Calendrier du 24 novembre 2021
Development Economics Seminar
Du 24/11/2021 de 16:30 à 18:00
Salle R1.09; Campus Jourdan
VANDEWALLE Lore (The Graduate Institute Geneva.)
Childcare for family welfare: Experimental evidence from Uganda
We report findings from a field experiment in Uganda where women with children aged 3-5 were randomly offered either (i) a childcare subsidy, (ii) a cash grant equivalent in value to the childcare subsidy (iii) both the childcare subsidy and the cash grant. A fourth group of households remain as the control group. After a year, we find that access to childcare has improved child development substantially and increased household income by more than 30 percent. Strikingly, the impact of the childcare subsidy on household income is as large as that generated by the cash transfer. In terms of mechanisms, our data suggest that childcare primarily addresses a time constraint, allowing women to work more effectively and their partners to work more hours, while the cash treatment eases a capital constraint, stimulating investment and women’s labor supply in self-employment. We do not find evidence of strong complementarities between the childcare subsidy and the cash transfer.
Economic History Seminar
Du 24/11/2021 de 12:00 à 13:30
Salle R1.13, Campus Jourdan
WRONSKI Marcin (SGH Warsaw School of Economics )
Wealth inequality in interwar Poland
In 1923 Poland introduced an extraordinary wealth tax. We use internal statistics of the Ministry of Treasury to estimate wealth inequality in interwar Poland. This data source has not been used previously by researchers. There are no estimates of wealth inequality in interwar Poland available in the literature.
According to our estimates, the top 0.01% of the wealth distribution controlled 14.8% of total private wealth. The wealth share of the top 1% stood at 37.5%. The top decile owned 60.7% of total private wealth. Wealth inequality varied strongly across regions.
A comparison of the wealth inequality in Poland with wealth inequality in other European countries in the interwar period yields a diverse picture. The wealth share of the top 0.01% was highest in Europe, the wealth share of the top 1% was in the middle of the European ranking, the wealth share of the top 10% was almost the lowest in Europe. The small elite of super-rich (0.01%) was very wealthy in comparison with the European peers, but the wealth share of the rest of the top decile was relatively low.