Robert J Willis
Biographic Data
| ID | 104932 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert J Willis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert J |
| FAMILY NAME | Willis |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIS R J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 769 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Providing continuity of care for people living with noncommunicable diseases in humanitarian settings
We recommend that humanitarian actors continue the work underway with the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health to align with and strengthen health system inputs, including supporting health governance through the accreditation process, exploring new funding mechanisms, strengthening the workforce via task sharing and training, supporting the medication supply chain, improving access to facilities and service quality, and supporting the development,…
A Comparison of Subjective and Objective Job Demands and Fit With Personal Resources as Predictors of Retirement Timing in a National U.S. Sample
Population aging and attendant pressures on public budgets have spurred considerable interest in understanding factors that influence retirement timing. A range of sociodemographic and economic characteristics predict both earlier and later retirement. Less is known about the role of job characteristics on the work choices of older workers. Researchers are increasingly using the subjective ratings of job characteristics available in the Health an…
Inappropriate Confidence and Retirement Planning
Financial decisions about investing and saving for retirement are increasingly complex, requiring financial knowledge and confidence in that knowledge. Few studies have examined whether direct assessments of individuals' confidence are related to the outcomes of their financial decisions. Here, we analyzed data from a national sample recruited through RAND's American Life Panel (ALP), an internet panel of U.S. adults aged 18 to 88. We examined th…
Financial Decision Making and Cognition in a Family Context
In this paper, we studied the association of cognitive traits and in particular numeracy of both spouses on financial outcomes of the family. We found significant effects, particularly for numeracy for financial and non-financial respondents alike, but much larger effects for the financial decision maker in the family. We also examined who makes these financial decisions in the family and why. Once again, cognitive traits such as numeracy were an…
Mental Retirement
Early retirement appears to have a significant negative impact on the cognitive ability of people in their early 60s that is both quantitatively important and causal. We obtain this finding using cross-nationally comparable survey data from the United States, England, and Europe that allow us to relate cognition and labor force status. We argue that the effect is causal by making use of a substantial body of research showing that variation in pen…
Prevalence of Dementia in the United States
Aim: To estimate the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias in the USA using a nationally representative sample. Methods: The Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study sample was composed of 856 individuals aged 71 years and older from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study (HRS) who were evaluated for dementia using a comprehensive in-home assessment. An expert consensus panel used this information to assign a …
The Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study
Objective: We describe the design and methods of the Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study (ADAMS), a new national study that will provide data on the antecedents, prevalence, outcomes, and costs of dementia and ‘cognitive impairment, not demented’ (CIND) using a unique study design based on the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study (HRS). We also illustrate potential uses of the ADAMS data and provide information to interested re…
DBA Examination Procedures and Protocols
This paper explores the examination procedures and protocols for the DBA degree through a survey of universities offering the degree in Australia. The findings indicate general consistency among institutions in understanding the differences between a DBA and PhD, and a relatively uniform acceptance of key criteria for assessment of the DBA. However, in some instances the information provided to examiners of DBA theses was either unavailable or li…
Who Becomes a Stockholder? Expectations, Subjective Uncertainty, and Asset Allocation
We develop a model of portfolio selection with subjective uncertainty and learning in order to explain why some people hold stocks while others don't. We model heterogeneity in information directly, which is an alternative to the existing explanations that emphasized heterogeneity in transaction costs of investment. We plan to calibrate the model to survey data (when available) on people's perception about the distribution of stock market returns…
Informal Caregiving for Diabetes and Diabetic Complications Among Elderly Americans
Diabetes imposes a substantial burden on elderly individuals, their families, and society, both through increased rates of disability and the significant time that informal caregivers must spend helping address the associated functional limitations. Future evaluations of the costs of diabetes, and the cost-effectiveness of diabetes interventions, should consider the significant informal caregiving costs associated with the disease
