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on Microeconomic European Issues |
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Issue of 2021‒03‒15
24 papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Campo, Francesco (University of Milan Bicocca); Giunti, Sara (University of Milan Bicocca); Mendola, Mariapia (University of Milan Bicocca) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the 2014-2017 'refugee crisis' in Italy affected voting behaviour and the rise of right-wing populism in national Parliamentary elections. We collect unique administrative data throughout the crisis and leverage exogenous variation in refugee resettlement across Italian municipalities induced by the Dispersal Policy. We find a positive and significant effect of the share of asylum seekers on support for radical-right anti-immigration parties. The effect is heterogeneous across municipality characteristics, yet robust to dispersal policy features. We provide causal evidence that the anti-immigration backlash is not rooted in adverse economic effects, while it is triggered by radical-right propaganda. |
| Keywords: | dispersal policy, voting behavior, refugee crisis, immigration, impact evaluation |
| JEL: | D72 F22 O15 P16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14084&r=all |
| By: | Christofzik, Désirée I.; Feld, Lars P.; Yeter, Mustafa |
| Abstract: | Using quarterly data for German counties, we study how housing prices and offers respond to higher transaction costs induced by tax increases. Since 2006, states can set their own tax rates on real estate transfers. Several and substantial tax hikes generate variation across time and states which we exploit in our empirical analysis using an event study design. Our results indicate that prices and offers decrease significantly by 3% and 6% already in the quarter in which the tax increase is announced in press but rise subsequently. Furthermore, we find heterogeneous responses when distinguishing between different types of counties. Housing prices decrease persistently in shrinking counties, while this is at most temporarily the case in growing, central and peripheral counties. This implies that the economic incidence of this tax varies across transactions. |
| Keywords: | Real estate transfer tax,real estate prices,housing market,tax incidence,anticipation effects |
| JEL: | H20 H22 H71 R32 R38 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:aluord:2010&r=all |
| By: | Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González (Department of Financial Economics and Actuarial Science, University of Valencia.); Marta Regúlez-Castillo (Department of Applied Economics III. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).); Carlos Vidal-Meliá (Department of Financial Economics and Actuarial Science, University of Valencia.) |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to examine differences in life expectancy (LE) between selfemployed (SE) and paid employee (PE) workers when they become retirement pensioners, looking at levels of pension income using administrative data from Spanish social security records. We draw on the Continuous Sample of Working Lives (CSWL) to quantify changes in total life expectancy at ages 65 (LE65) and 75 (LE75) among retired men over the longest possible period covered by this data source: 2005–2018. These changes are broken down by pension regime and pension income level for three periods. Contrary to what has been observed in countries such as Italy, Finland and Japan, LE65 in Spain is slightly higher for the self-employed than for the paid employees when retirement pensioners. For 2005-2010, a gap in life expectancy of 0.23 years between SE and PE retirement pensioners is observed. This gap widens to 0.55 years for 2014–2018. A similar trend can be seen if pension income groups are considered. For 2005-2010, the gap in LE65 between pensioners in the lowest and the highest income groups is 1.20 years. This gap widens over time and reaches 1.51 years for 2014–2018. Although these differences are relatively small, they are statistically significant. According to our research the implications for policy on social security are evident: differences in life expectancy by socioeconomic status and pension regime should be taken into account for a variety of issues involving social security schemes, e.g. to establish the age of eligibility for retirement pensions and early access to benefits, to compute the annuity factors used to determine initial retirement benefits, and to value the liabilities taken on for retirement pensioners. |
| Keywords: | Continuous Sample of Working Lives; Life expectancy; Paid employees; Retirement; Self-employed; Spain. |
| JEL: | C81 H55 I14 J26 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doicae:2104&r=all |
| By: | Pavlova, Elitsa; Signore, Simone |
