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We examine how the distribution of employment tenure has changed over time. The fraction of workers with short tenure (less than one year) has fallen since the mid-1990s, a trend associated with fewer workers cycling among briefly held jobs and an increase in perceived job security among short-tenure workers. Meanwhile, the fraction of men with long tenure (20 years or more) has declined markedly, partly due to the secular shift away from the manufacturing sector and the decline in unionization, as well as an increase in mid-career separations during the 1970s and 1980s that reduced the likelihood of reaching long tenure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the financially vulnerable groups is older people, who receive little attention in the financial inclusion literature. The elderly is financially excluded in Thailand, an emerging economy with high financial inclusion and rapid aging of the population. Using the Findex survey data 2017, we construct financial inclusion (FI) scores with five measures and explore the influence of aging, mobile phones, and mobile money, controlling for individual characteristics. Among non-account holders, more than half are older than 55 years old. A significantly negative association between FI and age/age group is confirmed. We also prove the positive effect of mobile phones and mobile money on FI scores, by 0.48–0.49 percentage points. This study sheds light on the drivers of mobile banking among the elderly with Thai ICT data, showing that low internet access and mobile phone use are the biggest barriers to financial inclusion. No gender disparity in FI is found.

The digital transformation enters all spheres of public currently. At the same time, it does not take place at the same pace and scale everywhere. Bulgaria delays behind the most European countries in terms of the levels of the Digital Technology Penetration Index (DESI). In the presented research, the reasons for the delaying of digitization are sought, especially in the veterinary sector. In this regard, the subject of the present work is the introduction of special digital technologies to help the veterinary doctors. The aim is to reveal the reasons for the delay and to identify recommendations for a more successful introduction of modern software products and platforms in the veterinary sector. An online survey was conducted among 211 veterinarians of different professional categories and veterinary students, which revealed the main problems before the introduction of innovation and digitalization, taking into account that one of them is the aging of the veterinarians employed in it. The recommendations are made to increase their computer skills and digital competence through training, to emphasize the possibilities of digital innovation in the education of veterinary students, to develop special software products to assist veterinary professionals and the benefits for the veterinary sector are outlined from the introduction of digital innovations.

AbstractThis study estimates the effect of COVID-19 on listed small and medium enterprises’ capital structures in Vietnam from 2010 to 2020 by a dynamic panel model with 825 observations. Conducting the generalized method of moments, the findings show that COVID-19 is a significant factor affecting small and medium enterprises’ capital structures. The current results are explained based on the signalling theory. Although the findings are consistent with the previous empirical studies indicating the capital structure and exploring its determinants in diverse ways, these studies are interpreted based on agency theory, pecking of order, trade-off theory. Furthermore, our results are robust to a series of endogeneity checks using an alternative method of regression.

