Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101642
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Army service, employment incentives and veterans' life outcomes: a natural experiment. This project will analyse the complex long-run effects of Australia's conscription ballots on the lives of conscripts and their families. Treating the ballots as 'natural experiments', it will consider direct effects of army service, including service in Vietnam and the effects of incentives created by veterans' compensation on a range of outcomes.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE140100463
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$380,364.00
Summary
Exceptional upward mobility against all odds: Non-cognitive skills and early-childhood disadvantage. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who exceed their parents' social achievements are pioneers. The aims of this project are to introduce this exceptional upward mobility as an alternative measure of economic success and to study its distribution and determinants. The main hypothesis is that these pioneers, apart from being intelligent, have a set of non-cognitive skills that mak ....Exceptional upward mobility against all odds: Non-cognitive skills and early-childhood disadvantage. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who exceed their parents' social achievements are pioneers. The aims of this project are to introduce this exceptional upward mobility as an alternative measure of economic success and to study its distribution and determinants. The main hypothesis is that these pioneers, apart from being intelligent, have a set of non-cognitive skills that make them successful. This will be the first study to analyse these individuals and the personality-related determinants of their life trajectories. It will contribute to understand the various pathways via which non-cognitive skills affect upward mobility, and assess their malleability during childhood or adolescence.Read moreRead less
Origins, evolution, and economic cost of gender norms. Gender norms are slow to change, and key drivers of economic development. This proposal leverages natural experiments to test their causal implications on two major channels of economic growth: the trust shared by individuals and the productivity of firms. It will use cutting-edge empirical techniques to generate novel measures of diversity and inclusion for Australian firms, and will conduct original fieldwork, matching experimental measure ....Origins, evolution, and economic cost of gender norms. Gender norms are slow to change, and key drivers of economic development. This proposal leverages natural experiments to test their causal implications on two major channels of economic growth: the trust shared by individuals and the productivity of firms. It will use cutting-edge empirical techniques to generate novel measures of diversity and inclusion for Australian firms, and will conduct original fieldwork, matching experimental measures of trust and cooperation with variation in traditional male versus female roles. This research aims at improving fundamental knowledge about how cultural norms shape economic outcomes and anticipates delivering practical policy recommendations for more efficient and inclusive economic growth. Read moreRead less
Incentivizing Attendance and Performance at School: A Field Experiment. This project aims to develop and evaluate an incentive-based program to increase the school attendance and performance of Indigenous students to help alleviate current inequalities between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Only 43 per cent of Indigenous Australians graduate from high school compared to 78 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. The study plans to investigate whether high value rewards (e.g. driving ....Incentivizing Attendance and Performance at School: A Field Experiment. This project aims to develop and evaluate an incentive-based program to increase the school attendance and performance of Indigenous students to help alleviate current inequalities between Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. Only 43 per cent of Indigenous Australians graduate from high school compared to 78 per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. The study plans to investigate whether high value rewards (e.g. driving licence instruction) are effective in incentivising year 11 and 12 students. It also aims to examine whether the way incentives are provided — ex-post as traditionally done or ex-ante in the form of a trust-based contract — increase high school completion rates of Indigenous students where previous incentive schemes have failed.Read moreRead less
Intergenerational Disadvantage: Causes, Pathways, and Consequences. This Project aims to prevent poor Australian children from becoming poor adults by developing scientific evidence and creative policy approaches to overcome entrenched disadvantage. The Project will generate new knowledge on how social assistance dependence is linked across generations using new Australian data. Expected outcomes are the identification of i) the causal link between parents’ and children’s social assistance depen ....Intergenerational Disadvantage: Causes, Pathways, and Consequences. This Project aims to prevent poor Australian children from becoming poor adults by developing scientific evidence and creative policy approaches to overcome entrenched disadvantage. The Project will generate new knowledge on how social assistance dependence is linked across generations using new Australian data. Expected outcomes are the identification of i) the causal link between parents’ and children’s social assistance dependence; ii) the pathways through which youths overcome disadvantage; and iii) the role of family structure in transmitting disadvantage. Transforming the evidence base, the findings will have significant benefits in redesigning the Australian social safety net, promoting social and economic mobility.Read moreRead less
Mandatory pre-funded retirement income schemes: Best policy and practice. This innovative project aims to leverage in-depth knowledge of two mandatory pre-funded retirement income systems, Australia and the Netherlands to create new findings to significantly advance policy and practice in these two countries. Mandatory pre-funded retirement income structures adopt a range of approaches regarding choice and drawdown structures. This project aims to use survey and experimental techniques, and stoc ....Mandatory pre-funded retirement income schemes: Best policy and practice. This innovative project aims to leverage in-depth knowledge of two mandatory pre-funded retirement income systems, Australia and the Netherlands to create new findings to significantly advance policy and practice in these two countries. Mandatory pre-funded retirement income structures adopt a range of approaches regarding choice and drawdown structures. This project aims to use survey and experimental techniques, and stochastic life-cycle models, to investigate comparative choice frameworks and the menu of retirement income products in the two countries. It aims to deliver models for improved policy and retirement income designs, producing outcomes which aim to generate global benefit as more countries move towards this pension paradigm.Read moreRead less
Family Responses to Economic Shocks and Policy Reforms over the Life Cycle. Australian social and economic policy requires a sophisticated understanding of the interaction of public policy with recent demographic trends, including the growth in fragile families and the ageing population. This project aims to develop innovative dynamic models of family decision-making to produce new estimates of the impact of significant Australian public policy reforms on labour supply, fertility, family formati ....Family Responses to Economic Shocks and Policy Reforms over the Life Cycle. Australian social and economic policy requires a sophisticated understanding of the interaction of public policy with recent demographic trends, including the growth in fragile families and the ageing population. This project aims to develop innovative dynamic models of family decision-making to produce new estimates of the impact of significant Australian public policy reforms on labour supply, fertility, family formation, and retirement decisions. Structural econometric models will be used to simulate the effects of variation in the design of the Parenting Payment Single, Age Pension and other programs. The project findings are expected to generate economic and social policy recommendations.Read moreRead less