|
on Microeconomic European Issues |
|
Issue of 2019‒08‒12
thirty-one papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Morgan, Robson; O'Connor, Kelsey J. |
| Abstract: | Average subjective well-being decreased in Europe during the Great Recession, primarily among people with less than a college education and people younger than retirement age. However, some countries fared better than others depending on their labor market policies. More generous unemployment support, which provided income replacement or programs to assist unemployed workers find jobs, mitigated the negative effects for most of the population, although not youth. In contrast, stricter employment protection legislation exacerbated the negative effects. We present further evidence that suggests the exacerbating effects of employment protection legislation are due to greater rigidities in the labor market, which in turn affect perceived future job prospects. Our analysis is based on two-stage least squares regressions using individual subjective wellbeing data obtained from Eurobarometer surveys and variation in labor market policy across 23 European countries. |
| Keywords: | life satisfaction,active labor market policy,unemployment support,employment protection legislation,Eurobarometer |
| JEL: | I31 I38 J28 J65 H53 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:372&r=all |
| By: | Noemi Oggero (Collegio Carlo Alberto); Mariacristina Rossi (University of Turin and CeRP-Collegio Carlo Alberto); Elisa Ughetto (Politecnico, Turin) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the attitudes to entrepreneurship of Italian households, focusing on the importance of digital skills and financial literacy as potentially relevant factors shaping entrepreneurial entry. We put the gender focus to our analysis to detect whether, and to what extent, women and men differ in their propensity to run a business. We carry out our research by using a sample of the Bank of Italy SHIW dataset for the year 2008 and 2010. Our findings suggest a strong heterogeneity, between men and women, of the importance of digital skills and financial literacy as entrepreneurial drivers. Results show that the impact of financial literacy on the probability of being an entrepreneur is significant, but only for men. Digital skills increase the probability of being entrepreneur with a bigger effect for men than for women. |
| Date: | 2019–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crp:wpaper:187&r=all |
| By: | Hafner, Lucas; Lochner, Benjamin (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "In this paper we analyze whether the introduction of the general minimum wage in Germany in 2015 had an effect on workers' self-rated health. To study this question, we use survey-data linked to administrative employment records and apply difference-in-difference regressions combined with propensity score matching. This approach enables us to control for a vast set of possibly confounding variables. We find on average significant improvements of self-rated health for individuals who are affected by the reform. Our results indicate, that a significant reduction of weekly working hours potentially drives this result." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Mindestlohn - Auswirkungen, Gesundheitszustand, Selbsteinschätzung, Geringverdiener, Beschäftigungseffekte, Arbeitszeitverkürzung, Stress, IAB-Haushaltspanel, Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien |
| JEL: | I10 I18 J38 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201917&r=all |
| By: | Casarico, A.; Lattanzio, S. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the contribution of firms to the gender gap in earnings on average, at different quantiles of the earnings distribution, and over time to shed light on the role of firm pay policies in hindering or reinforcing the gender wage gap and to identify how their impact comes about. Using a linked employer-employee dataset for Italy, we show that the gap in firm pay policies explains on average 30% of the gender pay gap in the period 1995-2015. Sorting of women in low pay firms explains a larger fraction of the gender pay gap than differences in bargaining, on average and at the bottom of the distribution, whereas the latter dominates at the top. Moreover, differences in bargaining have increased in importance over the two decades. To explain sorting, we investigate whether women have a lower probability of moving towards firms with higher pay rates, and find that this is indeed the case. This differential mobility penalises, in particular, highly skilled women and can be related to the variability in wages in destination firms, with women not moving to those with high (unexplained) variance in pay. We also find some evidence that the firm environment as captured by exogenous changes in the gender balance in leadership positions influences the bargaining power of women, indicating that the latter is partly institution-driven. |
| Keywords: | Bargaining, Sorting, Linked Employer-Employee Data, Mobility gap, Gender quotas |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–07–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:1966&r=all |
