Research Output
1 - 10 of 38
Publication
Irish public service broadcasting : a contingent valuation analysis
2004, Delaney, Liam, O'Toole, Francis
Irish public service broadcasting faces enhanced domestic and international competition and increasingly the Irish public service broadcaster (RTÉ) is being called upon to justify the scale of the television licence fee, its major source of funding. This paper describes the first nationwide valuation of RTÉ’s services. In analysing the determinants of respondents’ willingness to pay for RTÉ’s services, the importance of domestic and international competing services and the relationships between willingness to pay for, usage of, and satisfaction with, RTÉ’s services are
analysed. In addition, this paper highlights the importance of distinguishing between household, and individual, willingness to pay.
Publication
Decomposing gender differences in college student earnings expectations
2010-09, Delaney, Liam, Harmon, Colm, Remond, Cathy
Despite the increasing coverage and prevalence of equality legislation and the general alignment of key determining characteristics such as educational attainment, gender differentials continue to persist in labour market outcomes, including earnings. Recently, evidence has been found supporting the role of typically unobserved non-cognitive factors in explaining these gender differentials. We contribute to this literature by testing whether gender gaps in the earnings expectations of a representative group of Irish university students are explained by simultaneously controlling for gender heterogeneity across a wide array of cognitive and noncognitive factors. Non-cognitive factors were found to play a significant role in explaining the gender gap, however, gender differentials persist even after controlling for an extensive range of cognitive and non-cognitive factors. Nearly three-quarters of the short run and two-thirds of the long run differential could not be explained.
Publication
Heterogeneous interpretation of “household expenditure” in survey reports : evidence and implications of bias
2010-06, Comerford, David, Delaney, Liam
This paper addresses respondents’ interpretation of the term “household expenditure” when answering survey questions. A sizeable minority of respondents do not attempt to include all transactions made by every household member, interpreting the question as eliciting individual consumption. This biases estimates of expenditure downward. Furthermore, this bias is predicted by respondent characteristics.
Publication
Experimental tests of survey responses to expenditure questions
2009-07, Comerford, David, Delaney, Liam, Harmon, Colm
This paper tests for a number of survey effects in the elicitation of expenditure items. In
particular we examine the extent to which individuals use features of the expenditure question
to construct their answers. We test whether respondents interpret question wording as
researchers intend and examine the extent to which prompts, clarifications and seemingly
arbitrary features of survey design influence expenditure reports. We find that over one
quarter of respondents have difficulty distinguishing between “you” and “your household”
when making expenditure reports; that respondents report higher pro-rata expenditure when
asked to give responses on a weekly as opposed to monthly or annual time scale; that
respondents give higher estimates when using a scale with a higher mid-point; and that
respondents give higher aggregated expenditure when categories are presented in a
disaggregated form. In summary, expenditure reports are constructed using convenient rules
of thumb and available information, which will depend on the characteristics of the
respondent, the expenditure domain and features of the survey question. It is crucial to further
account for these features in ongoing surveys.
Publication
The early childhood determinants of time preferences
2008-12-15, Delaney, Liam, Doyle, Orla
Research on time preference formation and socioeconomic differences in discounting has received little attention to date. This article examines the extent to which
early childhood differences emerge in measures of hyperactivity, impulsivity and
persistence, all of which are good psychometric analogues to how economists
conceptualise discounting. We examine the distribution of these traits measured at age
three across parental social class and analyse the extent to which different mechanism plausibly generate the observed social class distribution. In addition, we control for a wide ranging of potentially mediating factors including parental investment and proxies for maternal time preferences. Our results show substantial social class variations across all measures. We find only weak evidence that this relates to differential maternal time preferences (e.g. savings behaviour, abstaining from smoking) but relatively stronger evidence that these traits are transmitted through the parents own non-cognitive skill set
(self-esteem, attachment etc.) and parental time investments (e.g. time spent reading to
the child and teaching the child to write, sing etc.).