How Americans Responded
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a group of social scientists at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) gathered to consider how they might employ their talents to help the country after the shocking events of that morning. The group included economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, demographers, and survey methodologists. Based upon their previous research experience, each of them proposed hypotheses on asp…
Patterns of Intergenerational Transfers in Southeast Asia
This article explores motivations for intergenerational exchanges of time and money using data from Indonesia. The extent of exchange and underlying motivations differ across families but substantial evidence supports the theory that transfers within families serve as insurance for family members. The results also suggest that between some parents and children money is exchanged for time. Additionally, some evidence is consistent with the idea th…
National estimates of the quantity and cost of informal caregiving for the elderly with dementia
A Theory of Out‐of‐Wedlock Childbearing
In 1960, marriage was a virtual precondition for childbearing. By 1997, out‐of‐wedlock births accounted for 26 percent of fertility among whites and 69 percent among blacks. This paper presents a model that integrates economic theories of fertility and marriage to help understand the growth of out‐of‐wedlock childbearing. In the theory, fathers can shift the costs of child rearing to single mothers. If females are in excess supply and have suffic…
The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults
Linda A. Wray, A. Regula Herzog, Robert J. Willis, Robert B. Wallace, The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 271-294
Chapter 7 The economics of fertility in developed countries
Match Quality, New Information, and Marital Dissolution
"This article investigates the role of surprises in marital dissolution [in the United States]. Surprises consists of changes in the predicted earning capacity of either spouse. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 is used. We find that an unexpected increase in the husband's earning capacity reduces the divorce hazard, while an unexpected increase in the wife's earning capacity raises the divorce hazard. Cou…
The Partners of Welfare Mothers
Motives for intergenerational transfers
In this paper we discuss a number of hypotheses about motives for intergenerational transfers within the family. We use data on time and money transfers between generations in Malaysia, where there is neither Social Security nor Medicare, to explore these hypotheses empirically. We find evidence supporting the hypotheses that children are an important source of old age security and that old age security is, in part, children s repayment for paren…
Economic Approaches to Understanding Nonmarital Fertility
This book chapter presents a strategy for modeling nonmarital fertility and marriage as separate decisions by gender. The growth of nonmarital fertility in the US and the differences by race and socioeconomic status are explained in a model by Willis (1995) on the labor market experiences of men and women. Nonmarital childbearing can be explained by the balance between mens ability to take advantage of womens willingness and ability to raise thei…
Intergenerational Educational Mobility
Lee A. Lillard, Robert J. Willis, Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Effects of Family and State in Malaysia, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 29, No. 4, Special Issue: The Family and Intergenerational Relations (Autumn, 1994), pp. 1126-1166
Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Support in Taiwan
This study focuses on married children's financial support for their parents in Taiwan. It is often assumed that economic and social changes accompanying industrialization will drastically weaken parental power and thus reduce the support from adult children to parents. The data in this article, however, show that the vast majority of married children, both sons and daughters, provided net financial suppor for their parents during the previous ye…
Daughters, Education, and Family Budgets Taiwan Experiences
Growth in the education of the labor force is one of the most important determinants of economic growth, and the distribution by sex is a key determinant of gender inequality. In this paper, we examine how parents choose to invest in sons' versus daughters' education and the consequences of these choices for women's life chances. We explore this issue with retrospective data on the life cycle and family behavior of Taiwanese individuals who came …
The triumph of humanity
Chapter 10 Wage determinants
A New Approach to the Economic Theory of Fertility Behavior
Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Support in Taiwan
This study focuses on married children's financial support for their parents in Taiwan. It is often assumed that economic and social changes accompanying industrialization will drastically weaken parental power and thus reduce the support from adult children to parents. The data in this article, however, show that the vast majority of married children, both sons and daughters, provided net financial suppor for their parents during the previous ye…