| By: | Marco Alberto De Benedetto (University of Messina; Birkbeck, University of London) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the incumbency advantage using a large data set on Italian municipal elections held from 1993 to 2011. We first apply a non-parametric Sharp Regression Discontinuity Design comparing parties that barely win an election to those that barely lose, exploiting the fact that partisan incumbency status changes discontinuously at the threshold of margin of victory of zero. In order to disentangle the personal incumbency advantage from the partisan effect, we rely on a reform that introduced mayoral term limit, and exploit the exogenous change on the incumbency status of mayors keeping the partisan incumbency status constant. We find that the incumbency advantage is essentially driven by the personal effect. The results are robust to different specifications and estimation strategies with excellent balance in observable characteristics. Also, the effect of interest seems to be larger in magnitude for municipalities located in the South of Italy compared to northern municipalities. |
| Keywords: | Incumbency Status, Political Participation, Sharp RDD, Term Limit |
| JEL: | C7 D8 O3 K4 |
| Date: | 2019–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bbk:bbkefp:1903&r=all |
| By: | Rebien, Martina (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "The processes of job search and firms' search for employees are subject to some peculiarities when it comes to the chances of long-term unemployed to find a new job. As one group of the supply side of the labour market, these persons face special problems: There is a strong stigma of long-term unemployment attached to these persons. It includes, for example, negative perceptions of the existence of necessary formal qualifications, working experience, resilience or motivation to work. Furthermore, long-term unemployment can lead to social isolation, since social contacts are more likely to evolve between persons that have the same status of employment, which, in turn, reduces the access to useful social contacts to employed individuals. It may be expected that especially the group of long-term unemployed faces advantages when having access to the social contacts of Human Resource Managers, because recommendations may counteract the stigma effects that arise from long-term unemployment and possible prejudice employers' HR decision-makers. Using data from the German Job Vacancy Survey from 2016 and 2018, which is a representative paper and pencil survey on establishments in Germany, I investigate how employers judge the work related skills of long-term unemployed and whether this group has higher chances of being hired when an employer uses his or her social contacts to find candidates. Apart from a large number of establishment-specific characteristics, the survey contains information on the recruiting process with regard to long-term unemployed. Establishments are asked whether they had applications from these persons, whether they invited them for an interview and whether they finally employed long-term unemployed individuals. For all three steps of the recruitment process, it is possible to identify employers that recruited long-term unemployed with or without recommendations. The results indicate that employers do not receive more applications from long-term unemployed when using social contacts for search, but if so, long-term unemployed have higher chances of being invited for interviews and finally of being hired as compared to search through other, more formal search channels. Therefore, even though recommendations to an employer may be helpful for long-term unemployed to find a new job, this group seems to lack useful social contacts that are a necessary prerequisite for an application." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J63 J64 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201916&r=all |
| By: | Bertha Rohenkohl (Department of Economics, University of Sheffield) |
| Abstract: | Using a new dataset combining the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society, I estimate the intergenerational income elasticity in the UK for individuals born between 1973 and 1991. Employing the traditional OLS approach as well as an alternative two-stage residual method that better controls for life-cycle effects, my results indicate that the intergenerational income elasticity is approximately 0.25. This means that around one quarter of every additional 1% of income advantage enjoyed by parents is passed on to their children. I also estimate income rank coefficients, which are a measure of positional mobility in the income distribution and these results corroborate the analysis of elasticities. These main results are largely robust to changes in the specifications of the model, sample restrictions and to the use of different measures of income. I also obtain regional estimates of mobility, and find large differences between the North and South of England |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, income dynamics, social mobility |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2019017&r=all |
| By: | Arnstein Aassve; Gianmarco Daniele; Marco Le Moglie |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the long term impact of corruption on trust towards institutions. Previous studies have demonstrated that exposure to corruption may lower institutional trust in the short run. Whether those short term effects translate into a persistent effect is not known. We study the onset of a corruption shock that took place in Italy between 1992 and 1994. Using recent data from the Trustlab project, coordinated by the OECD, we find that young first time voters exposed to the corruption scandal still today, 25 years later, exert significantly lower institutional trust. A follow up survey reveals that their exposure to corruption also affected their current voting behavior and political preferences. In particular, those young first time voters exposed to the corruption were more likely to vote for populist parties at the 2018 national elections and to have less favourable attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. |
| Keywords: | Corruption, Institutional trust, Populism, First-time voter, Italy |