| Abstract: | We use competing risks methods to investigate the causal link between venture capital (VC) investments supported by the EIF and the exit prospects and patenting activity of young and innovative firms. Using a novel dataset covering European start-ups receiving VC financing in the years 2007 to 2014, we generate a counterfactual group of non-VC-backed young and innovative firms via a combination of exact and propensity score matching. To offset the limited set of observables allowed by our data, we introduce novel measures based on machine learning, network theory, and satellite imagery analysis to estimate treatment propensity. Our estimates indicate that start-ups receiving EIF VC experienced a significant threefold increase in their likelihood to exit via M&A. We find a similarly large effect in the case of IPO, albeit only weakly significant. Moreover, we find that EIF VC contributed to a 13 percentage points higher incidence in patenting activity during the five years following the investment date. Overall, our work provides meaningful evidence towards the positive effects of EIF's VC activity on the exit prospects and innovative capacity of young and innovative businesses in Europe. |
| Keywords: | EIF,venture capital,public intervention,exit strategy,innovation,start-ups,machine learning,geospatial analysis,network theory |
| JEL: | G24 G34 M13 O32 O38 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eifwps:202170&r=all |
| By: | Juan C. Palomino (University of Oxford (UK), INET and Department of Social Policy and Intervention.); Juan G. Rodríguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), ICAE, EQUALITAS and CEDESOG.); Raquel Sebastian (Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), ICAE and EQUALITAS.) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the distributional consequences of social distancing for the case of Spanish regions. Under 2 months of lockdown plus 10 months of partial functioning our study consistently finds potential wage losses that are sizeable and uneven across the wage distribution all around Spain, but with different intensity depending on the region’s productive structure. The increase of the headcount poverty index oscillates between 8.2 (Navarre) and 19.2 (the Balearic Islands) percentage points, while the Gini coefficient rises between 2.3 (Navarre) and 5.3 (the Balearic Islands) Gini points. We also find that inequality between regions increases, eroding regional cohesion in Spain. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; poverty; inequality; teleworking; social distancing; regions; Spain. |
| JEL: | D33 E24 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doicae:2103&r=all |
| By: | Giovanni Immordino (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF); Tullio Jappelli (Università di Napoli Federico II, CSEF, CFS, CEPR and Netspar); Tommaso Oliviero (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF); Alberto Zazzaro (University of Naples Federico II, CSEF and MoFiR.) |
| Abstract: | Using data from a new survey of 3,000 Italian households collected at the end of October 2020, we study the effect of fear of COVID-19 contagion and income risk on consumption. The survey elicits individual-level indicators of fear of contagion, distinguishing between worries while working, shopping, traveling, eating out and meeting relatives or friends, and indicators of changes in spending behavior after the pandemics. The probabilities of consumption drops and increased saving are positively associated to fear of contagion, particularly while shopping, traveling and eating out. Income uncertainty, measured by the probability of job loss, also contributes to explain the increase in saving and the drop in consumption. Our findings suggest that fear of contagion and income uncertainty limits the effectiveness of policies aimed at stimulating consumption during the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Consumption, Precautionary Saving, Fear of Contagion. |
| JEL: | D14 D15 |
| Date: | 2021–01–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:601&r=all |
| By: | Sandra M. Leitner (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | In our analysis we applied the newly developed ‘cohort approach’ to the six Western Balkan countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) for the period 2010-2019 to shed light on the total extent and skill composition of net migration, differentiating between four educational levels Low (primary or lower secondary education), Medium-general (upper secondary general education), Medium-VET (upper secondary vocational education and training), and High (tertiary education). Our results show that during the period analysed all six countries experience net emigration. However, in terms of magnitude and particular age pattern these movements differ across countries. Net migration is particularly prevalent among the young. A high youth unemployment rate, family reunification and education abroad are key drivers behind this pattern. A further breakdown of net migration by highest level of education shows that net emigration in the region occurs mainly among the medium- and low-educated, particularly among those in their early to mid-20s and early 30s. There is evidence of brain drain in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. In Albania, net emigration of the highly educated is substantial and accounts for almost 40% of the total estimated cumulative outflow. Brain drain in Albania and Kosovo is highest among recent university graduates. Importantly, and contrary to widespread perception, there is evidence of brain gain in some Western Balkan countries, namely in Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia. The key drivers of this are students, who return in large numbers to their home countries after graduating from tertiary education abroad. In Serbia and Montenegro immigration of highly skilled workers is also important in this context. |
