|
on Microeconomic European Issues |
|
Issue of 2019‒07‒22
twenty-six papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Alessandra, Michelangeli; Umut, Türk |
| Abstract: | Intergenerational mobility refers to children moving up from the social class position held by their parents. Previous studies indicate family background as one of the major determinants of socioeconomic mobility and, in general, of individual life chances. This paper extends the standard approach to measure intergenerational social mobility by examining the role of cities where offspring grew up. The idea is that cities can provide resources and opportunities able to increase the chance of employment and status attainment. We assess intergenerational mobility in Italy, the most immobile country in Europe together with Greece and Portugal. We use a data survey provided by the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT), which provides information on the individual-level track of Italian students’ life path from high school to occupation. We merge these data with city-level data on economic conditions, human capital, and social capital. We distinguish between students who attended university in the same province where they presumably grew up and those who migrated to another province for higher education. This allows us to test whether migration affects the shift in occupation type and, if so, which characteristics of cities enhance upward mobility. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational social mobility; spatial mobility; cities. |
| JEL: | J62 R11 R12 |
| Date: | 2019–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mib:wpaper:397&r=all |
| By: | Sophie Augustin (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Daniela Rroshi (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Alyssa Schneebaum (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a method to study the relationship between voters' attitudes towards immigration and the educational attainment of immigrants and their children, and applies it to Austrian data. We measure attitudes towards immigration using data on political parties' positions regarding immigration and the share of votes that each party received at the regional level. We then study the educational attainment and intergenerational educational mobility of immigrants who grew up in the regions whose political environment we observe. Preliminary results for Aus- tria suggest that, surprisingly, better attitudes towards migration are associated with lower educational attainment for immigrants. However, immigrants are more likely than their native peers to obtain more education than their parents. Here, the returns to more positive attitudes towards immigration play a large role in explaining the mobility gap across migration background. |
| Keywords: | educational attainment, immigration, voting behaviour, social attitudes |
| JEL: | I24 J15 I21 D72 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp287&r=all |
| By: | Sylvain Dejean (CE.RE.GE - CEntre de REcherche en GEstion - ULR - Université de La Rochelle - IAE Poitiers - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Poitiers - Université de Poitiers - Université de Poitiers) |
| Abstract: | This article aims to estimate the cost of distance in the geographical flow of crowdfunding, and to show how social ties between the 94 French metropolitan regions shape the geography of funding. Our analysis draws upon a unique database provided by the French leader in rewards-based crowdfunding. The main result is that the elasticity of distance remains important (around 0.5), and that social ties between regions determine the flow of funding. Doubling the number of immigrants in a region increases the number of investments by 24% and reduces the impact of distance. |
| Keywords: | Crowdfunding,economic geography,social networks,gravity |
| Date: | 2019–06–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01645147&r=all |
| By: | Prümer, Stephanie; Schnabel, Claus |
| Abstract: | Public sector employees are often said to have excessive rates of absence from work. Using representative survey data for Germany, we indeed find absenteeism of employees to be higher in the public than the private sector. The differences in the incidence and days of absence showing up in descriptive statistics are substantially reduced and partly disappear in our estimates of hurdle regression models controlling for individuals' socio-demographic characteristics, health status, professional activities, and for many workplace-related factors. Nevertheless, the probability of staying home sick at least once a year is still 5.6 percentage points higher in the public sector, ceteris paribus. This finding refutes popular assertions that differences in absence rates between the sectors are mainly due to structural factors like different compositions of the workforce. We show that the same observable factors play a role for absenteeism in the public and private sector, but we cannot rule out that shirking may play a more important role in the public sector. Nevertheless, we conclude that the stereotype of the "malingering bureaucrat" seems to be an exaggeration, at least for Germany. |
| Keywords: | absenteeism,public sector,sick leave,Germany |
| JEL: | I19 J22 H8 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:faulre:108&r=all |
| By: | Tobias Wolf; Maria Metzing; Richard E. Lucas |