| JEL: | P16 D72 D73 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:baf:cbafwp:cbafwp1896&r=all |
| By: | Burger, Kaspar |
| Abstract: | Given recent evidence of rising levels of social segregation in European countries, this study uses standardized data from the Program for International Student Assessment (n = 171,159; 50.5% male) to examine the extent to which education systems in Europe are socially segregated and whether social segregation in the school system affects achievement gaps between students of different social origin. Results suggest that the degree of social segregation within education systems varied substantially across countries. Furthermore, multilevel regression models indicate that the effect of socioeconomic status on student achievement was moderately but significantly stronger in more segregated education systems, even after controlling for alternative system-level determinants of social inequality in student achievement. These findings provide original evidence that social segregation in education systems may contribute to the intergenerational transmission of educational (dis)advantage and thus serve to exacerbate wider problems of socioeconomic inequality in Europe. |
| Keywords: | Cross-national comparison Social segregation Standardized assessment European education systems Multilevel |
| JEL: | I21 I24 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95309&r=all |
| By: | Geoffrey J. Blanford; Christoph Weissbart |
| Abstract: | The long-run development of power markets will be deeply affected by the gradual substitution of fossil fuel-based generation technologies by renewable energy technologies (RES). However, the intermittent supply of RES, in combination with the temporal non-homogeneity of electricity demand, limits the competitiveness of renewable energies (Joskow, 2011). We develop a partial-equilibrium model of the European power market that contributes with a framework for capturing the temporal and spatial variability of RES. Furthermore, we differentiate wind and solar technologies by different quality classes and contribute with a routine for using meteorological data to approximate the temporal availability of renewable energy technologies. The composite of all these RES features allows then for a detailed representation of RES and their implicit substitution elasticity with fossil fuel-based technologies. Our results for the long-run electricity generation path of the European power market show that, under an 80% CO2 emissions reduction scenario until 2050, renewable energy technologies become the main technologies that will meet the demand. The 2050 generation share of wind and solar power combined is around 40%. However, with the detailed depiction of their temporal and spatial characteristics, we identify that gas power is necessary as a complement to compensate for their intermittent supply, which requires in turn the utilization of carbon capture and storage to adhere to the climate target. |
| Keywords: | European power market, investment planning, energy modeling, renewable energies |
| JEL: | C61 L94 Q41 Q42 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_307&r=all |
| By: | Mario A. Maggioni; Emanuela Marrocu; Teodora Erika Uberti; Stefano Usai |
| Abstract: | The question about how regions develop and evolve along their productive and technological path is central in many scientific fields from international economics, to economic geography, from industrial economics to regional science. Within an evolutionary perspective, we believe that a region is most likely to develop new industries or new technologies, which are closer to its pre-existing specialization. Our research builds on an empirical stream of literature, started by Hausmann and Klinger (2007) and Hidalgo et al. (2007), aimed at tracing the evolution of industrial specialisation at the country level following the evolution of export portfolios. We refocus this line of analysis on the regional European technology/knowledge space along the research avenue started by Kogler et al. (2017). We aim at investigating the pattern and the evolution of regional specialisation in the EU in terms of the interaction of (i) endogenous processes of knowledge recombination and localised technological change, (ii) exogenous technological paradigm shifts and (iii) trans-regional spatial and technological spillovers and networking dynamics. More specifically, our paper maps the technological trajectories of 198 EU regions over the period 1986-2010 by using data on 121 patent sectors in the NUTS2 regions of the 11 most innovative EU countries, plus Switzerland and Norway. We map the knowledge space following two approaches: a micro level one, based on co-classification information contained in patent documents (Engelsman and Van Raan, 1992; Kogler et al., 2017), and a macro level, based on conditional co-specialisations of regions in the same patent classes (Hidalgo et al., 2007). These two representations of the knowledge space serve as a basis for understanding the evolution of regional technological specialization, measured in terms of the sector-region relative technological advantage (RTA), and for modelling its dynamics as a function of spatial, technological and socio-cognitive proximity. Preliminary results show that regional technological paths display a significant level of path dependence in, which the technological specialization is significantly shaped by both localised technological change and recombinant innovation. We also find evidence of local spillover spillovers induced by both geographic and technological proximity. |
| JEL: | O14 O31 O33 O52 R11 R12 C21 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dis:wpaper:dis1904&r=all |
