sources.Comment: 11 page

The impact of tax credits on labour supply

One of the principle aims of the Working Families' Tax Credit in the UK was to increase the participation of single mothers. The literature to date concludes there was approximately a five-percentage-point increase in employment of single mothers. The differences-in-differences methodology that is typically used compares single mother with single women without children. However, the characteristics of these groups are very different, and change over time in relative covariates are likely to violate the identifying assumption. We find that when we control for differential trends between women with and without children, the employment effect of the policy falls significantly. Moreover, the effect is borne solely by those working full-time (30 hours or more), while having no effect on inducing people into the labor market from inactivity. Looking closely at important covariates over time, we can see sizeable changes in the relative returns to employment between the treatment and control groups.Tax Credits, Differences-in-differences, Single Mothers.

Institutional Quality and Trade in Pacific Island Countries

This research examines the impact of institutional quality on trade in selected Pacific Island Countries (PICs). Four indicators of institutional quality are chosen: government effectiveness, rule of law, regulatory quality and control of corruption; for six PICs: Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu.Institutional Quality on Trade

Regulation and media monopoly: A case study of broadcast regulation in Pakistan

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Gender Gaps in Unemployment Rates in OECD Countries

There is an enormous literature on gender gaps in pay and labour market participation but virtually noliterature on gender gaps in unemployment rates. Although there are some countries in which there isessentially no gender gap in unemployment, there are others in which the female unemployment rate issubstantially above the male. Although it is easy to give plausible reasons for why more women than menmay decide not to want work, it is not so obvious why, once they have decided they want a job, women insome countries are less likely to be in employment than men. This is the subject of this paper. We showthat, in countries where there is a large gender gap in unemployment rates, there is a gender gap in bothflows from employment into unemployment and from unemployment into employment. We investigatedifferent hypotheses about the sources of these gaps. Most hypotheses find little support in the data and thegender gap in unemployment rates (like the gender gap in pay) remains largely unexplained. But it doesseem to correlate with attitudes on whether men are more deserving of work than women so thatdiscrimination against women may explain part of the gender gap in unemployment rates in theMediterranean countries.Gender Gap, Unemployment Rates