| Abstract: | This paper examines experienced well-being of employed and unemployed workers. We use the survey-adapted day reconstruction method (DRM) of the Innovation Sample of the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP-IS) to analyze the role of the employment status for well-being, incorporating complete time use. Summarizing the average share of pleasurable minutes, we generate the P-index. We show that - in contrast to evaluative life satisfaction - the average unemployed experiences more pleasurable minutes due to the absence of working episodes. Hence, we examine working episodes in depth. While working is among the activities with the highest propensities for an unpleasant experience, it is also among the most meaningful activities. We show that meaning is a central non-monetary determinant for a pleasurable work episode and find that pleasure during work and job satisfaction in general have the same association with meaning. |
| Keywords: | Experienced well-being, time use, Unemployment, Day Reconstruction Method, DRM, SOEP-IS |
| JEL: | I31 J22 J60 D91 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1043&r=all |
| By: | Marion Leroutier (Paris School of Economics (PSE), Université Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, Centre International de Recherche pour l'Environnement et le Développement (CIRED)) |
| Abstract: | The electricity and heat generation sector represents about 40 % of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2016. Policy-makers have implemented a variety of instruments to decarbonise their power sector. This paper examines the UK Carbon Price Floor (CPF), a novel carbon pricing instrument implemented in the United Kingdom in 2013. After describing the potential mechanisms behind the recent UK power sector decarbonisation, I apply the synthetic control method on country-level data to estimate the impact of the CPF on per capita emissions. I discuss the importance of potential confounders and the amount of net electricity imports imputable to the policy. Depending on the specification, the abatement associated with the introduction of the CPF range from 106 to 185 millions tons of equivalent CO2 over the 2013-2017 period. This implies a reduction of between 41% and 49% of total power sector emissions by 2017. Several placebo tests suggest that these estimates capture a causal impact. This paper shows that a carbon levy on high-emitting inputs used for electricity generation can lead to successful decarbonisation. |
| Keywords: | carbon tax, electricity generation, synthetic control method |
| JEL: | D22 H23 Q41 Q48 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fae:ppaper:2019.03&r=all |
| By: | Massimo Anelli; Gaetano Basso; Giuseppe Ippedico; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | Migration outflows, especially of young people, may deprive an economy of entrepreneurial energy and innovative ideas. We exploit exogenous variation in emigration from Italian local labor markets to show that between 2008 and 2015 larger emigration flows reduced firm creation. The decline affected firms owned by young people and innovative industries. We estimate that for every 1,000 emigrants, 10 fewer young-owned firms were created over the whole period. A simple accounting exercise shows that about 60 percent of the effect is generated simply by the loss of young people; the remaining 40 percent is due to a combination of selection of emigrants among highly entrepreneurial people, negative spillovers on the entrepreneurship rate of locals, and negative local firm multiplier effect. |
| JEL: | J61 M13 O3 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26055&r=all |
| By: | Kai Ingwersen; Stephan L. Thomsen |
| Abstract: | This study provides new evidence on the levels of economic integration experienced by foreigners and naturalised immigrants relative to native Germans from 1994 to 2015. We decompose the wage gap using the method for unconditional quantile regression models by employing a regression of the (recentered) influence function (RIF) of the gross hourly wage on a rich set of explanatory variables. This approach enables us to estimate contributions made across the whole wage distribution. To allow for a detailed characterization of labour market conditions, we consider a comprehensive set of socio-economic and labour-related aspects capturing influences of, e.g., human capital quality, cultural background, and the personalities of immigrants. The decomposition results clearly indicate a significant growing gap with higher wages for both foreigners (13.6 to 17.6 %) and naturalised immigrants (10.0 to 16.4 %). The findings further display a low explanation for the wage gap in low wage deciles that is even more pronounced within immigrant subgroups. Cultural and economic distances each have a significant influence on wages. A different appreciation of foreign educational qualifications, however, widens the wage gap substantially by 4.5 ppts on average. Moreover, we observe an indication of deterioration of immigrants’ human capital endowments over time relative to those of native Germans. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, wage gap, unconditional quantile regression, Germany |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J15 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1042&r=all |
| By: | Magda, Iga (Warsaw School of Economics); Salach, Katarzyna (University of Warsaw) |
