林明仁 Ming-Jen Lin​

The "missing women" phenomenon in many Asian countries has previously been regarded as the result of son preference. However, some studies have argued half of the missing women can be explained by infection with Hepatitis B virus (HBV). We demonstrate that the probability of having a male birth is only slightly higher for HBV mothers than for mothers without HBV. The sex ratio at birth rises for the higher birth order and that in families where the first two children are female. Our findings suggest that HBV status has little impact on the missing women phenomenon.

OLS may understate the effect of unemployment on crime because of the endogeneity problem (Raphael and Winter-Ember 2001). In this paper, we use changes in the real exchange rate, state manufacturing sector percentages, and state union membership rates as novel instrumental variables to carry out 2SLS estimations. We find a one-percentage-point increase in unemployment would increase property crime by 1.8 percent under the OLS method, but that the elasticity goes up to 4 percent under 2SLS. The larger 2SLS effect has significant policy implications because it explains 30 percent of the property crime change during the 1990s.

This paper adds in a new assumption, ‘product price’, into the tournament model and shows the convexity of pay structure should become stronger when the produce price increases. Empirical results from a Taiwanese textile company are consistent with the implication.

Empirical evidence for a relationship between democracy and crime has not been investigated. This paper combines several international data sets to show that, compared to non-democratic governments, democratic governments punish major (minor) crime more (less) severely and hence this crime rate is lower (higher). Namely, the effect of democracy on crime is negative for serious crime such as murder and positive for minor crime such as theft. This empirical result is robust across different data sets and estimation methods. A 2SLS method is also used to solve the endogeneity problem embedded in OLS. In addition, GDP has a negative effect on all crime rates. Furthermore, inequality and unemployment increase, while clearance rate decreases, crime. Evidence also suggests that democracy per se rather than transitional or political instability causes the relationship. Using prison sentence length, clearance rates, and prisoners per crime as measures of deterrence, it was found that deterrence can explain approximately 40% of the effect of democracy on crime.

This research note combines two national Taiwanese data sets to investigate the relationships among low birth weight (LBW) babies, their parents' educational levels, and their future academic outcomes. We find that LBW is negatively correlated with the probability of such children attending college at age 18; however, when both parents are college or high school graduates, such negative effects may be partially offset. We also show that discrimination against daughters occurs, but only for daughters who were LBW babies. Moreover, high parental education can buffer the LBW shock only among moderately LBW children (as compared with very LBW children) and full-term LBW children (as compared with preterm LBW children).