Income Profiles Research Articles

Affordable housing needs affordable transit

This paper describes a proposal for affordable housing across all income groups on urbanizable mostly greenfield peri-urban sites served by a suburban railway station. Connecting to this arterial transit node, a bus rapid transit system (BRTS) of high frequency would provide a feeder service that penetrates areas too far to be otherwise easily reached from the station. Starting with an income profile of the city’s residents, we estimate what households can afford to pay for housing. Then, assuming cross-subsidized differential pricing of land for different income groups, we determine the financial viability of any particular site. Two specific sites in northern Mumbai are studied for their implementation problems. But the proposal is generic, and with altered assumptions could be applied internationally wherever the context allows.

Malleable and Immutable Student Characteristics: Incoming Profiles and Experiences on Campus

AbstractOur predictive models of student success provide evidence that students’ incoming profiles do not define their destiny. We have found that the learning and developmental experiences that they have after enrollment are far more important in predicting persistence, academic achievement, and graduation. In contrast to immutable student demographic characteristics, we have found that malleable characteristics among students (such as academic habits of mind, sense of belonging, and future orientation) predict student success. Paying attention to students’ development does not detract from their learning. In fact, promoting the highest levels of development among students seems to be what helps them reach high academic goals.

Study of Prevalence of Risk Factors of Obesity and Hypertension among Urban Slum People of Uttar Pradesh

92 male and 80 female patients of obesity were studied. BMI of males was 26 to 30, and in female BMI was 28 to 30. In males 62 (67.3%) and 48 (60%), females were without HTN, in male 30 (32.6%) and 32 (40%) female were with HTN. In males 18(9.5%) were leading sedentary life, 35(38%) were alcoholic 17(18.4%) were smokers, 22(23.9%) were tobacco chewers. In females 38(47.5%) were leading sedentary life, 19(23.7%) were alcoholic 23(28.7%) were tobacco chewers this study urban slum dwells suffering with dual problems of obesity and HTN will certainly help the community medical people to create awareness regarding. risk factors caused by obesity and HTN. As the consequence of risk factors are fatal and cannot be affordable by slum dwellers because of low profile of socio-economic status and Income, moreover slum dwellers work around the clock at the expense of their health which leads to stress and strain, untimely taking food and sleep which are the root cause of HTN and obesity.

Growth, Mobility and Social Welfare

We propose a social welfare function to evaluate a profile of income streams and compare the welfare gain of the actual profile relative to the income profile where the individual receives his first period income in each period. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for the welfare gain to be positive, and show how this welfare gain can be decomposed in a pure effect of economic growth, a mobility effect and a cost due to aversion to time fluctuations given individuals’ ranks in the income distribution. The mobility effect, generated by reranking in the income distribution has two components: a cost due to the time fluctuations in incomes and a benefit, due to the equalization in time averaged incomes. We illustrate the analysis using CNEF data for Australia, Korea, Germany and Switzerland. Our results indicate that the largest component of the welfare gain is the equalization of time averaged income, induced by reranking. After subtracting the cost of mobility due to the increase in time fluctuations of individual income streams, the net effect of mobility remains positive. In countries with high growth (Australia and Korea), the growth effect is larger than the mobility effect, but in countries with low growth (Germany and Switzerland), the opposite holds true.

Impact of a Housing Tax Credit on Local Housing Markets: Evidence from France

Housing Tax Credits are a popular tool designed to increase the construction of affordable housing units for low and medium income tenants. Several papers in the US, however, document the lacklustre performance of such programs that represent an important amount of public expenditures. In this paper, we exploit a quasi-natural experiment in France (the removal of the Borloo and Robien policies on part of the territory with the implementation of the Scellier Tax Credit (STC)), to identify the impact of such policies on local housing markets. We find that the removal of these tax credits decelerated house prices and lowered the vacancy rate in new dwellings without reducing the production of new housing units. Finally, the income profile of tenants in new dwellings remained unaffected.

