This paper constructs and estimates a dynamic discrete choice structural model of female employment and fertility decisions that incorporates job protection and cash benefits of parental leave legislation. The structural model is used for ex ante evaluation of policies that change the duration...

We estimate the causal effects of childcare availability on the maternal employment rate using prefecture panel data constructed from the Japanese quinquennial census 1990-2010. We depart from previous papers on Japan by controlling for prefecture fixed effects, without which the estimates can...

The increasing number of married women in full-time and managerial positions raises the question of whether mothers’ working conditions have any impact on the non-cognitive skills of their children. Using a nationwide child–parent survey in Japan, this study examines the association between...

We examine the impact of a major earthquake that unexpectedly affected the Canterbury region of New Zealand on a wide-range of birth outcomes, including birth weight, gestational age and an indicator of general newborn health. We control for observed and unobserved differences between pregnant...

This paper examines how Japanese wives react to their husbandsf involuntary job loss, and tests the existence of complementarity of a wifefs labor supply to her husbandfs. Utilizing panel data on Japanese households from 1993 to 2004, we found that wivesf labor supply is stimulated when husbands...

We estimate a Bayesian learning model with heterogeneity aimed at explaining the evolution of expert disagreement in forecasting real GDP growth and inflation over 24 monthly horizons for G7 countries during 1990-2007. Professional forecasters are found to begin and have relatively more success...