| Abstract: | We investigate differences in gender wage gaps between foreign-owned and domestically-owned firms in Poland, a country that has experienced large FDI inflows over the past three decades. In line with the findings of several other studies, we show that according to standard estimates of adjusted gender wage gaps, these differences are much larger in the foreign-owned companies than in the domestic firms. However, we also find that these estimates cannot be trusted because the domestically-owned firms have considerably higher levels of gender segregation, and because the OLS estimates of the adjusted gender wage gaps in this sector are more likely to be biased. Using a matching and decomposition technique (Ñopo 2008) that allows us to capture gender wage differentials over a common support, we find that gender wage gaps in domestically-owned firms are only slightly smaller than those in foreign-owned companies. Our results also indicate that women tend to segregate into low-paid jobs in the domestic sector, whereas there is no evidence of such a pattern in the foreign sector. The analysis furthers shows, however, that foreign-owned companies have much larger within-firm differences in earnings (net out of composition effects), and that these earnings they pay vary less across firms. In sum, we find that the nature of gender wage gaps and the factors that underlie them differ between domestic and foreign-owned companies. |
| Keywords: | gender wage gaps, domestic ownership, foreign ownership, FDI |
| JEL: | F23 J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12453&r=all |
| By: | Lordan, Grace (London School of Economics); McGuire, Alistair (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | From 2020 Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education will be compulsory in UK schools for adolescents, however less is known about how it can be taught in a an effective manner. We examine, through a randomised trial, the impact of an evidenced based health related quality of life (HRQoL) curriculum called Healthy Minds that ran in 34 high schools in England over a four-year period. We find robust evidence that Healthy Minds positively augments many physical health domains of treated adolescents. We also find some evidence that Healthy Minds positively affects behaviour, but has no impact on emotional wellbeing. We find notable gender effects, strongly favouring boys. We also present evidence that Healthy Minds changes career aspirations, with those exposed to treatment being less likely to choose competitive work and more likely to choose work that involves "people-skills". Overall our work illustrates the potential for later childhood interventions to promote HRQoL and develop the career aspirations of adolescents. |
| Keywords: | soft skills, health related quality of life, character, high school curriculum, personal, social, health and economic education |
| JEL: | I18 I20 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12439&r=all |
| By: | Burton, Jonathan; Connelly, Roxanne; Couper, Mick P.; Crossley, Thomas F.; De Vries, Catherine; Gayle, Vernon; Hanson, Tim; Jäckle, Annette; Lynn, Peter; Martin, Nicole; McGee, Alice; Playford, Christopher; Pudney, Stephen; Sobolewska, Maria; Taylor, Luke; Walzenbach, Sandra; Wenz, Alexander |
| Abstract: | This paper presents some preliminary findings from Wave 11 of the Innovation Panel (IP11) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major panel survey in the UK. In May 2018, the eleventh wave of the Innovation Panel went into the field. IP11 used a mixed-mode design, using on-line interviews and face-to-face interviews. This paper describes the design of IP11, the experiments carried and the preliminary findings from early analysis of the data. Â |
| Date: | 2019–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:ukhlsp:2019-03&r=all |
| By: | Laliotis, Dimitrios; Buesa, Alejandro; Leber, Miha; Población García, Francisco Javier |
| Abstract: | We assess the effects of regulatory caps in the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio using agent-based models (ABMs). Our approach builds upon a straightforward ABM where we model the interactions of sellers, buyers and banks within a computational framework that enables the application of LTV caps. The results are first presented using simulated data and then we calibrate the probability distributions based on actual European data from the HFCS survey. The results suggest that this approach can be viewed as a useful alternative to the existing analytical frameworks for assessing the impact of macroprudential measures, mainly due to the very few assumptions the method relies upon and the ability to easily incorporate additional and more complex features related to the behavioral response of borrowers to such measures. JEL Classification: D14, D31, E50, R21 |
| Keywords: | borrower-based measures, HFCS survey, house prices, macroprudential policy |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20192294&r=all |
| By: | Alexandra Fedorets; Anna Gibert; Norma Burow |
| Abstract: | We examine the introduction of a gender quota law in Germany, mandating a minimum 30% of the underrepresented gender on the supervisory boards of a particular type of firms. We exploit the fact that Germany has a two-tier corporate system consisting of the affected supervisory boards and unaffected management boards within the same firm. We find a positive effect on the female share on supervisory boards of affected firms, but no effect on presidency of the board or its size. We also study whether the increased female representation has had an effect on the financial performance of the firm and conclude that, unlike some previous studies in other countries, there has not been any negative effect on the profitability of the firm, neither at the time when the law was announced nor when it was passed. |