Implications of Lower Trend Productivity Growth for Tax Policy

This paper considers the implications of a sustained period of low productivity growth for the design of tax systems. While the specific changes needed will vary by country and depend on how other features of the economic environment change, several broad conclusions emerge. First, lower productivity growth will exacerbate future fiscal shortfalls associated with aging populations; even assuming that interest rates are also lower, tax systems may need to collect more revenue per dollar of GDP to support their older populations. Second, with lower productivity growth likely to result in lower wages, labor force participation rates may drop further, bolstering the case for more tax incentives for working. Third, the potentially flatter lifetime income profiles associated with lower productivity growth, along with the possibility that fiscal strains will lead to cuts in government retirement benefits, may warrant increasing tax incentives for retirement saving. Finally, the lower real interest rates that would likely accompany sustained low productivity growth may reduce the future efficacy of monetary policy as a macroeconomic stabilization tool, suggesting that countries would be well-served by building more automatic stabilizers into their tax systems.

Bounded rationality, lifecycle consumption, and Social Security

This paper explores an overlapping-generations model of bounded rationality in which consumers only foresee the future over a subset of their life span. We focus in particular on whether the model can, in general equilibrium, produce a hump-shaped lifecycle consumption profile with a peak that matches data for the average U.S. consumer. For a simple four-period model, we show that an increasing income profile along with exogenously imposed retirement are sufficient to induce a hump. With no other mechanism that can account for a hump besides bounded rationality, the model best fits the salient features of consumption data with a planning horizon of 20 years, which is well-supported by the behavioral evidence found in surveys on retirement planning. Finally, we show that the age of the consumption peak is robust to the introduction of Social Security, mortality risk, and another species of bounded rationality, quasihyperbolic discounting. Moreover, Social Security can be welfare improving with a short planning horizon. We can calibrate the model to jointly explain the timing of the consumption hump and the optimality of the current Social Security system. With quasihyperbolic discounting instead, we can calibrate the model so the current Social Security system is optimal but we cannot also account for the timing of the consumption hump. If we add quasihyperbolic discounting in addition to a short planning horizon, the present bias has a negligible effect in equilibrium.

The savings gap in Hungary

Abstract In a simple cohort model we carry out a projection based on current per capita age profiles of labour income and consumption and combine them with expected future age compositions. We use 2012 Hungarian data. Due to a shrinking and ageing population this exercise predicts a growing gap between labour income and consumption implying that the difference would be covered by asset-based revenues. We apply two balancing items: a windfall capital endowment in the base year, and gradual capital accumulation through higher savings. We also quantify how much the household economy, an integral but unregistered part of a modern economy, can absorb the effects of ageing. In addition, we test against a model using demographic data from 1995. The two decades between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s offered a special demographic opportunity for Hungary and coincided with the botched pre-funding experiment in the public pension system. We demonstrate the potential of this missed opportunity.

IMPLANTAÇÃO DA COMPANHIA SIDERÚRGICA UBU: AVALIAÇÃO DE IMPACTO A PARTIR DA MATRIZ INSUMO-PRODUTO DO ESPÍRITO SANTO

O objetivo deste artigo é mensurar os impactos socioeconômicos da CompanhiaSiderúrgica UBU - CSU, um projeto de siderúrgica integrada para produção de 5 milhões detoneladas/ano de placas, em Anchieta, no litoral sul do Espírito Santo. Dada a dimensão doprojeto, tanto na fase de construção quanto na de operação, e considerando a infraestrutura aele vinculada, seus impactos provocarão alterações na estrutura produtiva, na geração ecomposição do PIB e no perfil do emprego e da renda. A finalidade dessa abordagem éfortalecer os argumentos em torno de uma agenda econômica positiva, já que uma novasiderúrgica, atrelada a um porto e a ferrovias, se apresenta como um fator novo e agregador decapacidade competitiva sistêmica para a economia capixaba.

