Oded Stark
Biographic Data
| ID | 281133 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Oded Stark |
| GIVEN NAMES | Oded |
| FAMILY NAME | Stark |
| SIGNATURE | STARK O |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bonn |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5972-9726 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 81 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1378 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 81 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Altruistic giving and risk taking in human affairs
The purpose of this paper is to provide a general proposition of the relationship between altruism and risk taking. As explained in the body of the paper, we diverge from a result reported in Stark et al. (2022) and provide an expansion and a generalization of a preliminary result reported in Stark (2024). In a broad utility framework, we study the risk aversion of an altruistic person who is an active donor (benefactor) and the risk aversion of …
On a Transformation of the Gini Coefficient into a Well‐Behaved Social Welfare Function
Following Sen’s (1973) characterization of the Gini coefficient as a ratio between a measure of aggregate income‐based stress (“depression” in Sen’s terminology) and aggregate income, we transform the Gini coefficient into a social welfare function rather than having the Gini coefficient feature as an input in a social welfare function as in Sen (1973 and 1997), Sen (1976), and Sen (1982). The “Gini social welfare function” assigns weights that r…
Stress in the air
The modification of social space as a tool for lowering social stress
A note on Sen’s representation of the Gini coefficient
Sen (1973 and 1997) presents the Gini coefficient of income inequality in a population as follows. “In any pair-wise comparison the man with the lower income can be thought to be suffering from some depression on finding his income to be lower. Let this depression be proportional to the difference in income. The sum total of all such depressions in all possible pair-wise comparisons takes us to the Gini coefficient.” (This citation is from Sen 19…
Rank, stress, and risk
The demand for gratitude as a restraint on the use of child labor
We study a parent's demand for gratitude from his child. We view this demand as an intervening variable between the parent's earnings and the incidence of child labor. The demand for gratitude arises from the desire of a parent to receive care and support from his child late in life, while the inclination of the child to provide this support during his adulthood is determined by how the child was treated by his parent during childhood. Specifical…
On a tendency in health economics to dwell on income inequality and underestimate social stress
Measuring income inequality in social networks
We present a new index for measuring income inequality in networks. The index is based on income comparisons made by the members of a network who are linked with each other by direct social connections. To model the comparisons, we compose a measure of relative deprivation for networks. We base our new index on this measure. The index takes the form of a ratio: the network’s aggregate level of relative deprivation divided by the aggregate level o…
Can altruism lead to a willingness to take risks
I study attitudes towards risk taking in cases where a person relates to others positively, namely altruistically. This study is needed because it is unclear how altruism influences the inclination of an altruistic person to take risks. Will this person’s risk-taking behavior differ if the utility of another person does not enter his utility function? Does being altruistic cause a person to become more reluctant to take risks because a risky unde…
A social‐psychological reconstruction of Amartya Sen’s measures of inequality and social welfare
The Gini coefficient features prominently in Amartya Sen’s 1973 and 1997 seminal work on income inequality and social welfare. We construct the Gini coefficient from social‐psychological building blocks, reformulating it as a ratio between a measure of social stress and aggregate income. We determine when as a consequence of an income gain by an individual, an increase in the social stress measure dominates a concurrent increase in the aggregate …
Menopause as a regulatory device for matching the demand for children with its supply
Reexamining the Influence of Conditional Cash Transfers on Migration From a Gendered Lens”
In a recent article, “Reexamining the Influence of Conditional Cash Transfers on Migration From a Gendered Lens,” Hughes (2019) claimed that conditional cash transfers, CCT, limit the likelihood of migration by women, compensating them for giving up an attractive migration option. I question the analysis that lies behind this claim. I argue that in seeking to understand the likelihood of women migrating if they participate in a CCT program, issue…
Community influence as an explanatory factor why Roma children get little schooling
Parents who experience poverty and who want to provide their children with an escape route can be expected to encourage and support their progeny’s education. The evidence that Roma parents behave differently is unsettling. In this paper we test empirically an explanation for that behavior. The explanation is based on a theory (Stark et al. 2018) that can be “borrowed” to rationalize the enforcement of norms of little formal education in underpri…
Turning relative deprivation into a performance incentive device
The inclination of individuals to improve their performance when it lags behind that of others with whom they naturally compare themselves can be harnessed to optimize the individuals’ effort in work and study. In a given set of individuals, we characterize each individual by his relative deprivation, which measures by how much the individual trails behind other individuals in the set doing better than him. We seek to divide the set into an exoge…
Can a deportation policy backfire
"A methodological rejoinder to "Does income relate to health due to psychosocial or material factors
Relative deprivation as a cause of risky behaviors
