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Essays on Model Uncertainty and Model Averaging
Skolkova, Alena ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Lafférs, Lukáš (referee) ; Mikusheva, Anna (referee)
In the first chapter of this dissertation I study the properties of a model averaging estimator with ridge regularization. I propose the ridge-regularized modifications of Mallows model averaging (Hansen, 2007, Econometrica}, 75) and heteroskedasticity-robust Mallows model averaging (Liu and Okui, 2013, The Econometrics Journal, 16) to leverage the capabilities of averaging and ridge regularization simultaneously. Via a simulation study, I examine the finite-sample improvements obtained by replacing least-squares with a ridge regression. Ridge-based model averaging is especially useful when one deals with sets of moderately to highly correlated predictors, because the underlying ridge regression accommodates correlated predictors without blowing up estimation variance. A two-model theoretical example shows that the relative reduction of mean squared error is increasing with the strength of the correlation. I also demonstrate the superiority of the ridge- regularized modifications via empirical examples focused on wages and economic growth. The second chapter focuses on the use of elastic-net regression for instrumental variable estimation. I investigate the relative performance of the lasso and elastic-net estimators for fitting the first-stage as part of IV estimation. Because elastic-net includes...
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Do we have too many university graduates? What lifetime earnings profiles can tell us
Hrendash, Taras ; Jurajda, Štěpán ; Münich, Daniel ; Doleželová, P. ; Mrázek, P.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Czech Republic has experienced dynamic growth in its university-educated workforce. This trend was initially driven by the foundation and growth of private universities in the Czech Republic in the late 1990s, followed from 2005 onwards by a substantial opening-up of public universities. The share of the population aged between 30 and 34 with higher education has more than doubled over the course of three decades. From an economic perspective, do we now have too many university graduates in the Czech Republic? The answer to this question is crucial when it comes to deciding the extent to which the state should – financially or otherwise – support future growth in the numbers of university students and graduates, and how much it should encourage citizens to pursue initial or lifelong university education. The answer is also an important factor in debates about the need to increase the currently low financial support available to university students. The study we present here provides descriptive statistics about employees’ wages and salaries, which serve as a useful basis for any discussion of this important question. We compare trends in university-educated employees’ wages and salaries for cohorts born in 1960, 1970, 1980 and 1990. The shares of university graduates in these cohorts differ substantially. Further, we observe trends in the earnings ratio for these cohorts between university- and secondary-educated employees, i.e., the percentage differences between the mean or median earnings of employees with higher education and those of employees with only secondary education.
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Parenting of Sons or Daughters, Household Decisions Making and Family Characteristics
Maksymovych, Sergii ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Kabátek, Jan (referee) ; Palguta, Ján (referee)
The first chapter examines how household living conditions are related to alternative allocations of control over decision-making in the household. This study has three main findings. First, more equally shared decision-making in a household is closely connected to better household living conditions. Second, while predominant decision-control accrued to any of partners is correlated with worse living conditions, this is more pronounced for women rather than men. Finally, the distribution of the mode of decision-making in households does not strongly predict the regime of family finances. The second chapter contributes to the body of research indicating the presence of a parental preference for a particular gender of children. The main objective of this paper is to test between the two main explanations for the existence of such preference, namely differences in the costs of raising sons and daughters versus the gender bias (corresponding to parental utility derived from a child's gender or from characteristics exclusive to that gender). Our evidence corroborates the cost difference explanation in countries exhibiting daughter preference. In the third chapter, I obtain three findings regarding the impact of the first-born child's gender on family stability. First, couples who have a first-born...
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Essays in Applied Econometrics
Bělín, Matěj ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Guzi, Martin (referee) ; Böheim, René (referee)
These three chapters contain three applications of econometric techniques on empirical data describing the behavior of networks of actors. Chapter 1 shows that much of the commonly reported decline in international trade associated with increasing distance between countries is attributable to cultural (in-)compatibility among trading partners. The estimates show that cultural closeness is nearly as important for trade as is geographical proximity. Chapter 2 investigates the imposition of sanctions by the Western coalition against Russia over the annexation of Crimea, showing their limited impact compared to Russian counter-sanctions. These results align with the theoretical literature emphasizing the difficulty of balancing political interests in punishing the target country and the economic interests of domestic voters and firms. The final chapter studies small groups of prisoners during WWII and reveals how the presence of friends increased chances of surviving in concentration camps.