| Keywords: | Gender quota, Economics of gender, Labor discrimination, Personnel economics, Firm performance |
| JEL: | J78 J16 M51 L25 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1810&r=all |
| By: | Clément Magouyres (Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics (PSE)); Thierry Mayer (Département d'économie); Clément Mazet (Département d'économie) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we document the presence of “technology-induced” trade in France between 1997 and 2007 and assess its impact on consumer welfare. We use the staggered roll-out of broadband internet to estimate its causal effect on the importing behavior of affected firms. Using an event-study design, we find that broadband expansion increases firm-level imports by around 25%. We further find that the “sub-extensive” margin (number of products and sourcing countries per firm) is the main channel of adjustment and that the effect is larger for capital goods. Finally, we develop a model where firms optimize over their import strategy and which yields a sufficient statistics formula for the quantification of the effects of broadband on consumer welfare. Interpreted within this model, our reduced-form estimates imply that broadband internet reduced the consumer price index by 1.7% and that the import-channel, i.e. the enhanced access to foreign goods that is allowed by broadband, accounts for a quarter of that effect. |
| Keywords: | Internet; Trade; Imports; Consumer welfare |
| JEL: | F14 F15 L23 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpecon:info:hdl:2441/4b7tooefh48jlq7oktt0tbn8om&r=all |
| By: | Andrea Ichino (European University Institute, U. Bologna and CEPR); Martin Olsson (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN, Stockholm)); Barbara Petrongolo (Queen Mary University London, CEP (LSE) and CEPR); Peter Skogman Thoursie (Stockholm University and IFAU) |
| Abstract: | We infer the role of gender identity norms from the reallocation of childcare across parents, following changes in their relative wages. By exploiting variation from a Swedish tax reform, we estimate the elasticity of substitution in parental childcare for the whole population and for demographic groups potentially adhering to differently binding norms. We find that immigrant, married and male breadwinner couples, as well as couples with a male first-born, react more strongly to tax changes that induce a more traditional allocation of spouses time, while the respective counterpart couples react more strongly to tax changes that induce a more egalitarian division of labor. |
| Keywords: | Home production, taxes, gender identity, gender gaps |
| JEL: | D13 H24 J22 |
| Date: | 2019–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:887&r=all |
| By: | Cahuc, Pierre; Malherbet, Franck; Prat, Julien |
| Abstract: | According to French law, employers have to pay at least six months salary to employees whose seniority exceeds two years in case of unfair dismissal. We show, relying on data, that this regulation entails a hike in severance payments at two-year seniority which induces a significant rise in the job separation rate before the two-year threshold and a drop just after. The layoff costs and its procedural component are evaluated thanks to the estimation of a search and matching model which reproduces the shape of the job separation rate. We find that total layoff costs increase with seniority and are about four times higher than the expected severance payments at two years of seniority. Counterfactual exercises show that the fragility of low-seniority jobs implies that layoff costs reduce the average job duration and increase unemployment for a wide set of empirically relevant parameters. |
| Keywords: | Dismissal costs; Employment protection legislation; unemployment |
| JEL: | J32 J63 J65 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13767&r=all |
| By: | Papuna Gogoladze |
| Abstract: | Despite the vast literature on the gender disparities in the labor market participation and outcomes, there is a scarce literature on the gender gap in total income. This paper tries to fill the research gap and has threefold contribution to the existing literature. First, the paper studies the gender gap in aggregate income instead of focusing only one component – wages. Second, the analysis of the gap in four age categories reveals how the income gap behaves throughout the “life-cycle”. And three, the gap is analysed in 25 countries that allows observing the institutional differences that are not apparent in case of single-country study. In most countries the unexplained median total income gap is the lowest among the youngest and increases throughout the life-cycle. However, there are countries, where the gap peaks in the youngest age group, for example, in Bulgaria. There is a large heterogeneity among countries in the unexplained gap size. Among the working age people, the unexplained median income gap is above 70% in Greece, while the lowest gap, approximately 4%, is reported in Slovenia. The paper suggests that trade union membership reduces and minimum wages increase the unexplained income gap of low-income individuals below age 45. More generous maternity leave increases it for low-income individuals between age 25-44, while formal child-care has negative impact throughout the distribution for the oldest. The analysis shows that "one-size-fits-all" policies are unable to respond adequately the gender gap issue in different income sources. |