Combining a standard measure of concern about low relative wealth and a standard measure of relative risk aversion leads to a novel explanation of variation in risk-taking behavior identified and documented by social psychologists and economists. We obtain two results: (1) Holding individual i’s wealth and his rank in the wealth distribution constant, the individual’s relative risk aversion decreases when he becomes more relatively deprived as a …
Behavior in reverse
Received research shows numerous motives for migration, but fewer reasons for return migration. This paper aims to correct this imbalance. Twelve reasons for return migration are presented and discussed briefly. The reasons listed are derived from research on migration conducted by the author in the course of the past three and a half decades. The purpose of the paper is to pull together insights gained from that research so as to formulate a bas…
An adverse social welfare effect of a doubly gainful trade
Community cohesion and assimilation equilibria
Migration when Social Preferences are Ordinal
This paper adds three dimensions to the received literature: it models migration when the individuals’ preferences regarding their relative incomes are ordinal, it works out the resulting spatial steady‐state distribution of the individuals, and it shows that the aggregate of the individuals’ migration choices in the spatial steady‐state distribution sums to the social optimum. This finding does not apply when the individuals’ preferences regardi…
Will a government find it financially easier to neutralize a looming protest if more groups are involved
How Inheriting Affects Bequest Plans
We present and test the idea that bequest planning is linked with the experience of inheriting. We consider ‘a family tradition of bequeathing’ as a channel through which the intention to bequeath is moulded by and is positively correlated with the experience of inheriting. Using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe ( SHARE ), we find that the experience of inheriting enhances the intention to bequeath, independently of…
Migration networks as a response to financial constraints
Motivations to Remit
Migration Incentives, Migration Types
Journal Article Migration Incentives, Migration Types: The Role of Relative Deprivation Get access Oded Stark, Oded Stark Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar J. Edward Taylor J. Edward Taylor Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 101, Issue 408, 1 September 1991, Pages 1163–1178, https://doi.org/10.2307/2234433 Published: 01 September 1991
Consumption Smoothing, Migration, and Marriage
A significant proportion of migration in low-income countries, particularly in rural areas, is composed of moves by women for the purpose of marriage. The authors seek to explain these mobility patterns based on a framework in which the marriage of daughters to locationally distant, dispersed yet kinship-related households is a manifestation of implicit interhousehold contractual arrangements aimed at mitigating income risks and facilitating cons…
Relative deprivation and international migration oded stark
This article provides theoretical reasoning and empirical evidence that international migration decisions are influenced by relative as well as absolute income considerations. Potential gains in absolute income through migration are likely to play an important role in households’ migration decisions, but international migration by household members who hold promise for success as labor migrants can also be an effective strategy to improve a house…
Migration, Remittances, and the Family
Remittances and Inequality
Journal Article Remittances and Inequality Get access Oded Stark, Oded Stark Harvard University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar J. Edward Taylor, J. Edward Taylor The Urban Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shlomo Yitzhaki Shlomo Yitzhaki The Hebrew University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Th…
On Migration and Risk in LDCs
Individual Migration as a Family Strategy
Migration behaviour by individuals, migration decisions and migration outcomes are not neutral to the needs and constraints facing the migrants' families who stay put. In this paper evidence from the Philippines is presented and analysed which suggests that the choice of migrant members and migration destination are largely determined by familial characteristics. Several interesting insights into the migration process are obtained. The standard h…
Migration decision making
Rethinking the Brain Drain
Rural-to-Urban Migration in LDCs
Labour migration as a response to relative deprivation
International Migration Under Asymmetric Information
Journal Article International Migration Under Asymmetric Information Get access Eliakim Katz, Eliakim Katz York University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oded Stark Oded Stark Harvard University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 97, Issue 387, 1 September 1987, Pages 718–726, https://doi.org…
The probability of return migration, migrants' work effort, and migrants' performance
Migration, remittances and inequality
Research on rural-to-urban migration in LDCs
On marriage and migration
The impact of differences in the levels of technology on international labor migration
International migration and “educated unemployment”
Bargaining, Altruism, and Demographic Phenomena
This paper views family members as altruistic bargainers who negotiate with each other and in so doing are motivated by the assumption that a joint action dominates a unilateral action. Bargaining refers to a process whereby rational agents communicate with each other make promises transmit threats--negotiate to advance their interests. A great many demographic phenomena cannot be fully understood or accounted for without considering intrafamilia…
On modelling the informal sector
Behavior in reverse
Received research shows numerous motives for migration, but fewer reasons for return migration. This paper aims to correct this imbalance. Twelve reasons for return migration are presented and discussed briefly. The reasons listed are derived from research on migration conducted by the author in the course of the past three and a half decades. The purpose of the paper is to pull together insights gained from that research so as to formulate a bas…