| Keywords: | Net-migration, skill composition, Western Balkans, cohort approach |
| JEL: | J61 J24 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:pnotes:pn:47&r=all |
| By: | Alessandro Bucciol (Department of Economics (University of Verona)); Giovanni Burro (Bocconi University) |
| Abstract: | Is there a happiness premium for working in the public sector? We explore this question using a large sample of Italian employees from 2004 to 2016. We find that happiness increases with economic status. Public employees enjoy a happiness premium compared to private employees, but only if they are of low economic status. Depending on the definition of economic status, their happiness gain is able to compensate half or all the gap these individuals face with respect to private employees of medium economic status. Our findings add to the relatively scant empirical literature on psychological well-being and public employment. |
| Keywords: | Happiness, Public employment, Economic status, Wellbeing |
| JEL: | D90 I31 Z13 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ver:wpaper:05/2021&r=all |
| By: | Didier Raboisson (UMR ASTRE - Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Ahmed Ferchiou (UMR ASTRE - Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Tifenn Corre (US ODR - Observatoire des Programmes Communautaires de Développement Rural - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sylvain Perez (UMR ASTRE - Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Pierre Sans (ALISS - Alimentation et sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Guillaume Lhermie (UMR ASTRE - Animal, Santé, Territoires, Risques et Ecosystèmes - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Marie Dervillé (LEREPS - Laboratoire d'Etude et de Recherche sur l'Economie, les Politiques et les Systèmes Sociaux - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - UT2J - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès - Institut d'Études Politiques [IEP] - Toulouse - ENSFEA - École Nationale Supérieure de Formation de l'Enseignement Agricole de Toulouse-Auzeville) |
| Abstract: | In France, veterinarians can both prescribe and deliver veterinary medicines, which is a questionable situation from the perspective of antimicrobial use (AMU) reduction to avoid antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This situation places veterinarians in direct commercial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry as purchase contracts are signed between veterinarians and pharmaceutical companies. The aim of the present work is to analyse the relationships between veterinarians and pharmaceutical firms in the oligopoly market context of French veterinary medicine to determine whether the prescription behaviour of practitioners can be biased by joint prescription and delivery. Therefore, we develop an analysis based on principal-agent theory. Contracts between pharmaceutical companies and veterinarians during the 2008–2014 period were analysed based on 382 contracts related to 47 drugs belonging to eight main pharmaceutical firms (2320 observations). The price per unit after rebate of each drug and contract was calculated. The descriptive analysis demonstrated high disparity among the contracts across pharmaceutical firms with regard to the provisions of the contracts and how they are presented. Then, linear regression was used to explain the price per unit after rebate based on the explanatory variables, which included the yearly purchase objective, year, type of drug and type of rebate. The decrease in price per unit after rebate for each extra €1000 purchase objective per drug category was established to be €0.061 per 100 kg body weight for anticoccidiosis treatments, €0.029 per 100 kg body weight for anti-inflammatories, €0.0125 per 100 kg body weight and €0.0845 per animal for antiparasitics, and €0.031 per animal for intramammary antimicrobials. Applying agency theory reveals that veterinarians can be considered agents in the case of monopolistic situations involving pharmaceutical firms; otherwise, veterinarians are considered principals (oligopolistic situations in which at least several medicines have similar indications). The present study does not provide evidence suggesting that joint prescription and delivery may introduce any potential prescription bias linked to conflicts of interest under the market conditions during the 2008–2014 period. |
| Keywords: | contract,pharmaceutical firm,drugs,veterinarian |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03148045&r=all |