Le déficit de cycle de vie en France : une évaluation pour la période 1979-2001

National Transfer Accounts (NTA) measure the way in which individuals produce, consume, save, and share resources at each age. They make it possible to identify the periods for which private and public consumption (education, healthcare, etc.) is not funded by labour income, before identifying the transfers between the ages that enable such consumption to be funded. This article presents individual age profiles of consumption and labour income in France, as established using that method, and how they changed from 1979 to 2011. The profiles are also calculated at aggregate age level, highlighting the importance of changes in the demographic structures over time. We also reconstruct partial cohort trajectories, thereby providing a generational reading of the changes. In 2011, consumption by old people was higher than consumption by young people, which was not the case in 1979. The rise in consumption at each age, observed generation on generation, slowed down as from the cohort born in 1950. The range of ages at which labour incomes are received has narrowed, while the age at which labour income reaches its highest level has shifted from 36 to 46 over the years. The increase in labour incomes, observed at each age in the generations from 1930 to 1950, seems to have been interrupted momentarily between the 1950 and 1960 generations, at least at the beginning of working life. It resumed in the generations from 1970 onwards, but to a less pronounced extent. In 2011, the ages at which consumption exceeded labour income, corresponding to a deficit, ran from 0 to 24 and from 59 to 82. With the rise in life expectancy in France, the number of years in a deficit situation at high ages has increased considerably, going from 14 to 24 years between 1979 and 2011. Finally, the labour income and consumption profiles for France are very similar to those of the other European countries.

Under-insurance in human capital models with limited enforcement

This paper uses a macroeconomic model calibrated to U.S. data to show that limited contract enforcement leads to substantial under-insurance against human capital risk. The model economy is populated by a large number of risk-averse households who can invest in risk-free physical capital and risky human capital. Expected human capital returns are age-dependent and calibrated to match the observed life-cycle profile of median labor income. Households have access to a complete set of credit and insurance contracts, but their ability to use the available financial instruments is limited by the possibility of default (limited contract enforcement). According to the baseline calibration, young households are severely under-insured against human capital (labor income) risk and the welfare losses due to the lack of insurance are substantial. These results are robust to realistic variations in parameter values.

FGT Old‐Age Poverty Measures and the Mortality Paradox: Theory and Evidence

Income‐differentiated mortality, by reducing the share of poor persons in the population, leads to the “Mortality Paradox”: the worse the survival conditions of the poor are, the lower is the measured poverty. We show that FGT measures (Foster et al., ) are, in general, not robust to variations in survival conditions. Then, following Kanbur and Mukherjee (), we propose to adjust FGT poverty measures by extending the income profiles of the prematurely dead, and we identify the condition under which so‐adjusted FGT measures are robust to mortality changes. Finally, we show, on the basis of data from 2007 on old‐age poverty in 11 European economies, that the effect of extending income profiles of the prematurely dead on poverty measurement varies with: (1) the fictitious income assigned to the prematurely dead; (2) the degree of poverty aversion; (3) the shape of the (unadjusted) income distribution; and (4) the strength of the income/mortality relationship.

Forestry-based livelihood diversification strategy for socio-economic development of tribes in Jharkhand

To evolve a region-specific forestry-based livelihood diversification strategy for livelihood security and ecological stability, the paper has studied socioeconomic-cum-demographic aspects (population, caste profile, sex ratio, income profile, manpower potential, occupational status, etc.) and natural resource scenario (land-use pattern, forest, soils, etc.) of Bundu block in Ranchi district of Jharkhand. The study has suggested eco-friendly livelihood options like tasar sericulture, lac culture, fruit culture and mechanized sal leaf plate making to develop a precise, region-specific livelihood diversification strategy for socioeconomic development of tribal people. The income and employment opportunities expected from the interventions per annum are: tasar sericulture ( 54.16 lakh, 21100 person-days), lac culture ( 36.88 lakh, 8790 person-days), fruit culture ( 63.58 lakh, 19180 person-days) and mechanized sal leaf plate making ( 40.26 lakh, 36900 person-days). The proposed strategy is likely to yield an income of 194.88 lakh/annum and employment potential of 85970 person-days/annum besides securing the basic needs by mobilizing the existing natural resources. The financial viability of proposed interventions have been worked out by intricate economic calculations of NPV, BCR and IRR. The study has shown that shifting of excessive livelihoods pressure from the existing forest to the proposed strategy would develop sustainable livelihood opportunities for the tribes, reinforce the forest conservation, wastelands reclamation, carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation in the area.

Mortality and morbidity in the 21st century.