| By: | Gaessler, Fabian (MPI-IC Munich); Hall, Bronwyn H. (MPI-IC Munich); Harhoff, Dietmar (MPI-IC Munich) |
| Abstract: | A \"patent box\" is a term for the application of a lower corporate tax rate to the income derived from the ownership of patents. This tax subsidy instrument has been introduced in a number of countries since 2000. Using comprehensive data on patents filed at the European Patent Office, including information on ownership transfers pre- and post-grant, we investigate the impact of the introduction of a patent box on international patent transfers, on the choice of ownership location, and on invention in the relevant country. We find that the impact on transfers is small but present, especially when the tax instrument contains a development condition and for high value patents (those most likely to have generated income), but that invention itself is not affected. This calls into question whether the patent box is an effective instrument for encouraging innovation in a country, rather than simply facilitating the shifting of corporate income to low tax jurisdictions. |
| Keywords: | patent box; ip box; innovation tax; beps; epo; invention incentive; patent ownership; |
| JEL: | H32 K34 O34 |
| Date: | 2019–08–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:177&r=all |
| By: | Pelin Demirel (Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, UK.); Gamze Ozturk Danisman (Faculty of Economics Administrative and Social Sciences, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul,Turkey) |
| Abstract: | As the circular economy (CE) concept gains growing popularity among consumers and producers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) increasingly look for ways to reorganize their offering and operations to integrate into the CE. This study examines the impact of (1) circular eco-innovations and (2) external funding available for CE activities on the growth of European SMEs using a dataset of 5100 SMEs across 28 European countries in 2016. Findings reveal that a significant threshold investment (i.e. higher than 10% of revenues) into circular eco-innovations is required for SMEs to benefit from investing into the CE. Moreover, the majority of circular eco-innovations fail to boost the growth rates of SMEs, with the exception of investments into eco-design innovations. While traditional forms of debt and grant finance targeted to CE activities are found to have no or negative impact on the growth of SMEs, equity finance (i.e. angel and venture capital investments) contributes positively to their growth. The study offers insights into the lower levels of SME engagement in the CE as well as policy implications for improving engagement. |
| Keywords: | Circular Economy, Eco-Innovation, Eco-design, Entrepreneurship, Finance, Growth, SMEs. |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sru:ssewps:2019-13&r=all |
| By: | Monica Langella; Alan Manning |
| Abstract: | The UK has suffered from persistent spatial differences in unemployment rates for many decades. A low responsiveness of internal migration to unemployment is often argued to be an important cause of this problem. This paper uses UK census data to investigate how unemployment affects residential mobility using very small areas as potential destinations and origins and four decades of data. It finds that both in- and out-migration are affected by unemployment, although the effect on in-migration appears to be stronger - but also that there is a very high 'cost of distance' so most moves are very local. Using individual longitudinal data we show that the young and the better educated have a lower cost of distance but that sensitivity to unemployment shows much less variability across groups. |
| Keywords: | residential mobility, regional inequality, unemployment |
| JEL: | Z1 J01 R10 J21 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1639&r=all |
| By: | Mario Meier; Tim Obermeier |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how firms’ screening behavior and multiple applications per job affect the optimal design of unemployment policies. We provide a model of job search and firms’ recruitment process that incorporates important features of the hiring process. In our model, firms have limited information about the productivity of each applicant and make selective interview decisions among applicants, which leads to employer screening. We estimate the model using German administrative employment records and information on job search behavior, vacancies and applications. The model matches important features of the hiring process, e.g. the observed decline in search effort, job finding rates and interview rates with increased unemployment duration. We find that allowing for employer screening is quantitatively important for the optimal design of unemployment insurance. Benefits should be paid for a longer period of time and be more generous in the beginning, but more restrictive afterwards, compared to the case where we treat the hiring and interview decisions of firms as exogenous. This is because more generous benefits lead to lower search externalities among job seekers and because benefits change the composition of the unemployment pool which alleviates screening for the long-term unemployed. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, Optimal Unemployment Insurance, Employer Screening |
| JEL: | H20 J64 J65 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2019_110&r=all |
| By: | Hayen, A.P.;; Klein, T.J.;; Salm, M.; |