Education and Self-Selection
A structural model of the demand for college attendance is derived from the theory of comparative advantage and recent statistical models of self-selection and unobserved components. Estimates from NBEr-Thorndike data strongly support the theory. First, expected lifetime earnings gains influence the decision to attend college. Second, those who did not attend college would have earned less than measurably similar people who did attend, while thos…
A Theory of Out‐of‐Wedlock Childbearing
In 1960, marriage was a virtual precondition for childbearing. By 1997, out‐of‐wedlock births accounted for 26 percent of fertility among whites and 69 percent among blacks. This paper presents a model that integrates economic theories of fertility and marriage to help understand the growth of out‐of‐wedlock childbearing. In the theory, fathers can shift the costs of child rearing to single mothers. If females are in excess supply and have suffic…
Patterns of Intergenerational Transfers in Southeast Asia
This article explores motivations for intergenerational exchanges of time and money using data from Indonesia. The extent of exchange and underlying motivations differ across families but substantial evidence supports the theory that transfers within families serve as insurance for family members. The results also suggest that between some parents and children money is exchanged for time. Additionally, some evidence is consistent with the idea th…
Motives for intergenerational transfers
In this paper we discuss a number of hypotheses about motives for intergenerational transfers within the family. We use data on time and money transfers between generations in Malaysia, where there is neither Social Security nor Medicare, to explore these hypotheses empirically. We find evidence supporting the hypotheses that children are an important source of old age security and that old age security is, in part, children s repayment for paren…
Financial Decision Making and Cognition in a Family Context
In this paper, we studied the association of cognitive traits and in particular numeracy of both spouses on financial outcomes of the family. We found significant effects, particularly for numeracy for financial and non-financial respondents alike, but much larger effects for the financial decision maker in the family. We also examined who makes these financial decisions in the family and why. Once again, cognitive traits such as numeracy were an…
Mental Retirement
Early retirement appears to have a significant negative impact on the cognitive ability of people in their early 60s that is both quantitatively important and causal. We obtain this finding using cross-nationally comparable survey data from the United States, England, and Europe that allow us to relate cognition and labor force status. We argue that the effect is causal by making use of a substantial body of research showing that variation in pen…
A Beta-logistic Model for the Analysis of Sequential Labor Force Participation by Married Women
In this paper, we discuss statistical problems that arise in studying sequences of quantal responses (e.g., labor force participation) in panel data on heterogeneous populations (i.e., populations in which there is unobserved variation in response probabilities). Assuming that response probabilities are governed by a beta distribution, we derive a generalization on of the cross-section logit model to enable it to deal with sequences of discrete e…
How Americans Responded
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a group of social scientists at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) gathered to consider how they might employ their talents to help the country after the shocking events of that morning. The group included economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, demographers, and survey methodologists. Based upon their previous research experience, each of them proposed hypotheses on asp…
Inappropriate Confidence and Retirement Planning
Financial decisions about investing and saving for retirement are increasingly complex, requiring financial knowledge and confidence in that knowledge. Few studies have examined whether direct assessments of individuals' confidence are related to the outcomes of their financial decisions. Here, we analyzed data from a national sample recruited through RAND's American Life Panel (ALP), an internet panel of U.S. adults aged 18 to 88. We examined th…
The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults
Linda A. Wray, A. Regula Herzog, Robert J. Willis, Robert B. Wallace, The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 271-294
Economic Approaches to Understanding Nonmarital Fertility
This book chapter presents a strategy for modeling nonmarital fertility and marriage as separate decisions by gender. The growth of nonmarital fertility in the US and the differences by race and socioeconomic status are explained in a model by Willis (1995) on the labor market experiences of men and women. Nonmarital childbearing can be explained by the balance between mens ability to take advantage of womens willingness and ability to raise thei…
Who Becomes a Stockholder? Expectations, Subjective Uncertainty, and Asset Allocation
