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Working Paper No. 68
Transfer and Life Cycle Wealth in Japan, 1974–1984
This paper measures, via the cumulation of life cycle saving method, the contribution of transfer to total wealth accumulation among worker households from 1974 to 1984. The findings suggest that under either the Modigliam or Kotlifoff and Summers definitions of transfer wealth, capital accumulation for these households is largely the result of life cycle saving. […] -
Working Paper No. 67
Employment Restructuring and the Labor Market Status of Young Black Men in the 1980s
The decline in the employment status of young black men relative to their white peers in the post-1970 U.S. Labor market is the impetus for this research. This paper examines the effects of recent employment restructuring on young workers by race and sex. In the case of the least educated group of young black men […] -
Working Paper No. 66
The Transition to a Market Economy
The social transformation of Eastern Europe has proceeded much faster, and the destruction of communism’s legitimacy and efficacy has been more complete, than was deemed possible even a few years ago. A common tenet among the economies now emerging from communism is the lack of significant private wealth, even though there are capital assets that […] -
Working Paper No. 65
A Package of Policies to Permanently Increase Output without Inflation
Economists have searched for policies that concurrently establish full employment with stable prices and high output. The supply side theorists of the 1980s claimed they could produce increased output with lower inflation: The crux of their argument is that "taxes and subsidies create a wedge between the private and social returns from productive activities. As […] -
Working Paper No. 64
Market Processes and Thwarting Systems
This paper suggests that there are two longstanding views on business cycles and economic dynamics: One emphasizes endogenous stability plus exogenous disturbances, while the other focuses on endogenous instability plus institutional ‘containing’ or "thwarting" mechanisms. The latter tradition regards business cycles and economic instability as the natural and inherent consequence of self-interest-motivated behavior in complex […] -
Working Paper No. 63
Wealth Accumulation of the Elderly in Extended Families in Japan and the Distribution of Wealth within Japanese Cohorts by Household Composition
This paper is a critique of the literature on transfer wealth accumulation in Japan during the postwar period. The emphasis is on selected works in two areas that are closely related: the accumulation of wealth by the elderly in extended families in Japan, and the distribution of wealth within Japanese cohorts by household composition. The […] -
Working Paper No. 62
The Changing Contributions of Men and Women to the Level and Distribution of Family Income, 1968–1988
In the past twenty years, the labor force participation and earnings of women, especially married women, have risen dramatically. Over the same period, men’s earnings have increased only modestly, and the distribution of family income has grown less equal. In this paper, we analyze the impact of changes in the level and distribution of earnings […] -
Working Paper No. 61
Changes in Earnings Differentials in the 1980s
This paper analyzes changes in U.S. earnings differentials in the 1980s between race, gender, age, and schooling groups. There are four main sets of results to report. First, the economic position of less-educated workers declined relative to the more-educated among almost all demographic groups. Education-earnings differentials clearly rose for whites, but less clearly for blacks, […] -
Working Paper No. 60
Who Are the Truly Poor?
In this paper we study changes in the prevalence and composition of poverty in the United States over the 1973–1988 period, focusing on the first and last years. Over this period, official poverty rose from 23.6 million people (11.4 percent of the population) to 31.9 million (13.1 percent), passing over a peak in the recession […] -
Working Paper No. 59
The Health, Earnings Capacity, and Poverty of Single-mother Families
Approximately 1.4 million single mothers have substantial health problems. Even if they were to work full time, they would be unlikely to earn enough to adequately provide for themselves and their children. Many of these women are not likely to find employment that offers health insurance coverage for themselves or their children. Employment is thus […] -
Working Paper No. 58
Social Security Annuities and Transfers
The division of social security (OASI) benefits into an annuity portion and a transfer portion has been well documented. I have discussed this issue extensively in previous work (1987b, 1988, 1990, and forthcoming), as did Burkhauser and Warlick (1981) previously. My methodology is quite similar to theirs. The annuity portion is defined as the benefit […] -
Working Paper No. 57
Why Were Poverty Rates So High in the 1980s?
This paper explores the unexpectedly slow decline in poverty that occurred over the expansion of the 1980s. We present evidence on the "stickiness" in the poverty rate in the past decade, compared to earlier decades. The following section investigates several potential non-earnings-related explanations for this fact. There is little evidence that the slowdown in the […]