Thesis (M.S.)--Baylor University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-55).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / This dissertation evaluates policy-relevant issues in labor and education in developed and developing countries.The first chapter analyzes the effects on high school graduation and other academic outcomes of academic requirements for participation in high school athletics. I use a simple conceptual framework to illustrate the possible effects of the requirement and derive testable predictions. Then, I combine data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) with data on the rules to test the model's predictions. I find that requiring athletes to pass one additional course increased the overall likelihood of graduation among boys by two percentage points but did not affect female students, who at the time had limited access to interscholastic competition. The second chapter (with Josefina Posadas) examines the role of grandparents' child-care provision on mothers' labor market participation. Using the NLSY79 and data from eleven European countries (SHARE), we find significant differences in characteristics of families who rely on this form of child care. Both ordinary least squares and instrumental variables estimates show that the availability of grandparents' care is linked to an increase in the probability of female labor force participation. The third chapter (with Xavier Gine and Monica Martinez-Bravo) studies the labor supply of Indian boat-owners. It uses daily data on labor force participation and the value of catches to test whether the response of labor supply to increases in wages and income is better explained by the conventional framework of inter-temporal substitution or by reference-dependent preferences. This chapter shows that boat-owners' labor participation depends not only on their expected earnings, but also on their recent earnings, supporting income-reference-dependent preferences models. However, the response to changes in recent income is small relative to the response to changes in expected earnings. Furthermore, the results imply that short-term labor supply models should include recent earnings conditional and recent effort as control variables. Since recent earnings are positively correlated with expected earnings and negatively related to the probability of participation, omitting this variable yields downward-biased elasticity estimates.

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Over the past 50 years, women have become important participants in the labor market. With the increase in the number of middle-aged women going through the menopause transition, the question arises as to the effect of this transition on the labor market. Previous studies have shown that reproductive cycles have a non-trivial negative effect on women’s labor market outcomes. Thus, the cessation of these reproductive cycles (menopause) should bring relief for these women. However, another body of literature asserts that the menopause transition itself has a negative effect on women’s mental and physical health and so may have a negative effect on labor market outcomes. This study seeks to explore the effect of the menopause transition on labor market outcomes. The empirical analyses are done using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women, with the key explanatory variables being the menopause transition stages: premenopause, perimenopause, surgical menopause and natural postmenopause. The regressions include a control for whether the woman experienced early menopause and whether she had a hysterectomy. The first part of the study examines the impact of the menopause transition on health using depression and the scores on the activities of daily living as the measures of health status. These analyses use cross sectional data drawn from the 1995 wave of the survey for activity limitations and the 2003 wave for the depression measure. The findings of these analyses indicate that the menopause transition increases the likelihood of depression and functional limitations. The main part of the study explores the effect of the menopause transition on the following labor market outcomes: labor force participation, hours worked, full time employment, wages, and self-employment. Ordinary Least Squares, the fixed effects model, the random effects model, and the family fixed effects (siblings) model are used to examine these questions. The analysis also uses 2SLS to correct for endogeneity of the menopause variables and the Heckman two-step procedure to correct for sample selection bias. The findings show that women in premenopause are less likely to be in the labor force than women in natural postmenopause, even after controlling for life-cycle variables. The results also indicate that there are certain benefits from using hormone replacement therapy (HRT), as women who had surgical menopause and are using hormones are more likely to be in the labor force than women with surgical menopause who are not using HRT. Women in premenopause and women in perimenopause are less likely to work full-time compared to women who experienced natural postmenopause. The findings also show that there are no significant differences in hours worked by women in the different menopause stages. Women in premenopause typically earn more than women in natural postmenopause. Furthermore, women in perimenopause and women with surgical menopause are more likely to be self employed. The findings indicate that, among a generally healthy population, the menopause transition results in an increase in labor supply. However, a wage penalty is observed among women in postmenopause, when compared to women who are premenopause. The implications of the findings are that menopause should not be medicalized but should be viewed in a social and cultural context as the changes that occur during the transition may open up possibilities for positive individual development. Thus the cessation of menstrual cycles brings relief for women and results in an increase in labor supply, albeit one associated with a wage penalty.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-156). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Photocopy fo typescript.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1992. / Also available in print.

The purpose of this thesis is to focus on some of the different decisions taken by taxi drivers. The three main areas considered are when a taxi driver chooses to work, where they choose to work and having chosen when and where, the strategy employed by the taxi driver. The chapter examining the decision on when a taxi driver chooses to work considers whether drivers are consistent with the neoclassical model of labour supply. Existing literature on taxi drivers has suggested taxi drivers behave in different ways. This thesis finds that taxi drivers respond to earning opportunities and are more likely to work when the earning opportunities are better than usual. The decision on where a taxi driver chooses to look for fares uses an experimental approach, putting subjects in the position of drivers choosing locations in a square grid. The location choice is a two dimensional extension of Hotelling’s model. In this particular experiment, Nash equilibrium is not obtained through minimum nor maximum differentiation and the learning of subjects and subsequent performance improvement is slow. Simulation through agent-based computational economics is used to investigate the different strategies taxi drivers can use. The simulations show that drivers can increase their own earnings and reduce the waiting time of potential customers by adopting a strategy which makes use of all the available information. The simulations also show that the effectiveness of a strategy is dependent on the choices of other drivers. This thesis suggests a different approach to the analysis of the labour supply decisions of taxi drivers and makes some recommendations regarding regulation of taxi services. The experimental and simulation chapters contribute to the literature through making use of these approaches in the context of looking at taxi drivers. The experiment and simulation could also be extended into other areas.