Despite the magnitude and cyclicality of transitions into and out of the labour force, the literature generally considers unemployment as a sufficient statistic of labour market slack. We question this view by jointly estimating natural unemployment and participation rates through a Phillips curve informed by structural labour market flows. Focusing on Italy, a country where flows into and out of the labour force are particularly large, we find that the participation margin accounts for a significant share of total slack and explains one-third of the missing inflation that followed the 2011 Sovereign Debt Crisis. Exploiting a reform that sharply and unexpectedly increased the statutory retirement age and expanded labour supply without directly affecting unemployment, we confirm that neglecting the participation gap biases inflation forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines inter-industry patterns of the employment of older workers over the last 20 years to understand where employment opportunities have grown the most. The underlying premise is that firms strategically align their age mix depending on production function and labor cost parameters. The industries that had the largest increases in the percentage of older workers were those that had the broadest pension coverage and those that made the greatest use of high-tech capital. There also is evidence in 2001–07 that the percentage of older workers increased more in the industries most exposed to increased Chinese imports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first half of the twentieth century, deaths from infectious disease, especially among the very young, fell dramatically in American cities. However, as infant mortality fell and life expectancy rose, racial inequality in urban infectious disease mortality grew. In this paper, we show that the fall in mortality and the rise in racial inequality in mortality reflected two countervailing processes. The dramatic decline in infant mortality from waterborne diseases drastically reduced the total urban infectious disease mortality rate of both Black and white Americans while having a comparatively small effect on the total racial disparity in urban infectious disease mortality. In contrast, the unequal fall in tuberculosis mortality, particularly in the prime of life, widened racial inequality in infectious disease mortality in US cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we consider the initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on family formation and dissolution. We use national microdata covering all marriages and divorces in Mexico, an event-study design and a difference-in-difference specification. Our findings indicate that over March through December of 2020, marriage rates declined by 54% and divorce rates by 43%. By the end of 2020, divorce rates recover back to baseline levels, but marriage rates remain 30% below the 2017–2019 baseline level. Overall, our findings suggest that marital dissolutions quickly recovered (6 months into the pandemic), but at the end of 2020, family formation remained at persistently lower levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates alternative reforms of the public pension system in an overlapping generations model for an open economy facing demographic change. We make progress compared to existing literature on pension reform by modelling individuals with heterogeneous innate ability and endogenous human capital, and by putting (the reduction of) welfare inequality effects of reform at the centre. Frequently adopted reforms such as an increase of the normal retirement age or a decrease of the pension benefit can guarantee financial sustainability, but they fail when the objective is also to avoid intergenerational or intragenerational welfare inequality. Our results prefer a reform which combines an increase of the retirement age with an intelligent linkage between the pension benefit and earlier labour earnings. First, this design conditions pension benefits on past individual labour income, with a high weight on labour income earned when older and a low weight on labour income earned when young. Second, this linkage is complemented by a strong rise in the benefit replacement rate for low ability individuals (and a reduction for high ability individuals). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We project the labor force in the United States to 2060 and contrast the outcomes with comparative projections for Germany. In both countries, the population will age, but the demographic dynamics are fundamentally different. According to our dynamic microsimulations, the labor force in the U.S. will increase by 17 percent between 2020 and 2060 (about 29 million workers) despite population aging. In contrast, the labor force in Germany will decline by 11 percent (about 4.5 million workers). Our baseline projections indicate that an expansion of education will increase the labor force by about 3 million persons in the United States and about half a million persons in Germany by 2060. In several what-if scenarios, we examine the effects of further expanding education and of removing health barriers on labor force participation. Higher educational attainment among those with currently low education has the largest impact on labor force participation, relative to the additional years of schooling. However, health improvements and the labor market integration of people with health limitations suggest a larger increase in labor force participation rates. Using Sweden as a benchmark, we show that reducing the health participation gap would increase the U.S. labor force by as much as 13 million people in 2060 (+6.8 percent compared to our baseline). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ageing and shrinking of the European population influence the shrinking of central places and the hinterland of cities in a spatial structure. Migration also influences the shrinking or growing of spatial units. Various factors influence migration and, thus, spatial units’ demographic, social and economic stability. The age structure of citizens in a spatial unit may change not only due to population ageing but also because these factors influence the migration flows of different cohorts differently, which has not been studied so far.

