Recent iber_ceda items

Hispanic Names, Acculturation, and Health

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The Hispanic Health Paradox is that despite their disadvantaged socioeconomic status, Hispanics in the U.S. experience mortality outcomes that are similar to those of non-Hispanic whites. Why being Hispanic is protective remains an active subject of research. In this paper, we explore how a novel, continuous metric of Hispanic identity based on an individual’s first name helps us better understand health among Hispanics in the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a rich dataset of Americans aged 50 and older. We document and characterize the Hispanic Health Paradox in mortality and health status in the HRS, and we examine the information contained within first names. We uncover a striking asymmetry in how the Hispanicity of the first name is associated with health outcomes and to a lesser extent with health inputs. For foreign-born Hispanics, a more Hispanic first name often signals healthier outcomes; but for native-born Hispanics, the reverse is true. The evidence is consistent...

A new look at immigration and employment in the U.S. since 2005

Sat, 9 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The foreign-born share of the U.S. population has been gradually rising in recent decades and is approaching its historic maximum. Areas that have not traditionally received immigrants have experienced greater increases in the foreign-born share than have other areas with persistently high levels of immigration. This raises clear questions about the macroeconomic impacts of immigration on native workers. Economic theory suggests that immigration shifts out labor supply, reducing wages for natives in the short run because labor demand is downward sloping, and raising unemployment among natives if wages do not fall. Although theoretically sound and widely cited in the U.S. immigration debate, this static view has received mixed support in the scientific literature. Researchers continue to debate whether influxes of immigrants like the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 reduced wages or employment among native workers in Miami, with a body of empirical evidence that often appears ambiguous.

We...

Average age at death in infancy and infant mortality level: reconsidering the Coale-Demeny formulas at current levels of low mortality.

Tue, 10 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The longterm historical decline in infant mortality has been accompanied by increasing concentration of infant deaths at the earliest stages of infancy. The influence of prenatal and neonatal conditions has become increasingly dominant relative to postnatal conditions as external causes of death such as infectious disease have been diminished. In the mid-1960s Coale and Demeny developed formulas describing the dependency of the average age of death in infancy on the level of infant mortality from data obtained up to that time.

Almost at the same time as Coale and Demeny’s analysis, as shown in this paper, in the more developed countries a steady rise in average age of infant death began. This paper demonstrates this phenomenon with several different data sources, including the linked individual birth and infant death datasets available from the US National Center for Health Statistics and the Human Mortality Database. A possible explanation for the increase in average...

A Modeling Approach for Estimating Total Mortality for Italy During the First and Second World Wars

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Estimates based on official vital statistics underestimate mortality for Italy during the World Wars. This paper uses a modeling strategy to estimate mortality for Italy based on data from both civilian and military authorities. The model uses the same principles as the one used to reconstruct war losses for England/Wales (Jdanov et al. 2005) and can be adapted to other countries even when we lack detailed knowledge of historical events during wartime. The results produce much lower estimates of life expectancy at birth for males during wartime than the previously published estimates that exclude military deaths. For example, in 1917, the former was nearly 15 years lower than the latter (31.0 versus 45.8 years).

Tendencias de Mortalidad en la Población Española

Wed, 19 May 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Tendencias de Mortalidad en la Población Española

Reflections on Inverse Projection: Its Origins, Development, Extensions, and Relation to Forecasting

Thu, 29 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Reflections on Inverse Projection: Its Origins, Development, Extensions, and Relation to Forecasting

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Reflections on Inverse Projection: Its Origins, Development, Extensions, and Relation to Forecasting

Stochastic Forecasts of the Social Security Trust Fund

Tue, 6 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

We present stochastic forecasts of the Social Security trust fund by modeling key demographic and economic variables as historical time series, and using the fitted models to generate computer simulations of future fund performance. We evaluate several plans for achieving long-term solvency by raising the normal retirement age (NRA), increasing taxes, or investing some portion of the fund in the stock market.

Stochastic population trajectories by age and sex are generated using the Lee-Carter and Lee- Tuljapurkar mortality and fertility models. Interest rates, wage growth and equities returns are modeled as vector autoregressive processes. With the exception of mortality, central tendencies are constrained to the Intermediate assumptions of the 2002 Trustees Report. Combining population forecasts with forecasted per-capita tax and benefit profiles by age and sex, we obtain inflows to and outflows from the fund over time, resulting in stochastic fund trajectories and distributions.

Under...

Demographic Change, Welfare, and Intergenerational Transfers: A Global Overview

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Demographic Change, Welfare, and Intergenerational Transfers: A Global Overview

Quantifying Our Ignorance: Stochastic Forecasts of Population and Public Budgets

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Quantifying Our Ignorance: Stochastic Forecasts of Population and Public Budgets

Mortality Forecasts and Linear Life Expectancy Trends

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Mortality Forecasts and Linear Life Expectancy Trends

SPECIAL REPORT: The Growth and Aging of California's Population: Demographic and Fiscal Projections, Characteristics and Service Needs

Tue, 24 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This report is part of a state-commissioned project undertaken after California enacted Senate Bill 910 (Vasconcellos, Statutes of 1999, Chapter 948), mandating the Secretary of Health and Human Services to develop a plan to address the impending demographic, economic, and social changes triggered by the state s aging and increasingly diverse population. The University of California was asked to conduct the data analyses and provide background information needed to formulate this plan. CPRC has been coordinating this effort over the past three years, drawing on research experts from UC and other institutions. A faculty working group, chaired by Professor Andrew Scharlach (School of Social Welfare, Berkeley), helped guide the project. The authors wish to acknowledge Andrew Scharlach s substantial contributions to the substance and structure of this report, as well as his many valuable editorial suggestions at all stages of the writing. The authors of this report were charged...

Why Have Health Expenditures as a Share of GDP Risen So Much?

Mon, 23 Feb 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Aggregate health expenditures as a share of GDP have risen in the United States from about 5 percent in 1960 to nearly 14 percent in recent years. Why? This paper explores a simple explanation based on technological progress. Technological advances allow diseases to be cured today, at a cost, that could not be cured at any price in the past. When this technological progress is combined with a Medicare-like transfer program to pay the health expenses of the elderly, the model is able to reproduce the basic facts of recent U.S. experience, including the large increase in the health expenditure share, a rise in life expectancy, and an increase in the size of health-related transfer payments as a share of GDP.

Population Forecasting for Fiscal Planning: Issues and Innovations

Fri, 13 Dec 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Population Forecasting for Fiscal Planning: Issues and Innovations

Predicting Human Longevity

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Predicting Human Longevity

The Fiscal Impacts of Population Change

Wed, 13 Nov 2002 00:00:00 +0000

The Fiscal Impacts of Population Change

The Fiscal Impact of Population Aging in the US: Assessing the Uncertainties

Tue, 5 Nov 2002 00:00:00 +0000

Population aging, accelerating as the baby boom generations age, will have important fiscal consequences because expenditures on Social Security, Medicare, and institutional Medicaid make up more than a third of the Federal budget. However, the projected fiscal pressures are far in the future, and long-term projections are very unreliable. Our analysis here has two goals: to examine the fiscal impact of population aging, and to do this in a probabilistic setting. We find that the old age dependency ratio is virtually certain to rise by more than 50% through the 2030s, and will probably continue to increase after 2050, possibly by a great deal. Under current program structures, population aging would be virtually certain to increase the costliness of Federal programs as a share of GDP by 35% (±2%) by the 2030s, and by 60% (±15%) in the second half of the century. We project Federal expenditures (excluding interest payments and pre-funded programs) to rise from 16% of GDP in...