| Abstract: | Understanding how health care utilization responds to cost-sharing incentives is of central importance for providing high quality care and limiting the growth of costs. While there is compelling evidence that patients react to financial incentives, it is less well understood how and why specific aspects of the design of contracts shape the size of this reaction. In this paper, we focus on the question whether the framing of cost-sharing incentives has an effect on health care utilization. To study this we make use of a policy change that occurred in the Netherlands. Until 2007, patients received a a no-claim refund if they consumed little or no health care; from 2008 onward there was a deductible. This means that very similar economic incentives were first framed in terms of smaller gains and later as losses. We use claims-level data for a broad sample from the Dutch population to estimate whether the reaction to economic incentives was affected by this. Our empirical approach is to exploit within-year variation using an instrumental variables approach while controlling for differences across years. Our central finding is that patients react to incentives much more strongly when they are framed in terms of losses. Simulations based on our estimates show that the effect on yearly spending is 8.6 percent. This suggests that discussions on the optimal design of cost-sharing incentives should not only involve coinsurance rates and cost-sharing limits, but also how these are presented to patients. |
| Keywords: | patient cost-sharing; health insurance; framing; |
| JEL: | I13 D91 H51 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:19/12&r=all |
| By: | Michael Doersam (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, 53175 Bonn, Germany); Verena Lauber (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, 10115 Berlin, Germany) |
| Abstract: | A recent education reform in Germany reduced the duration of academic high school education by one year but left the curriculum, and total class time unchanged. We use a unique data set of university students to investigate the effects of this reduction in years of schooling on academic achievements at the tertiary level. By exploiting variation in the implementation of the reform across school types over time, we isolate the reform effect from cohort, state, and school type effects. Our results suggest that the reform lowers the opportunity costs of schooling and facilitates an earlier labor market entry as we find no detrimental effects while students are one year younger on average. |
| Keywords: | Education Economics; School Duration; Academic Achievement; Difference-in-Differences |
| JEL: | I21 H52 C21 |
| Date: | 2019–05–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:knz:dpteco:1903&r=all |
| By: | Martinelli, Luke; O'Neill, Kathryn |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the fiscal and distributional effects of a number of alternative basic income implementation modes across 28 European welfare states. The paper aims to make three contributions to the literature. Firstly, through the use of EUROMOD’s advanced ‘add-on’ and ‘loop’ features, we develop an innovative methodological approach to comparing the effects of revenue neutral basic income reforms across countries. As a consequence, the study is more ambitious in scope than previous basic income microsimulation research. Our second contribution is to generate rich and detailed comparative data regarding the fiscal and distributional effects of different ways of implementing basic income, thus contributing to the burgeoning literature on policy design features and trade-offs. Thirdly, we compare these effects and trade-offs across a large sample of European countries, and thus derive some tentative insights into basic income’s congruence with different types of welfare state. |
| Date: | 2019–07–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ese:emodwp:em14-19&r=all |
| By: | Colagrossi, Marco (European Commission); Karagiannis, Stelios (European Commission); Raab, Roman (European Commission) |
| Abstract: | The relation between income inequality and support for redistributive policies has long being debated by social scientists, albeit with mostly contrasting findings. We shed light on this puzzle by exploiting a novel EU-28 wide survey (Eurobarometer 471) and matching it with an array of regional and national inequality measures. Using binary choice models, we show that support for redistribution is positively linked with the level of income inequality. The same association is found for perceptions of inequality being too high. In addition, we exploit alternative proxies of socio-economic status as well as subjective beliefs about fairness in the society. We document that individuals believing to be at the top of the social ladder, as well as people considering equal opportunities to be in place, are less supportive of gov- ernment intervention to reduce inequalities. Our results are robust to different measures of inequalities, additional controls as well as a cross-validation with a widely recognized survey (ESS). We conclude that for the planning of policies based on social preferences, inequality matters. |
| Keywords: | Income inequality; preferences for redistribution; perceptions of inequality |
| JEL: | D31 D63 H53 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrs:wpaper:201906&r=all |
