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Essays on changes in social norms and their macroeconomic implications

Record Type:	Electronic resources : Monograph/item
Title/Author:	Essays on changes in social norms and their macroeconomic implications
Author:	Giuliano, Paola.
Description:	116 p.
Notes:	Chair: George A. Akerlof.
Notes:	Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-02, Section: A, page: 0616.
Contained By:	Dissertation Abstracts International65-02A.
Subject:	Economics, General.
Online resource:	http://pqdd.sinica.edu.tw/twdaoapp/servlet/advanced?query=3121492
ISBN:	049668843X

Essays on changes in social norms and their macroeconomic implications
Giuliano, Paola.

Essays on changes in social norms and their macroeconomic implications [electronic resource] - 116 p.

Chair: George A. Akerlof.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Berkeley, 2003.

Two essays investigate how family structure and family background determine living arrangements and educational choices in Mediterranean Europe. The first essay proposes an explanation based on how the change in norms brought about by the sexual revolution (including changed attitudes toward sexual behavior) interacted with different family types to explain the increase in the fraction of adults living with their parents in Mediterranean Europe. In Northern Europe, where family ties are weak, children continue to live by choice out of their parents' home. The sexual revolution had a negligible impact for this family system. On the contrary, the same shock had a major impact in Southern Europe, where family ties are strong and children by choice live now at home. Such an explanation can easily explain both the shift in living arrangements over time and also observed North-South differentials. It receives support from data on the living arrangements of second-generation immigrants in the US. Both in 1970 and in 2000, by country of origin, the US living arrangements of second-generation immigrants mimic the European changes. This duplication of the European pattern in a neutral environment, with the same unemployment benefits, the same welfare code, and the same macroeconomic conditions suggests a major role in determining living arrangements for what is common between the immigrants and their mother country; i.e. a shock that affected immigrants and their European counterpart similarly. The implications in explaining the decline in Mediterranean fertility are also discussed. The second essay analyzes the impact of family background on high school choices and academic performance in college. Using survey data on a cohort of high school graduates in Italy, I estimate the impact of family background on choice of high school and also the impact of high school type (general versus technical) on academic performance. The empirical evidence suggests that, once poor children go to general high schools, they are as successful as students from rich families. Family background is instead crucial for the choice of high school, dragging many talented students into the wrong type of high school, reducing the probability of going to college at a later stage. Once at university, the performance depends crucially on general high school attendance and personal ability, whereas no effect can be found for family background. These results are critical for the impact of the reform of secondary high education, which will be implemented in the near future. By deepening the separation between generalist and vocational tracks, this reform might have the effect of increasing the role of parental backgrounds in shaping individual lives.

ISBN: 049668843XSubjects--Topical Terms:

212429
Economics, General.

Essays on changes in social norms and their macroeconomic implications
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