The Asset Demand for Children During Agricultural Modernization
In developing societies grown children as rural to urban migrants may assume the unique role of financial intermediaries in an economy in which the introduction of modern agricultural methods is constrained by inadequate institutional (as well as noninstitutional) sources of credit and a high aversion to risk. This role of the migrant may be an element conducive to an increase in the value of and demand for children in the early stages of economi…
Altruism and Beyond
Journal Article Altruism and Beyond: An Economic Analysis of Transfers and Exchanges Within Families and Groups. Get access Altruism and Beyond: An Economic Analysis of Transfers and Exchanges Within Families and Groups. By Stark (Oded). (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. x + 142. £18.95 hardback. ISBN 0 521 47419 1.) David Collard David Collard University of Bath Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academ…
Community influence as an explanatory factor why Roma children get little schooling
Parents who experience poverty and who want to provide their children with an escape route can be expected to encourage and support their progeny’s education. The evidence that Roma parents behave differently is unsettling. In this paper we test empirically an explanation for that behavior. The explanation is based on a theory (Stark et al. 2018) that can be “borrowed” to rationalize the enforcement of norms of little formal education in underpri…
On Slowing Metropolitan City Growth
On the optimal choice of capital intensity in LDCs with migration
The Asset Demand for Children During Agricultural Modernization
In developing societies grown children as rural to urban migrants may assume the unique role of financial intermediaries in an economy in which the introduction of modern agricultural methods is constrained by inadequate institutional (as well as noninstitutional) sources of credit and a high aversion to risk. This role of the migrant may be an element conducive to an increase in the value of and demand for children in the early stages of economi…
On modelling the informal sector
Research on rural-to-urban migration in LDCs
On Migration and Risk in LDCs
A note on modelling labour migration in LDCs
Taking the family as the rural‐to‐urban migration decision‐making unit, will the ‘expected‐income migration model’ accurately predict the level of migration? Consideration of two variables ‐ desire for leisure, and aversion to risk—serves to show that the expected‐income model yields a systematic downward bias in the predicted level of rural‐to‐urban migration. Likely policy implications emanating from the incorporation of these variables in the …
A note on modelling labour Migration in LDCs
Taking the family as the rural‐to‐urban migration decision‐making unit, will the ‘expected‐income migration model’ accurately predict the level of migration? Consideration of two variables ‐ desire for leisure, and a version to risk ‐ serves to show that the expected‐income model yields a systematic downward bias in the predicted level of rural‐to‐urban migration. Likely policy implications emanating from the incorporation of these variables in t…
Migration decision making
Rural-to-Urban Migration in LDCs
Bargaining, Altruism, and Demographic Phenomena
This paper views family members as altruistic bargainers who negotiate with each other and in so doing are motivated by the assumption that a joint action dominates a unilateral action. Bargaining refers to a process whereby rational agents communicate with each other make promises transmit threats--negotiate to advance their interests. A great many demographic phenomena cannot be fully understood or accounted for without considering intrafamilia…
On private charity and altruism
Motivations to Remit
Labor Migration and Risk Aversion in Less Developed Countries
"In this paper we question the pioneering work of Todaro, which states that rural-to-urban labor migration in less developed countries (LDCs) is an individual response to a higher urban expected income. We demonstrate that rural-to-urban labor migration is perfectly rational even if urban expected income is lower than rural income. We achieve this under a set of fairly stringent conditions: an individual decision-making entity, a one-period plann…
On fertility, migration and remittances in LDCs
Inducing fertility change
On the shadow wage of urban jobs in less-developed countries
Remittances and Inequality
Journal Article Remittances and Inequality Get access Oded Stark, Oded Stark Harvard University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar J. Edward Taylor, J. Edward Taylor The Urban Institute Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Shlomo Yitzhaki Shlomo Yitzhaki The Hebrew University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Th…
International Migration Under Asymmetric Information
Journal Article International Migration Under Asymmetric Information Get access Eliakim Katz, Eliakim Katz York University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Oded Stark Oded Stark Harvard University and Bar-Ilan University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 97, Issue 387, 1 September 1987, Pages 718–726, https://doi.org…
Labour migration as a response to relative deprivation
Merging populations, stochastic dominance and Lorenz curves
Migration, remittances and inequality
On marriage and migration
Migration, Remittances, and the Family
Individual Migration as a Family Strategy
Migration behaviour by individuals, migration decisions and migration outcomes are not neutral to the needs and constraints facing the migrants' families who stay put. In this paper evidence from the Philippines is presented and analysed which suggests that the choice of migrant members and migration destination are largely determined by familial characteristics. Several interesting insights into the migration process are obtained. The standard h…
Economics (64 works) · Political science (35 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Demographic economics (29 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (29 works) · Labour economics (23 works) · Psychology (23 works) · Mathematics (20 works) · Law (17 works) · Social Psychology (17 works)