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Essays in Applied Economics
Afunts, Geghetsik ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Walther, Selma (referee) ; Kocharkov, Georgi (referee)
The first chapter of this dissertation investigates whether the introduction of unilateral divorce legislation (UDL), which started in the late 1960s af- fected the educational structure of marriage. Based on marriage and divorce certificate data covering 1970-1988, we (Štěpán Jurajda and I) provide new evidence on the evolution of the educational structure of marriage inflows (newlyweds) and outflows (divorces). We estimate a difference-in-differences model to gauge the impact of UDL on both of these flows. While UDL did not contribute to rising homogamy (the tendency towards married partners having the same level of education), it did affect the educational structure of marriage: it made generally unstable hypogamous couples (women marrying less educated partners) less likely to divorce, and it made homogamous cou- ples more stable than hypergamous ones (women marrying more educated partners). The second chapter argues that the changes in family regulations that affect marriage stability could also affect fertility decisions and thereby the fertility differentials of homogamous couples (with the same education level) versus non-homogamous couples. It has been shown that the introduction of joint custody laws (JCLs) in the US affected family decisions, including overall fertility, but there is...
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Essays in Empirical Economics of the Family
Hrehová, Kristína ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Haapanen, Mika (referee) ; Kahanec, Martin (referee)
This thesis studies important family decisions empirically. Families are confronted with various challenges and shocks including long commutes, insolvency and unwanted pregnancies. I study how different actors including firms, state officials and NGOs influence family outcomes when dealing with these challenges. This thesis consist of three quasi-experimental empirical studies that approximate causal impacts of shocks, including firm relocations, aid center locations and mailing campaigns, on important outcomes of family stability, personal bankruptcy rates and reproductive rates. This thesis contributes to existing empirical research by proposing novel identification strategies and using new sources of variation. In the first chapter we study the impact of firm relocations on commuting distance and the probability of married and cohabiting couples with children separating. We use Swedish register data for 2010- 2016 and select employees of relocating firms with one workplace and more than 10 employees. Focusing on this sample allows us to use plausibly-exogenous variation in the commuting distance arising from the relocation. We extend the literature on the effect of commuting on relationship stability by reducing the possibility for unobserved time-variant factors to bias our estimates. While...
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Voting under debtor distress
Grossmann, Jakub ; Jurajda, Štěpán
There is growing evidence on the role of economic conditions in the recent successes of populist and extremist parties. However, little is known about the role of over-indebtedness, even though debtor distress has grown in Europe following the financial crisis. We study the unique case of the Czech Republic, where by 2017, nearly one in ten citizens had been served at least one debtor distress warrant even though the country consistently features low unemployment. Our municipality-level difference-in-differences analysis asks about the voting consequences of a rise in debtor distress following a 2001 deregulation of consumer-debt collection. We find that debtor distress has a positive effect on support for (new) extreme right and populist parties, but a negative effect on a (traditional) extreme-left party. The effects of debtor distress we uncover are robust to whether and how we control for economic hardship, the effects of debtor distress and economic hardship are of similar magnitude, but operate in opposing directions across the political spectrum.
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Who divorces whom: unilateral divorce legislation and the educational structure of marriage
Afunts, Geghetsik ; Jurajda, Štěpán
There is evidence that the introduction of unilateral divorce legislation (UDL) starting in the late 1960s increased US divorce rates. We ask whether making divorce easier affected the educational structure of marriage. Based on marriage and divorce certificate data covering 1970-1988, we provide new evidence on the evolution of the educational structure of marriage inflows (newlyweds) and outflows (divorces), and estimate UDL difference-in-differences effects on both flows. While UDL did not contribute to rising homogamy (the tendency towards married partners having the same level of education), it did affect the educational structure of marriage: it made generally unstable hypogamous couples (women marrying less educated partners) less likely to divorce, and it made homogamous couples more stable than hypergamous ones (women marrying more educated partners).
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Job Reallocation and Wage Structure in the Czech Republic Based on ISPV Data
Smirnov, Maksim ; Jurajda, Štěpán (advisor) ; Korovkin, Vasily (referee)
A component of labor dynamics is attributed to job reallocation. Specifically, job destruction and job creation indicate the structural changes in the labor market and the economy in general. The rates of creation and destruction of occupations differ by industry and reflect the dynamics of the economy. In this paper I employ a job reallocation framework to investigate the structural employment dynamics in the Czech Republic from 2014-2016. I use cross-industry comparisons of job destruction, job creation and job reallocation rates to provide a big picture of the Czech economy via labor market dynamics. Further, I conduct more detailed regional-level analysis of job flows in various industries. I also study wage structure at firm- industry- group-of-industry- and regional- level. The analysis of both job flows and wage dynamics is useful for a more comprehensive assessment of the labor market dynamics. Among other results, I show that manufacturing and trade sectors grew fastest on average in the Czech Republic in 2014-2016. Non- service sectors except for manufacturing consistently shrank on average in 2014-2016. Wages evolved similarly across the majority of industries and grew for all quantiles of the wage distribution. I also find evidence of a strong negative relation between firm-level job...
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