We develop a model of portfolio selection with subjective uncertainty and learning in order to explain why some people hold stocks while others don't. We model heterogeneity in information directly, which is an alternative to the existing explanations that emphasized heterogeneity in transaction costs of investment. We plan to calibrate the model to survey data (when available) on people's perception about the distribution of stock market returns…
Informal Caregiving for Diabetes and Diabetic Complications Among Elderly Americans
Diabetes imposes a substantial burden on elderly individuals, their families, and society, both through increased rates of disability and the significant time that informal caregivers must spend helping address the associated functional limitations. Future evaluations of the costs of diabetes, and the cost-effectiveness of diabetes interventions, should consider the significant informal caregiving costs associated with the disease
The Direction of Intergenerational Transfers and Demographic Transition
Robert J. Willis, The Direction of Intergenerational Transfers and Demographic Transition: The Caldwell Hypothesis Reexamined, Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, Supplement: Income Distribution and the Family (1982), pp. 207-234
A Comparison of Subjective and Objective Job Demands and Fit With Personal Resources as Predictors of Retirement Timing in a National U.S. Sample
Population aging and attendant pressures on public budgets have spurred considerable interest in understanding factors that influence retirement timing. A range of sociodemographic and economic characteristics predict both earlier and later retirement. Less is known about the role of job characteristics on the work choices of older workers. Researchers are increasingly using the subjective ratings of job characteristics available in the Health an…
The Partners of Welfare Mothers
Providing continuity of care for people living with noncommunicable diseases in humanitarian settings
We recommend that humanitarian actors continue the work underway with the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health to align with and strengthen health system inputs, including supporting health governance through the accreditation process, exploring new funding mechanisms, strengthening the workforce via task sharing and training, supporting the medication supply chain, improving access to facilities and service quality, and supporting the development,…
The Distribution of Lifetime Labor Force Participation of Married Women
A New Approach to the Economic Theory of Fertility Behavior
A Beta-logistic Model for the Analysis of Sequential Labor Force Participation by Married Women
In this paper, we discuss statistical problems that arise in studying sequences of quantal responses (e.g., labor force participation) in panel data on heterogeneous populations (i.e., populations in which there is unobserved variation in response probabilities). Assuming that response probabilities are governed by a beta distribution, we derive a generalization on of the cross-section logit model to enable it to deal with sequences of discrete e…
Dynamic Aspects of Earning Mobility
Abs tract This paper proposes an econometric methodology to deal with life cycle earnings and mobility among discrete earnings classes. First, we use panel data on male log earnings to estimate an earnings function with permanent and serially correlated transitory components due to both measured and unmeasured variables. Assuming that the error components are normally distributed, we develop statements for the probability that an individual's ear…
Meditation to fit the person
Education and Self-Selection
A structural model of the demand for college attendance is derived from the theory of comparative advantage and recent statistical models of self-selection and unobserved components. Estimates from NBEr-Thorndike data strongly support the theory. First, expected lifetime earnings gains influence the decision to attend college. Second, those who did not attend college would have earned less than measurably similar people who did attend, while thos…
The Distribution of Lifetime Labor Force Participation of Married Women
The Reliability and Factorial Validity of the Questionnaire on the Quality of Relationships in Hospitals
An instrument developed to measure communication, collegiality, and climate related to the quality of relationships in hospitals is described. Entitled the Questionnaire on the Quality of Relationships in Hospitals (QQRH), the 62 item questionnaire was administerd to 345 employees at two non-profit, general hospitals. The reliability of the questionnaire was estimated by using coefficient alpha. The validity of the separate scales was evaluated t…
The Direction of Intergenerational Transfers and Demographic Transition
Robert J. Willis, The Direction of Intergenerational Transfers and Demographic Transition: The Caldwell Hypothesis Reexamined, Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, Supplement: Income Distribution and the Family (1982), pp. 207-234
Philosophy in religious health care facilities
Children as Collective Goods and Divorce Settlements