| By: | Corsini, Alberto (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); Pezzoni, Michele (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques, HCERES, OFCE, SciencePo, France, and ICRIOS, Bocconi University, Italy); Visentin, Fabiana (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed on her scientific productivity during the training period. Vertical and horizontal relationships depict the social environment. Vertical relationships are those supervisor-student, while horizontal relationships are those student-peers. We characterize these relationships by assessing how the supervisor's and peers' biographic and academic characteristics relate to the student's productivity as measured by the publication quantity, quality, and scientific network size. Unique to our study, we cover the entire student population of a European country for all the STEM fields. Specifically, we analyse the productivity of 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. We find that having a female supervisor is associated with a higher student's productivity as well as being supervised by a mid-career scientist and having a supervisor with a high academic reputation. The supervisor's fundraising ability benefits only one specific dimension of the student's productivity, i.e., the student's work quality. Interestingly, the supervisor's mentorship experience negatively associates with student's productivity. Having many peers negatively associates with the student's productivity, especially if peers are senior students. Having female peers positively correlates with the student's productivity, while peers' academic status shows mixed effects according to the productivity dimension considered. We find results heterogeneity when breaking down our sample by field of research. |
| Keywords: | French Ph.D. students, Productivity determinants, Social environment, Supervisor, Peers |
| JEL: | J24 O30 |
| Date: | 2021–03–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2021011&r=all |
| By: | Marie Blaise; Laetitia Dillenseger |
| Abstract: | The impact of informal care provision on life satisfaction remains an unsolved puzzle: because of reverse causality and time-varying unobserved variable biases, simple cross-sectional estimations or fixed-effect models may provide unclear picture of the causal relation between the informal care supply and life satisfaction. Using panel data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) for the Netherlands over the period 2009-2018, we first estimate a simple OrdinaryLeast-Square (OLS) model with fixed-effect analysing the impact of informal care on caregivers’ life satisfaction. We then use an Arellano-Bond system Generalized-Method-of-Moments (GMM) model to address endogeneity issues. We find that taking into account an endogeneity bias slightly increases the negative impact of providing informal care on life satisfaction compared with an OLS with fixed-effects approach. Additionally, the detrimental effect of providing care is larger for women, individuals being in co-habitation with children, and unemployed individuals. Among caregivers, providing support to someone living in the same household or being a family caregiver has a stronger negative impact on life satisfaction. |
| Keywords: | Informal care; satisfaction; happiness; generalized method of moments; the Netherlands. |
| JEL: | D10 I10 I31 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2020-55&r=all |
| By: | Jacques Bughin; Michele Cincera; Kelly Peters; Dorota Reykowska; Marcin Zyszkiewicz; Rafal Ohme |
| Abstract: | This research updates early studies on the intention to be vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus among a representative sample of adults in 6 European countries (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the UK) and differentiated by groups of “acceptors”, “refusers”, and “ hesitant”. The research relies on a set of traditional logistic and more complex classification techniques such as Neural Networks and Random Forest techniques to determine common predictors of vaccination preferences. The findings highlight that socio-demographics are not a reliable measure of vaccination propensity, after one controls for different risk perceptions, and illustrate the key role of institutional and peer trust for vaccination success. Policymakers must build vaccine promotion techniques differentiated according to “acceptors”, “refusers”, and “ hesitant”, while restoring much larger trust in their actions upfront since the pandemics if one wishes the vaccination coverage to close part of the gap to the level of herd immunity. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, vaccine strategy, deconfinement, priority groups, random-forest, tree classification |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ict:wpaper:2013/320284&r=all |
| By: | Anne de Bortoli; Zoi Christoforou |
| Abstract: | The indirect environmental impacts of transport disruptions in urban mobility are frequently overlooked due to a lack of appropriate assessment methods. Consequential Life Cycle Assessment (CLCA) is a method to capture the environmental consequences of the entire cause and effect chain of these disruptions but has never been adapted to transportat disruption at the city scale. This paper proposes a mathematical formalization of CLCA applied to a territorial mobility change. The method is applied to quantify the impact on climate change of the breakthrough of free-floating e-scooters (FFES) in Paris. A FFES user survey is conducted to estimate the modal shifts due to FFES. Trip substitutions from all the Parisian modes concerned are considered - personal or shared bicycles and motor scooters, private car, taxi and ride-hailing, bus, streetcar, metro