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Economic Demography Field Exam Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley July 26, 2012
There are four questions and you may take up to three hours. Answer all parts of all questions. The questions will be weighted equally in the overall grade. You may use a calculator. You may use a special two page list of demographic formulas that will be provided for you. You may use a two page list of references that you bring yourself. Please be specific as you can in your answers, referring to the literature where appropriate.
Australia introduced a birth bonus program such that starting in June 2004, the government paid $3000 to each mother at time of birth. A recent article has found that this program had a positive effect on fertility starting ten months after it went into effect, and persisting up to the present. a) What relationship between fertility and income is generally observed over the course of economic development, if any? Is relationship evidence that births are an inferior good? Why or why not? b) What relationship would you expect to find between family income and fertility at the micro level in a rich country, if any, and why? c) Taking the results of the study on the birth bonus as given, how would you explain them in the context of the main theories of the economics fertility? d) Discuss the possibility that this birth bonus program might influence marriage and divorce as well as fertility, in the context of the economic theory of marriage and divorce.
Comment on this (hypothetical) statement, agreeing or disagreeing. Be specific: “Health depends on medicine, public health, and biomedical technology. In trying to understand trends and differences in health, economics is just a distraction from the important issues.”
Some analysts view population growth as detrimental to growth in per capita income. Variations in population growth can arise through fertility, mortality, or net immigration, or through the population age distribution inherited from the past (population momentum). We will ignore population momentum for purposes of this question. a. On a priori grounds, would you expect that variations in population growth arising from each of fertility, mortality and net immigration would have similar effects on the growth of per capita income? Why or why not? b. What empirical evidence can you bring to bear on this question? Be specific. c. What important differences are there between these three sources of population growth and their consequences from a welfare theoretic point of view?
Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley
Field Examination in Economic Demography
Question on Demographic Methods
26 July 2012
This is a closed-book examination. Please show your work and label your answers clearly. Answers with decimals should be given with six figures be- yond the decimal point. Useful formulas are given on a separate handout.
Some demographers speculate that the U.S. age pyramid by 2050 may come to resemble a stable age pyramid as Baby Boom cohorts die away. Table A shows two alternative projections (X and Y) of the combined-sex U.S. population in 2045 and 2050 given in millions of people. Imagine that, as an economist, you have been called in to assess the projections and offer an opinion on which would be a more plausible forecast.
a) Basing you examination on the three age groups 0 to 5, 30 to 35, and 60 to 65, present evidence to show which projection (X or Y) is more nearly consistent with stable population theory, and, for this projection, estimate the value of Lotka’s r.
b) Under certain assumptions, the information in Table A can be used to make estimates of some life-table quantities. Briefly state two or three of the main assumptions required, and (step by step) construct esti- mates of 1 q 30 based on Projection X and based on Projection Y. Are both of these estimates reasonable? If one or both of the estimates is unreasonable, explain which of the assumptions you have listed seems most likely to have been violated.
c) Table B shows the relationship between e 0 and 1 q 30 for Coale and Demeny West Model Lifetables after males and females have been combined. Pick what you consider to be the more reasonable estimate from Part (b) and write down the value of e 0 for 2050 that matches it in the Coale-Demeny model.
c) The combined sex value of e 0 for the U.S. in 2010 was around 78 years. Drawing on your general knowledge, hazard a guess at the value of
Department of Economics University of California, Berkeley
Field Examination in Economic Demography
A Collection of Useful Formulas
Growth Rate: R = (1/T ) log(K(T )/K(0))
Exponential Growth: K(t + n) = K(t)eRt
Survival from hazards: lx+n = l(x)e−hx^ n
Gompertz Model: h(x) = αeβx; lx = exp
(−α/β)(eβx^ − 1)
Period Lifetable: (^) nqx =
(n)(nMx) 1 + (n − (^) nax)(nMx)
Age Specific Death Rate:nMx = (^) nDx / (^) nKx
First Age Factor: 1 a 0 = 0.07 + 1.7( 1 M 0 ).
Second Age Factor: 4 a 1 = 1. 5
Survivorship: lx+n = lx(1 − (^) nqx) = lx − (^) ndx
Person-Years Lived: (^) nLx = (n)(lx+n) + (nax)(ndx)
Lifetable death rate: (^) nmx = (^) ndx/nLx
UCB Field Exam in Economic Demography 2
Expectation of Life: ex = Tx/lx
Brass’s Logit System: lx =
1 + exp(− 2 α − 2 βYx)
Leslie Matrix Top Row: nL 0 2 l 0
nFx +^ nFx+n
nLx+n nLx
ff ab
Leslie Matrix Subdiagonal: n
Lx+n nLx
Lotka’s Equation: 1 =
(1/2) (nFxnLx + (^) nFx+nnLx+n) (ff ab/l 0 )e−r(x+n)
Stable Age Pyramid : (^) nKxstable = B(nLx) e−rx
Lotka’s Parameter: r ≈ log(N RR)/μ