Over the last few decades world population has undergone an unprecedented process of aging, which has been having a significant impact on the macroeconomy. In this paper we propose a new agent-based macro model designed to study the macroeconomic consequences of aging. Using the model as a computational laboratory we test four hypotheses based on empirical evidence - namely that aging decreases real output and real interest rates, while increases trend inflation and income inequality. In general, performing several sensitivity analysis exercises and controlling for three different pension systems (pay-as-you-go and fully-funded), we find enough evidence supporting the hypotheses, especially in the fully-funded scenario. Moreover, we assess the ability of three policy responses to contrast the effects of aging: increasing the retirement age, reducing the amount of pensions and stimulating technological progress, finding that the last one is probably the best. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world economy has largely overcome the Malthusian challenge, but there are regions such as the Sahel where this challenge remains formidable and food insecurity is exacerbated by multiple threats of climate change, low agricultural productivity, and high population growth. While the interactions among these forces governing long-term food security are widely discussed for policy making in the Sahel, analysis of the comparative magnitude of the forces in the resulting food security outcomes is largely absent. In this paper, we identify the relative contribution of these long-term drivers of food security outcomes in rural and urban Niger into 2050. We then consider three policy scenarios to address food security issues: accelerated investments in agricultural R&D (supply side), reduction of fertility rates (demand side), and market integration. We use a historically validated partial equilibrium model tailored to Nigerien agriculture, with data inputs gleaned from various sources, including household and farm surveys and grid-cell level production data. Our study finds that among growth in population, income, and agricultural productivity and climate change impacts on yields and labor productivity, population growth in Niger will remain the single largest driver of crop output growth and undernourishment in the country. Three-fourths of the increase in undernourished population is projected to be among the urban population. Climate change impacts on agricultural productivity will have differential impacts on undernourishment prevalence among rural and urban population, pushing an additional 2 million people into undernourishment by 2050. The relative impacts of climate change are larger among the rural population offsetting revenue gains from increased crop prices. We emphasize that feasible advancements in agricultural productivity are likely to be outpaced by rapid population growth and climate change setbacks unless simultaneous actions are taken on the demand side. On the supply side, interventions are required in transforming R&D spending into higher farm productivity. Greater integration into regional markets will also aide in mitigating undernourishment prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater labor migration can establish more channels for information flows, directly contributing to faster economic growth and improved innovation and work. It can also expand international remittances, which can be invested by recipient households in home countries in education, entrepreneurship, and improved and sustainable agricultural technologies. At the same time, however, increased emigration of medical professionals and technical workers from poor countries can reduce quality of local services, innovation, health status, and productivity. This analysis attempts to quantify the economic benefits and costs of permitting an immediate 10% increase in the bilateral migration of skilled workers (physicians, engineers or science, engineering, technology, and mathematics workers, and other persons with advanced educations) among the nations of the African Continental Free Trade Area and, more broadly, among 25 global regions. Economic benefits include higher migrant incomes abroad, welfare gains in destination countries associated with higher economic efficiency, spillover productivity gains, and an improved ability of the younger and more skilled working force to support the needs of the wider population, resulting in higher national production. Benefits in source countries include productivity enhancements from two sources: (a) greater access to knowledge associated with more bilateral trade and investment and (b) the ability of local households to invest remittances in productivity-enhancing activities. Welfare losses in source nations include static efficiency reductions and a worsened demographic support capability. In Africa, the benefit-cost ratios range from 3.7 to 6.9; in the global analysis, 17 to 38. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on the results of research on the sector of public relation (PR) agencies in Poland, which is an important part of the entire PR industry. The purpose of this article is to determine the potential of this sector in the post-pandemic period in the light of research results. The analysis focused on key parameters that influence the condition of the PR agencies sector, such as the number of agencies, type of activity, legal form, territorial distribution and financial indicators. Desk research (qualitative methodology) was used as the main research technique. The research was conducted on the basis of available databases and own datasets, such as lists of PR agencies, data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS), records stored in the Bisnode database, data from PR agencies’ websites and others. At a further stage, quantitative analysis of the collected statistical data was applied. The article illustrates the role of PR agencies in terms of the entire PR industry and presents a scheme for building a sampling frame on this type of companies.

The aim of this paper is the detection crisis phenomena in the world grain market in the 2022/23 marketing year (MY), which worsened during the Russia-Ukraine invasion on February 24, 2022. Some countries and international organizations have recently expressed concern that the reduction of grain supply on the world market and the rapid rise in its price. Whether the impact of the destabilizing situation on the world grain market on the exacerbation of hunger is an open question. In order to fill the research gap, the paper tries analysis the global market into grain types between 2008/09 MY to 2021/22 MY and identify on it the shares of Ukraine and Russia. Two methods are used to conduct a comprehensive study of the grain market - fundamental and technical analysis. The analysis of the state and dynamics of the main indicators of the world grain market was carried out with the help of fundamental analysis. The results show that the volume of grain production in the world and the two warring countries are growing. Both countries supply about a quarter of all products in the overall structure of world grain exports. Finally, the result also shows that Ukraine and Russia are key exporters of barley, rye, wheat, and corn to low-income and least developed countries. Grain price forecasting through technical analysis was carried out. Based on the results obtained during the fundamental and technical analysis, three scenarios for the development of the grain market and its impact on the problem of hunger were proposed and given recommendations for levelling of crisis phenomena.

Over the last several years, highly accurate methods of sex selection before conception have been developed. Given that strong preferences for sex variety in offspring have been documented for the U.S., we ask what the demographic consequences of sex‐selection technology could be. Lacking variation across space and time in access to this technology, we estimate a dynamic programming model of fertility decisions with microdata on fertility histories. We leverage the quasi‐experimental variation inherent in the random determination of sex to identify the key structural parameter characterizing preferences for sex variety in offspring. We then simulate the introduction of this technology. While this technology can reduce fertility by allowing parents to efficiently reach their preferred sex mix, it could also increase it. This is because without this technology, many parents may opt not to have another baby given the uncertainty about its sex. Results suggest that these two effects operate simultaneously, but on net, sex‐selection technology ends up reducing the average family size among married women by less than 2% in the steady state, a much smaller decline than the one that would be predicted by alternative methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]