| By: | LE BOENNEC, Rémy; SALLADARRE, Frédéric |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we aim to demonstrate the way air pollution and noise may affect the well-being of the inhabitants of Nantes, France, designated the European Green Capital in 2013. We use a database compiling certain attributes of the houses that exchanged hands and their price. In order to understand the complex relationships that can exist between explanatory variables and housing price, we consider not only the direct effects of air pollution and noise on the price of around 3,000 houses sold in Nantes and its metropolitan area from 2002 to 2008, but also the way some location attributes of the dwellings may affect air pollution and noise. We demonstrate that even if air pollution may be affected by some location characteristics of the house, this variable has no significant impact on the price, in the end. Noise is affected by the location of the house and exerts some significant effect on housing price. However, whilst air pollution does not impact at a global level, people who have lived in an air polluted county before coming to Nantes are sensitive to air quality, whereas those who come from a low air polluted county tend to choose low noise exposure dwellings. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, noise pollution, housing location, housing price |
| JEL: | D62 Q51 Q53 R31 |
| Date: | 2017–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:94995&r=all |
| By: | Matilde Giaccherini (CEIS, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Joanna Kopinska (CEIS, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Alessandro Palma (University of Naples Parthenope & CEIS University of Rome "Tor Vergata") |
| Abstract: | We investigate unequal effects of daily particulate matter (PM) concentrations on Italian hospitalizations by exploiting daily episodes of public transportation strikes as an instrumental variable for pollution exposure. We find that higher PM concentrations increase the number of urgent respiratory admissions, with a larger penalty for the young, the elderly, the less educated and migrants from low income countries. Moreover, we show that hospitalizations resulting from higher PM concentrations are not only more likely to occur, but in the case of asthma and COPD, they are also more complex. In order to appreciate the heterogeneity of our results, we show how municipalities with different age structures and PM exposure levels face a similar hospitalization burden. Our study suggests that effective mitigation policies should account for the socio-economic gradient in the health effects of air pollution. |
| Keywords: | health effects of air pollution, environmental inequality, public transportation strikes, hospitalization costs |
| JEL: | I14 I18 J45 J52 L91 Q53 R41 |
| Date: | 2019–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:467&r=all |
| By: | Philippe Askenazy (CMH - Centre Maurice Halbwachs - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Thomas Breda (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the short- to medium-run effects on unionization and employers' and workers' trust in unions, of an important reform of French employment relations in 2008. This reform made the conditions for union recognition more liberal and democratic after 2008 in private firms with 11 employees or more. The law gave equal chances to all unions to be recognized for bargaining, putting an end to the quasi-monopoly given to five historical unions until then. The law also introduced votes and minimal electoral requirements to obtain union recognition. These new regulations only became fully effective at the first firms' work councils elections happening after January 1st, 2009. Those elections occur within each firm according to a pre-defined frequency - usually every four years -, so that election dates only depend on former election dates, and can be considered as quasi-random with respect to the application date of the new law, at least in firms that are old enough. The identification thus relies on a regression discontinuity design in which the running variable is the firms' work councils election date: we compare in early 2011 firms that had those elections just before or just after January 1st, 2009. We find that the democratic rules introduced in 2008 quickly improved employers' satisfaction and trust towards unions by around 45% of a standard deviation. Union coverage and membership at the establishment level also increased strongly due to the reform and work stoppages became more likely. Together, these results suggest that the introduction of electoral democracy in French firms managed to improve workers' participation in unions and their ability to voice concerns while also improving employers' opinions of unions. |
| Keywords: | Union Representativeness,Democracy,Unionization,Social Capital |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-02191304&r=all |
| By: | Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain); Mariya Ivanova-Toneva (Department of Finance and Accounting, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain) |
| Abstract: | The main objective of this paper is to analyse whether the gender of the mayor and the municipal council members affects compliance with the principles of budgetary stability and financial sustainability contained in Organic Law 2/2012 on Budgetary Stability and Financial sustainability. We find that in Spanish local governments during the period 2013–2016, the leadership of women mayors contributes to improving the financial situation of the local government. In particular, the presence of women mayors governing with a high proportion of female councillors increases the probability of compliance with regulations on budgetary stability, financial sustainability and the legal debt limit. Thus, the Law for Effective Equality of Women and Men favours compliance with the Law on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability. In addition, the results show that in pre electoral periods, women mayors are less likely to employ strategies designed to enhance their re election chances. |
| Keywords: | women mayors, gender quotas, budgetary stability, financial sustainability, law, municipalities |
