Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research - Research Publications
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ItemDemands for childcare and household labour supply in Australia(Blackwell Publishing Inc., 2005)Demands for formal and informal child care are estimated using a bivariate Tobit model. Predicted costs of child care are incorporated in the households’ budget constraint and a discrete choice labour supply model is estimated. Separate models are estimated for couples and lone parents. Increases in the prices and costs of child care lead to reductions in labour supply for lone parents and partnered mothers. Results suggest the average elasticities in Australia are closer to those found in the UK and are smaller than the estimates for Canada and the US. Effects are stronger for single parents and mothers facing low wages.
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ItemDevolved government and public sector pay reform: Considerations of equity and efficiency(ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2005-06)
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ItemYou'll never walk alone: Childhood influences and male career path clusters(ELSEVIER, 2005-08)
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ItemPost-migration investments in education and job search: a family perspective(SPRINGER, 2005-11)
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ItemTemporary layoffs and split population models(Wiley, 2004-01)
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ItemThe supply of qualified nurses:: a classical model of labour supply(ROUTLEDGE TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2005-01-20)
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ItemThe labour market for nursing: a review of the labour supply literature(WILEY, 2003-06)The need to ensure adequate numbers of motivated health professionals is at the forefront of the modernisation of the UK NHS. The aim of this paper is to assess current understanding of the labour supply behaviour of nurses, and to propose an agenda for further research. In particular, the paper reviews American and British economics literature that focuses on empirical econometric studies based on the classical static labour supply model. American research could be classified into first generation, second generation and recent empirical evidence. Advances in methods mirror those in the general labour economics literature, and include the use of limited dependent variable models and the treatment of sample selection issues. However, there is considerable variation in results, which depends on the methods used, particularly on the effect of wages. Only one study was found that used UK data, although other studies examined the determinants of turnover, quit rates and job satisfaction. The agenda for further empirical research includes the analysis of discontinuities in the labour supply function, the relative importance of pecuniary and non-pecuniary job characteristics, and the application of dynamic and family labour supply models to nursing research. Such research is crucial to the development of evidence-based policies.
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ItemEstimating the price elasticity of expenditure for prescription drugs in the presence of non-linear price schedules: an illustration from Quebec, Canada(WILEY, 2005-09)The price elasticity of demand for prescription drugs is a crucial parameter of interest in designing pharmaceutical benefit plans. Estimating the elasticity using micro-data, however, is challenging because insurance coverage that includes deductibles, co-insurance provisions and maximum expenditure limits create a non-linear price schedule, making price endogenous (a function of drug consumption). In this paper we exploit an exogenous change in cost-sharing within the Quebec (Canada) public Pharmacare program to estimate the price elasticity of expenditure for drugs using IV methods. This approach corrects for the endogeneity of price and incorporates the concept of a 'rational' consumer who factors into consumption decisions the price they expect to face at the margin given their expected needs. The IV method is adapted from an approach developed in the public finance literature used to estimate income responses to changes in tax schedules. The instrument is based on the price an individual would face under the new cost-sharing policy if their consumption remained at the pre-policy level. Our preferred specification leads to expenditure elasticities that are in the low range of previous estimates (between -0.12 and -0.16). Naïve OLS estimates are between 1 and 4 times these magnitudes.
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ItemIncentives and the efficiency of public sector-outsourcing contracts(WILEY, 2005-12)Abstract. Outsourcing the provision of traditionally publicly provided services has become commonplace in most industrialized nations. Despite its prevalence, there still is no consensus in the academic literature on the magnitude (and determinants) of expected cost savings to the government, nor the sources of those savings. This article considers the arguments for (and against) outsourcing and then examines the empirical evidence pertaining to whether any observed savings occur and whether they persist over time. In addition, we examine the existing evidence for the ‘redistribution hypothesis’ and the ‘quality‐shading hypothesis’, which critics have used to argue that outsourcing lowers government expenditure by lowering wages and conditions and/or lower quality services. Finally, we consider the impact of contract design on outsourcing outcomes. While the power of incentives is a strong theme in economics, recent work has suggested that high‐powered incentives may be suboptimal for many public sector services, because they may crowd out intrinsic motivation, particularly in instances where agents are highly motivated. We discuss the implications of this insight for the efficiency of public sector outsourcing.
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