| Keywords: | gender income gap, uncoditional quantile regression, institutional factors |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtk:febawb:117&r=all |
| By: | Manthei, Kathrin (RFH Koeln); Sliwka, Dirk (University of Cologne); Vogelsang, Timo (University of Cologne) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal effect of conversations about performance and performance pay implementing a 2x2 field experiment in a retail chain. In the performance pay treatments, managers receive a bonus for profit increases. In the performance review treatments, managers have regular meetings with their supervisors discussing their activities to increase profits. We find that review conversations raise profits by 7%-8%. However, when additionally receiving performance pay this effect vanishes. Analyzing an extension of Bénabou and Tirole (2006), we rationalize this effect formally and provide empirical evidence that the use of performance pay changes the nature of conversations undermining their value. |
| Keywords: | performance pay, performance reviews, monitoring, feedback, field experiment, management practices |
| JEL: | J3 L2 M5 C93 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12446&r=all |
| By: | Cristina Bellés-Obrero; Sergi Jiménez-Martín; Judit Vall-Castello |
| Abstract: | We examine the gender asymmetries in the health benefits of acquiring further education at a time of increasing gender equality and women’s greater access to economic opportunities. A labor market reform in Spain in 1980 raised the minimum legal working age from 14 to 16, while the school-leaving age remained at 14. We apply a difference-in-difference strategy to identify the reform’s within-cohort effects, where treated and control individuals differ only in their month of birth. Although the reform improved the educational attainment of both women and men, the long-term effects over mortality differ by gender. We find that the reform decreased mortality at young ages (14-29) by 6.3% among men and by 8.9% among women. This was driven by a decrease (12.2% for men, 14.7% for women) in the probability of dying from external causes of death (accidents). However, we also find that the child labor reform increased mortality for prime-age women (30-45) by 6.3%. This effect is driven by increases in HIV mortality (11.6%), as well as by diseases of the nervous and circulatory system (8.7%). This pattern helps explain the narrowing age gap in life expectancy between women and men in Spain. |
| Keywords: | minimum working age, education, mortality, gender |
| JEL: | I12 I20 J10 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1103&r=all |
| By: | Stjepan Srhoj; Michael Lapinski; Janette Walde |
| Abstract: | Many international organisations emphasize the need of public grant schemes evaluations. An evaluation provides the opportunity to assess the socio-economic impact achieved by the grant and allows for a refinement of such policy instruments in order to make public funding more effective in achieving the objectives. In this paper, we investigate the effects of a business development grant scheme. More specifically we question whether firms’ performance measures increased after participating in this grant scheme. Methodically, we match grant receiving firms with grant non-receivers and estimate the average treatment effect on the treated using a two way fixed effects regression. Our results point towards a positive effect of the grant scheme, which is particularly evident for firms of smaller size. Our estimated dose-response functions show that the share of grant amount in firm profits needs to be high enough for the grants to be effective. According to back-of-the envelope analysis, benefits outweigh the direct scheme costs. |
| Keywords: | business development grants; policy evaluation; two-way fixed effects regression; matching; heterogeneous treatment effects; dose-response-function |
| JEL: | C21 G01 H23 H50 O38 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inn:wpaper:2019-14&r=all |
| By: | Björkegren, Evelina (Uppsala University); Lindahl, Mikael (University of Gothenburg); Palme, Mårten (Stockholm University); Simeonova, Emilia (Johns Hopkins University) |
| Abstract: | We use data on a large sample of Swedish-born adoptees and their biological and adopting parents to decompose the persistence in health inequality across generations into pre-birth and post-birth components. We use three sets of measures for health outcomes in the second generation: mortality, measures based on data on hospitalization and, finally, measures using birth outcomes for the third generation. The results show that all of the persistence in mortality is transmitted solely via pre-birth factors, while the results for the hospitalization measures suggest that at least three quarters of the intergenerational persistence in health is attributable to the biological parents. |
| Keywords: | health inequality, intergenerational transmission, nature and nurture |
| JEL: | I10 I14 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12451&r=all |