| JEL: | H70 H74 J16 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jau:wpaper:2019/05&r=all |
| By: | Shuai Chen (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research); Jan C. van Ours (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of marriage on the stability of formal partnerships exploiting same-sex marriage legalization in the Netherlands as a natural experiment. Same-sex marriage legalization allowed registered partnerships to be transformed into marriage. Since registered partnerships and marriages are similar in terms of rights and obligations we can investigate the effect of marital symbolism on the partnership stability. Using rich administrative data, we find that same-sex marriage legalization had two different effects. First, it increased the separation rate of existing same-sex registered partnerships. Second, partnerships that were transformed into marriage had a substantially lower separation rate. We take the second finding as evidence of the symbolic effect of marriage stabilizing partnerships. |
| Keywords: | Same-sex marriage, registered partnership, separation, duration analysis |
| JEL: | K36 J12 J16 J15 |
| Date: | 2019–08–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20190055&r=all |
| By: | Malo, Miguel; Cueto, Begoña |
| Abstract: | This article analyses whether automation and offshorability risks overlap with non-standard employment. The research uses data from Spain, as this is a country with one of the highest temporary employment rates across the world since the 1990s. In general, the analysis shows that automation risks affect slightly more to those with non-standard work arrangements. However, higher educational level is crucial to be much less exposed to automation risks, irrespective of the type of contract or the working time. The offshorability risk also has a small overlap with non-standard employment, but has the opposite relationship with the educational level. The results suggest that specific training policies attending to those with lower educational levels in non-standard employment would be advisable to protect some workers against automation risks, but not against offshorability. |
| Keywords: | Automation; offshorability; temporary contracts; standard employment relationship |
| JEL: | J11 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95058&r=all |
| By: | Giammarco Alderotti (Sapienza, Università di Roma); Daniele Vignoli (Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Università di Firenze); Michela Baccini (Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti", Università di Firenze); Anna Matysiak (Vienna Institute of Demography) |
| Abstract: | The relationship between employment uncertainty and fertility is a major topic in demographic research. Since, particularly, the Great Recession , increasing numbers of papers on this matter have been published. Uncertainty is usually deemed to have a negative effect on fertility, but different fertility reactions are hypothesized by sociological theories, and micro-level evidence is fragmentary and contradictory. In this article, we use network meta-analysis to synthesize European research findings and to offer general conclusions about the effects of employment uncertainty on fertility (in terms of direction and size) and to rank different sources of uncertainty. Our results suggest that employment uncertainty is detrimental for fertility. For men, being unemployed is more detrimental for fertility than having time-limited employment; for women, time-limited employment is the worst condition for fertility, while unemployment is often used as an opportunity window for having children. Next, the negative effect of time-limited employment on fertility has become stronger over time, and is more severe in Southern European countries, where social protection for families and the unemployed is least generous. Finally, we demonstrate that failing to account for income and partner’s characteristics leads to an overestimation of the negative effect of employment uncertainty on fertility. We advance the role of these two factors as potential mechanisms by which employment uncertainty affects fertility. |
| Keywords: | employment uncertainty; fertility; meta-analysis; Europe |
| JEL: | J13 J21 J81 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fir:econom:wp2019_06&r=all |
| By: | Barrenho, E.;; Miraldo, M.;; Propper, C;; Rose, C.; |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of peers and networks on the uptake of innovation in surgery.Using a rich matched patient-surgeon data set covering all relevant surgeons, we construct a wide set of time varying measures of peer behaviour and network effects. Our estimates allow for simultaneity bias and treatment of the network as partially unknown. The findings show the importance of multiple channels in affecting the diffusion of innovative behaviour across individual surgeons. |
| Keywords: | innovation; peer effects; unknown networks; |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:19/10&r=all |
| By: | Cinzia Di Novi; Massimiliano Piacenza; Silvana Robone; Gilberto Turati (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | Recent theories on fiscal decentralization support the view that sub-national governments who finance a larger share of their spending with taxes raised locally by themselves are more accountable towards their citizens. Whilst evidence on improvements in spending efficiency is relatively common, little is known about the effects on inequalities amongst the population. In this paper we exploit a reform aimed at increasing regional tax autonomy in Italy to provide quasi-experimental evidence on the impact of fiscal decentralization on health disparities between- and within-regions. Our findings, robust to a number of robustness checks, support the view that fiscal decentralization does not impact on between-regional inequalities but can help to reduce inequalities within regions. However, this last effect depends on the degree of economic development: richer regions are better than poorer ones in containing inequalities. |