We build on and extend the findings in Case and Deaton (2015) on increases in mortality and morbidity among white non-Hispanic Americans in midlife since the turn of the century. Increases in all-cause mortality continued unabated to 2015, with additional increases in drug overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related liver mortality, particularly among those with a high-school degree or less. The decline in mortality from heart disease has slowed and, most recently, stopped, and this combined with the three other causes is responsible for the increase in all-cause mortality. Not only are educational differences in mortality among whites increasing, but from 1998 to 2015 mortality rose for those without, and fell for those with, a college degree. This is true for non-Hispanic white men and women in all five year age groups from 35-39 through 55-59. Mortality rates among blacks and Hispanics continued to fall; in 1999, the mortality rate of white non-Hispanics aged 50-54 with only a high-school degree was 30 percent lower than the mortality rate of blacks in the same age group but irrespective of education; by 2015, it was 30 percent higher. There are similar crossovers in all age groups from 25-29 to 60-64. Mortality rates in comparable rich countries have continued their pre-millennial fall at the rates that used to characterize the US. In contrast to the US, mortality rates in Europe are falling for those with low levels of educational attainment, and have fallen further over this period than mortality rates for those with higher levels of education. Many commentators have suggested that poor mortality outcomes can be attributed to contemporaneous levels of resources, particularly to slowly growing, stagnant, and even declining incomes; we evaluate this possibility, but find that it cannot provide a comprehensive explanation. In particular, the income profiles for blacks and Hispanics, whose mortality rates have fallen, are no better than those for whites. Nor is there any evidence in the European data that mortality trends match income trends, in spite of sharply different patterns of median income across countries after the Great Recession. We propose a preliminary but plausible story in which cumulative disadvantage from one birth cohort to the next, in the labor market, in marriage and child outcomes, and in health, is triggered by progressively worsening labor market opportunities at the time of entry for whites with low levels of education. This account, which fits much of the data, has the profoundly negative implication that policies, even ones that successfully improve earnings and jobs, or redistribute income, will take many years to reverse the mortality and morbidity increase, and that those in midlife now are likely to do much worse in old age than those currently older than 65. This is in contrast to an account in which resources affect health contemporaneously, so that those in midlife now can expect to do better in old age as they receive Social Security and Medicare. None of this implies that there are no policy levers to be pulled; preventing the over-prescription of opioids is an obvious target that would clearly be helpful.

Lifecycle Consumption under Different Income Profiles: Experimental Evidence

We report on a series of economic decision-making experiments exploring how individuals make lifecycle consumption and saving plans when they face different income profiles. We find that for every income profile we consider, subjects on average over-consume in the early periods of life and under-consume in later periods of life relative to the conditional optimum and any sudden drop in income reduces their lifetime utility. We conduct a specification search for a model to explain our data and find that a two-type model with one type consuming the conditional optimum and the other type consuming endowments best fits our data.

Effect of turbulence on the wake of a wall-mounted cube

The influence of turbulence on the flow around a wall-mounted cube immersed in a turbulent boundary layer is investigated experimentally with particle image velocimetry and hot-wire anemometry. Free-stream turbulence is used to generate turbulent boundary layer profiles where the normalised shear at the cube height is fixed, but the turbulence intensity at the cube height is adjustable. The free-stream turbulence is generated with an active grid and the turbulent boundary layer is formed on an artificial floor in a wind tunnel. The boundary layer development Reynolds number ($Re_{x}$) and the ratio of the cube height ($h$) to the boundary layer thickness ($\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}$) are held constant at $Re_{x}=1.8\times 10^{6}$ and $h/\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FF}=0.47$. It is demonstrated that the stagnation point on the upstream side of the cube and the reattachment length in the wake of the cube are independent of the incoming profile for the conditions investigated here. In contrast, the wake length monotonically decreases for increasing turbulence intensity but fixed normalised shear – both quantities measured at the cube height. The wake shortening is a result of heightened turbulence levels promoting wake recovery from high local velocities and the reduction in strength of a dominant shedding frequency.