Publication
Micro-level determinants of lecture attendance and additional study-hours
2010-08, Ryan, Martin, Delaney, Liam, Harmon, Colm
This paper uses novel measures of individual differences that produce new insights about student
inputs into the (higher) education production function. The inputs examined are lecture attendance and
additional study-hours. The data were collected through a web-survey that the authors designed. The
analysis includes the following measures: willingness to take risks, consideration of future consequences
and non-cognitive ability traits. Besides age, gender and year of study, the main determinants of lecture
attendance and additional study-hours are attitude to risk, future-orientation and conscientiousness. In
addition, future-orientation, and in particular conscientiousness, determine lecture attendance to a
greater extent than they determine additional study. Finally, we show that family income and financial
transfers (from both parents and the state) do not determine any educational input. This study suggests
that non-cognitive abilities may be more important than financial constraints in the determination of
inputs related to educational production functions.
Publication
The determinants of self-rated health in the Republic of Ireland : further evidence and future directions
2007-12-10, Delaney, Liam, Harmon, Colm, Kelleher, Cecily, Kenny, Caroline
This paper examines the determinants of self-rated health in the Republic of Ireland using data from the 2001 Quarterly National Household Survey Health Module and the 2005 ESRI Time Usage Survey. Results indicate that self-rated health is a useful proxy for self-reported chronic illness indices. Higher education, having private medical insurance cover and being married is associated with better self-rated health. The strong inverse relationship between age and self-rated health is found to be robust to the inclusion of self-reported morbidity. Caregivers display lower self-rated health, even after controlling for age, marital status and education. We find only minor effects of gender. Understanding further the causal nature of the above associations is a key issue for future research.
Publication
Preferences for specific social welfare expenditure in Ireland
2006-05-25, Delaney, Liam, O'Toole, Francis
Many papers examine general level preferences for redistribution. However, few
papers examine preferences for specific forms of redistribution. This paper examines
the decomposition of demand for three major categories of social welfare expenditure
in Ireland: unemployment payments, old age pensions and child benefit. The determinants of preferences are found to be fairly consistent with a self-interested
economics perspective with respect to the utilisation and financing of these three
specific schemes. In addition, the split sampling procedure used in the nationwide
survey indicated that the provision of information on the schemes’ costs did not have a significant effect on preferences.
Publication
The distribution of well-being in Ireland
2007-01-26, Delaney, Liam, Doyle, Orla, McKenzie, Kenneth, Wall, Patrick G.
Objectives: There is a substantial knowledge gap about the distribution of mental heath in community populations. The European Social Survey is particularly useful as it contains information on over 40,000 individuals, including 2,286 Irish adults. The objective of this study is
to conduct a large scale statistical analysis to examine the distribution and determinants of mental well-being in a large representative sample of the Irish population.
Method: Analysis of the European Social Survey using robust multiple linear and non-linear regression techniques. The data-set contains WHO-5 scores and subjective well-being for a sample of 2,286 Irish people interviewed in their homes in 2005.
Results: Ireland has the second highest average WHO-5 score among the 22 countries in the European Social Survey. Multiple linear regression analysis across the distribution of WHO-5 reveals a well-being gradient largely related to education and social capital variables. A probit
model examining the determinants of vulnerability to psychiatric morbidity reveals that a similar set of factors predict scores below the threshold point on the WHO-5 scale.
Conclusions: The results are consistent with marked differences in mental well-being across education levels and variables relating to social capital factors. Such indicators provide a useful index for policy-makers and researchers. However, much further work is needed to identify
causal mechanisms generating observed differences in mental health across different socioeconomic groups.
Publication
Social capital and self-rated health in the Republic of Ireland : evidence from the European Social Survey
2007-02-12, Delaney, Liam, Wall, Patrick G., O'hAodha, Fearghal
This paper analyses the determinants of self-reported health in Ireland, conditioning selfreported health on a set of socio-economic, labour market and social capital variables. Ireland has the highest self-reported health rate in Europe. The results demonstrate statistically significant effects of income on self-reported health that are robust to different statistical specifications and statistically significant though modest effects of social capital variables such as associational membership and frequency of social meeting.