| Keywords: | fiscal decentralization, regional governments, healthcare policy, health inequalities. |
| JEL: | H75 I14 I15 I18 R50 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def083&r=all |
| By: | Giebeler, Constanze; Rebeggiani, Luca |
| Abstract: | The interest among academics and policy makers in the economics of Gambling has risen substantially. Changes in gambling regulation, the relevance of gambling generated (tax) revenues and the usefulness to other fields of economics, increased the interest in understanding gambling demand. The focus of this paper is to provide one of the first comprehensive analyses of gambling demand in Germany, by studying the socio-demographic and socio-economic factors which influence gambling expenditures using one of the largest data sets available, the official income and consumption survey (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe). Applying models suitable for censored data, we identify the factors influencing gambling demand. Some findings are in line with the previous literature on gambling demand, others are quite surprising. They show that female household heads spend less on gambling than their male counterparts. The number of dependants in the household influences gambling behaviour negatively, while married couples have higher expenditures than single person households. We find that while gambling expenditures increase with the age of the household head, they do so at a diminishing rate. Income is also a strong determinant of gambling expenditure. Gambling expenditures rise with the household's income. We find no evidence that expenditures increase regressively. Furthermore, the education and occupation of the Household head influences gambling behaviour. A higher education has a negative effect on the propensity to gamble. We also find that households with privately employed household heads tend to spend more on gambling than those with unemployed or self-employed household heads. On the other hand, a household head who is a civil servant or retired has a positive effect. In contrast to previous literature, we find a negative effect of urbanity on household gambling expenditure. We discuss these and other results in the context of the theory of risk taking preferences and also with a focus on gambling regulation and taxation. |
| Keywords: | Gambling, Consumer Demand, Risk and Uncertainty |
| JEL: | D12 D81 L83 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:94735&r=all |
| By: | Mario Scharfbillig (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz); Marco Weissler (Institut fuer Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Goethe University Frankfurt) |
| Abstract: | We provide estimates of the effect of migrant labor supply on resident employment. We exploit variation in the number of asylum seekers eligible to the suspension of a major hiring restriction implemented in a subset of German counties. Our difference-in-difference design allows us to provide evidence from a labor supply shock of migrants on local markets net of their additional spending at arrival that might mask labor market displacement effects. Despite this, we do not find a negative effect on employment growth of natives but only on other foreign residents. This also holds for unskilled employees. Therefore, our findings can be interpreted as the consequence of differential substitutability of different subgroups, where asylum seekers are substitutes to other immigrants but not natives - even when they are similarly qualified. |
| Keywords: | asylum seeker, displacement, skill complementarity |
| JEL: | J22 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2019–07–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jgu:wpaper:1910&r=all |
| By: | Miquel-Àngel Garcia-López (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB)); Jordi Jofre-Monseny (Universitat de Barcelona, Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB)); Rodrigo Martínez Mazza (Universitat de Barcelona, Institut d’Economia de Barcelona (IEB)); Mariona Segú (RITM, Université Paris Sud, Paris Saclay) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we assess the impact of the arrival and expansion of Airbnb on housing rents and prices in the city of Barcelona. Examining highly detailed data on rents and both transaction and posted prices, we use several econometric approaches that exploit the exact timing and geography of Airbnb activity in the city. These include i) panel fixed-effects models with neighborhood-specific time trends, ii) an instrumental variable shift-share approach in which tourist amenities predict where Airbnb listings will locate and Google searches predict when listings appear, and iii) event-study designs. For the average neighborhood in terms of Airbnb activity, our preferred results imply that rents have increased by 1.9%, while transaction (posted) prices have increased by 5.3% (3.7%). The estimated impact in neighborhoods with high Airbnb activity is substantial. For neighborhoods in the top decile of Airbnb activity distribution, rents are estimated to have increased by 7%, while increases in transaction (posted) prices are estimated at 19% (14%). |
| Keywords: | Housing markets, short-term rentals, Airbnb |
| JEL: | R10 R20 R31 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2019-05&r=all |