Computational fluid dynamics modeling of the structural influences on offshore wind measurements at the Cleveland water intake crib in Lake Erie

Installation of dedicated offshore meteorological tower is very expensive due to the water depth and in some locations, icing conditions. However, many port cities have existing offshore structures such as water intake facilities or historical coastal defense structures that could be utilized as a low-cost alternative for wind resource assessment studies. Such a study was conducted using the city of Cleveland’s Water Division water intake facility located 3.5 miles offshore of downtown Cleveland in Lake Erie. Lake Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes and as such can completely ice over during the winter. The water intake crib was installed in 1904 and has a small building on top of the water intake pipe. In 2005, a meteorological tower was installed on top of this building and has been recording wind measurements at 30, 40, and 50 m above the nominal water level. The influence of this structure on the recorded wind measurements was assessed using a computational fluid dynamics model. The assessment was conducted across the eight cardinal and ordinal directions and evaluated as a function of incoming wind profile. The model assumed a neutral boundary condition and the standard power law equation was used to predict the true mean wind speeds and wind shear coefficients. Input wind profiles with programmed wind shear coefficients of 0.0, 0.1, and 0.2 were found to be reduced above the crib structure and resulted in wind shear coefficients of −0.07, 0.05, and 0.17, respectively, at the locations of the cup anemometer measurements. This reduction of wind shear coefficient values was found to be caused by an increase in the wind speed above the building, which affected the lower height measurements more than the upper height measurements. The relationship between the known programmed wind shear coefficients and the lower resultant wind shear coefficients predicted from the computational fluid dynamics model was then used to adjust the experimental measurements to correct historical data. The corrected mean wind speeds occurring during a 2-year period beginning in October 2005 at 30, 40, and 50 m are 6.79, 7.02, and 7.16 m s−1, respectively, as compared to the previously reported values of 7.14, 7.25, and 7.34 at 30, 40, and 50 m, respectively. These values represented the wind speeds which would have been measured using an isolated 50 m meteorological mast positioned directly on the water’s surface rather than atop the offshore water intake building. The wind shear coefficient averaged over the corrected wind speeds was 0.1038 as compared to the previously reported value of 0.0541.

Cohabitation Premiums in Denmark: Income Effects in Immigrant–Native Partnerships

Intermarriage with natives has the potential to enhance immigrant integration, as intermarried immigrants gain access to resources such as language skills, information about institutions and customs, and native networks. Due to these spillover effects, immigrants in intermarriages are more likely to be successful in the labour market. However, a positive relationship between intermarriage and economic integration can also be caused by selection based on unobserved characteristics. In previous studies, spillover effects have only been studied from the time of marriage but could occur in a period of cohabitation before marriage. Using unique register data from Denmark, we are able to identify cohabiting couples to analyse both intermarriage and exogamous cohabitation premiums. We study these effects and address selection in a panel data framework, obtaining a time profile of income in relation to the start of cohabitation. Results show comparatively high premiums for male and female immigrants from countries with lower levels of overall economic development and these income increases are directly related to relationship formation. (Less)

THE STATUS AND CHALLENGES OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING IN SOUTH AFRICA

The industrial engineering discipline in South Africa is examined by introducing the context of the discipline and by revisiting its history. The drivers influencing the context and future of industrial engineering in South Africa are also considered, and the discipline is analysed in terms of the following aspects: university qualifications, employment in industry sectors, race and gender profiles, use and competence in industry, and income profiles. The analysis is based on a recent survey sent to practising industrial engineers, on membership data from the Southern African Institute for Industrial Engineering (SAIIE), and on two internal SAIIE investigations. The study concludes that the success of transformation, particularly in terms of race, has been limited. The results also indicate that there are an almost equal number of black and white industrial engineers, yet the majority of black industrial engineers have technical qualifications, while the majority of white industrial engineers have academic qualifications. The results indicate that this limits the use of black industrial engineers in industry and, consequently, the success of their careers. This in turn means that there are fewer black role models to attract young black students to the discipline. Some preliminary opportunities to unlock the increased transformation of the profession are identified.

The Long Term Settlement of the Bangladeshi Migrants in Australia: Education, Employment, Income and English Language Profiles

A total of 71 Pakistanis, both male and female skilled migrants and who had arrived in Australia, were selected for this study on their long term settlement and changes in their education, employment, income and English language profiles. These migrants were permanently living in Melbourne at the time of interview and could provide detailed information about their progresses in settlement. The study reveals that Pakistani residents in Melbourne have achieved good progresses in areas of further education and training, finding in suitable jobs, increasing in their income and most importantly, in developing their skills in English language. Improvements in those four very basic aspects of settlement were indispensable part of their successful settlement and functional integration into the host Australian society.