| By: | Bernhard Schmidpeter (Universtity of Essex); Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | We provide comprehensive evidence on the consequences of automation and o shoreability on the labor market career of unemployed workers. Using almost two decades of administrative data for Austria, we find that risk of automation is reducing the job finding probability; a problem which has increased over the past years. We show that this development is associated with increasing re-employment wages and job stability. For workers in occupations at risk of being offshored we find the opposite effect. Our results imply a trade-o between quantity and quality in these jobs. Provided training is in general beneficial for workers in automation-related jobs. |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2019_14&r=all |
| By: | Gagliardi, Nicola (Free University of Brussels); Mahy, Benoît (University of Mons); Rycx, Francois (Free University of Brussels) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides first evidence on the impact of a direct measure of firm-level upstreamness (i.e. the steps before the production of a firm meets final demand) on workers' wages. It also investigates whether results vary along the earnings distribution and by gender. Findings, based on unique matched employer-employee data relative to the Belgian manufacturing industry for the period 2002-2010, show that workers earn significantly higher wages when employed in more upstream firms. Yet, the gains from upstreamness are found to be very unequally shared among workers. Unconditional quantile estimates suggest that male top-earners are the main beneficiaries, whereas women, irrespective of their earnings, appear to be unfairly rewarded. Quantile decompositions further show that these differences in wage premia account for a substantial part of the gender wage gap, especially at the top of the earnings' distribution. |
| Keywords: | upstreamness, global value chains, wages, gender |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12449&r=all |
| By: | Yleania Brilli; Claudio Lucifora (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Antonio Russo; Marco Tonello |
| Abstract: | We analyze the effects of a vaccination program providing free flu vaccine to individuals aged 65 or more on take-up and hospitalization. By using linked patient-general practitioner (GP) data, we implement a regression discontinuity design around the threshold at age 65. We find that the program increases vaccination take-up by 6 percentage points, which corresponds to 75% of the take-up for non-eligible individuals, and reduces the probability of hospitalization by about 44%. We show that the effect on take-up is not entirely due to an income channel, and that the effect on health is mainly driven by patients with higher-quality GPs and emergency hospitalizations. |
| Keywords: | vaccination, influenza, public health, health prevention policies. |
| JEL: | I12 I18 J10 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def082&r=all |
| By: | Breda, Thomas (Paris School of Economics); Jouini, Elyès (Université Paris-Dauphine); Napp, Clotilde (CNRS) |
| Abstract: | While gender gaps in average math performance are close to zero in developed countries, women are still strongly underrepresented among math high performers. Using data from five successive waves of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), we show that this underrepresentation is more severe in more unequal countries. This relationship holds for a wide range of societal inequalities that are not directly related to gender. It is also observed in other parts of the performance distribution and among various sets of countries, including developing countries. Similar relationships are found in science and reading. Such findings highlight how differences in socio-economic and cultural factors can affect gender gaps in performance. |
| Keywords: | gender gap in math, culture, societal inequality, income inequality, top math performers |
| JEL: | I24 J16 Z1 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12436&r=all |
| By: | Alessandro Cepparulo (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Universit? di Urbino Carlo Bo); Antonello Zanfei (Department of Economics, Society & Politics, Universit? di Urbino Carlo Bo) |
| Abstract: | Using a novel dataset on the diffusion of public eServices at the city level in EU 15, this paper contributes to extant empirical literature in three ways. First, it extends the coverage of public eServices beyond eGovernment, investigating four service categories: Infomobility, eProcurement, eGovernment and eHealth. Second, it provides information for both a cross-country and cross-municipality comparison. Third, on the methodological side, it also extends the literature on composite indicators at a municipal level. Cities exhibiting the highest diffusion of public eServices are found to be medium-large, highly endowed with well-educated human capital, and characterised by a lively industrial atmosphere favoured by a reasonable number and variety of production and service activities. The relative performance of the European cities helps identify plausible directions to be taken for policies aimed at favoring the diffusion of public service innovation in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Innovation, eGovernment, Public eServices, Information Policy, ICT. |
| JEL: | O33 O38 L96 H83 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:urb:wpaper:19_04&r=all |