The failure of many divorced fathers to comply with court-mandated child support awards has been identified as a major reason why a growing number of children live in poverty in female-headed households. This paper presents a model that seeks to explain why so many divorced fathers allow their children's welfare to suffer as a consequence of divorce. The point of departure is the recognition that children are collective consumption goods from the…
Chapter 10 Wage determinants
The triumph of humanity
Daughters, Education, and Family Budgets Taiwan Experiences
Growth in the education of the labor force is one of the most important determinants of economic growth, and the distribution by sex is a key determinant of gender inequality. In this paper, we examine how parents choose to invest in sons' versus daughters' education and the consequences of these choices for women's life chances. We explore this issue with retrospective data on the life cycle and family behavior of Taiwanese individuals who came …
Intergenerational Educational Mobility
Lee A. Lillard, Robert J. Willis, Intergenerational Educational Mobility: Effects of Family and State in Malaysia, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 29, No. 4, Special Issue: The Family and Intergenerational Relations (Autumn, 1994), pp. 1126-1166
Sons, Daughters, and Intergenerational Support in Taiwan
This study focuses on married children's financial support for their parents in Taiwan. It is often assumed that economic and social changes accompanying industrialization will drastically weaken parental power and thus reduce the support from adult children to parents. The data in this article, however, show that the vast majority of married children, both sons and daughters, provided net financial suppor for their parents during the previous ye…
Economic Approaches to Understanding Nonmarital Fertility
This book chapter presents a strategy for modeling nonmarital fertility and marriage as separate decisions by gender. The growth of nonmarital fertility in the US and the differences by race and socioeconomic status are explained in a model by Willis (1995) on the labor market experiences of men and women. Nonmarital childbearing can be explained by the balance between mens ability to take advantage of womens willingness and ability to raise thei…
Chapter 7 The economics of fertility in developed countries
Match Quality, New Information, and Marital Dissolution
"This article investigates the role of surprises in marital dissolution [in the United States]. Surprises consists of changes in the predicted earning capacity of either spouse. Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 is used. We find that an unexpected increase in the husband's earning capacity reduces the divorce hazard, while an unexpected increase in the wife's earning capacity raises the divorce hazard. Cou…
The Partners of Welfare Mothers
Motives for intergenerational transfers
In this paper we discuss a number of hypotheses about motives for intergenerational transfers within the family. We use data on time and money transfers between generations in Malaysia, where there is neither Social Security nor Medicare, to explore these hypotheses empirically. We find evidence supporting the hypotheses that children are an important source of old age security and that old age security is, in part, children s repayment for paren…
The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults
Linda A. Wray, A. Regula Herzog, Robert J. Willis, Robert B. Wallace, The Impact of Education and Heart Attack on Smoking Cessation among Middle- Aged Adults, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 271-294
A Theory of Out‐of‐Wedlock Childbearing
In 1960, marriage was a virtual precondition for childbearing. By 1997, out‐of‐wedlock births accounted for 26 percent of fertility among whites and 69 percent among blacks. This paper presents a model that integrates economic theories of fertility and marriage to help understand the growth of out‐of‐wedlock childbearing. In the theory, fathers can shift the costs of child rearing to single mothers. If females are in excess supply and have suffic…
National estimates of the quantity and cost of informal caregiving for the elderly with dementia
Informal Caregiving for Diabetes and Diabetic Complications Among Elderly Americans
Diabetes imposes a substantial burden on elderly individuals, their families, and society, both through increased rates of disability and the significant time that informal caregivers must spend helping address the associated functional limitations. Future evaluations of the costs of diabetes, and the cost-effectiveness of diabetes interventions, should consider the significant informal caregiving costs associated with the disease
How Americans Responded
On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, a group of social scientists at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) gathered to consider how they might employ their talents to help the country after the shocking events of that morning. The group included economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, demographers, and survey methodologists. Based upon their previous research experience, each of them proposed hypotheses on asp…
Economics (22 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (13 works) · Demographic economics (11 works) · Medicine (11 works) · Population (10 works) · Demography (9 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (7 works) · Political science (7 works)