and RER (the Paris metropolitan area mass rapid transit system). All these Parisian modes are assessed for the first time using LCA. Final results estimate that over one year, the FFES generated an extra thirteen thousand tons of CO2eq under an assumption of one million users, mainly due to major shifts coming from lower-emitting modes (60% from the metro and the RER, 22% from active modes). Recommendations are given to enhance their carbon footprint. A scenario analysis shows that increasing the lifetime mileage is insufficient to get a positive balance: reducing drastically servicing emissions is also required. A sensitivity analysis switching the French electricity mix for eleven other country mixes suggests a better climate change effect of the FFES in similar metropolitan areas with higher electricity carbon intensity, such as in Germany and China. Finally, the novelty and the limits of the method are discussed, as well as the results and the role of e-scooters, micromobility, and shared vehicles towards a sustainable mobility. |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2103.00680&r=all |
| By: | Disney, Richard; Gathergood, John; Machin, Stephen; Sandi, Matteo |
| Abstract: | "Right to Buy" (RTB), a large-scale natural experiment by which incumbent tenants in public housing could buy properties at heavily-subsidised prices, increased the UK homeownership rate by over 10 percentage points between 1980 and the late 1990s. This paper studies its impact on crime, showing that RTB generated significant reductions in property and violent crime that persist up to today. The behavioural changes of incumbent tenants and the renovation of public properties were the main drivers of the crime reduction. This is evidence of a novel means by which subsidised homeownership and housing policy may contribute to reduce criminality. |
| Keywords: | Crime,Homeownership,Public Housing |
| JEL: | H44 K14 R31 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cfswop:651&r=all |
| By: | Giovanni Abbiati (Università di Milano); Jonathan Pratschke (Università di Napoli Federico II and CSEF.) |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews the recent peer effects literature and showcases the simultaneous autoregressive model, which integrates aspects of multiple regression modelling, instrumental variables, social network analysis and longitudinal analysis. It describes state of the art techniques for making inferences using survey data, clarifies the assumptions made by statistical models and provides further evidence on the impact of peers in education. The paper includes a case study using data from an Italian survey to study peer effects in relation to university enrollment. The model includes components that control for endogenous, exogenous and correlated peer effects as well as different forms of selection. The evidence presented in the paper suggests that endogenous peer effects have a statistically and substantively significant influence on the probability of enrolling at university, measured over one year. Sensitivity tests suggest that the results of the estimation are robust to confounding due to latent homophily and other potential sources of bias. |
| Keywords: | Peer effects; Simultaneous auto-regressive models; Education; Social inequalities; University enrollment; Italy. |
| Date: | 2021–02–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:603&r=all |
| By: | Guillermo Cabanillas-Jiménez |
| Abstract: | The Spanish Christmas Lottery is one of the most common lottery games played in Spain. This paper analyses how local windfall gains from the Christmas Lottery can affect household consumption behavior. We find that there is a significant increase in goods consumption in the winning Regions. More precisely, we find that durable goods are sensitive to lottery winnings, meaning that those households living in the winning Regions of the lottery spend more on this type of goods. Non-durable goods do not seem to react to the income shock, as the estimated effect is inelastic, although the effect is statistically significant. Despite these findings are in line with the theoretical predictions, these results imply a violation of the Permanent Income Hypothesis for long-life goods, as households do not smooth their consumption when a onetime and positive income shock occurs. |
| Keywords: | Consumption; Durable goods; Non-durable goods; Lottery; PIH; Winning Region |
| JEL: | C01 C23 C26 C55 C93 D12 D14 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:2104&r=all |
| By: | Francis Ostermeijer (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Hans RA Koster (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Leonardo Nunes (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Jos van Ommeren (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We examine the eff ect of citywide parking policy on parking and traffic demand. Using a large increase in on-street parking prices for the city of Amsterdam, we show that the policy caused a substantial drop in on-street parking demand, which is not off set by an increase in off -street demand. The overall reduction in parking demand implies a 2% - 3% reduction in traffic, which is con firmed with traffic flow data. The reductions in traffic are larger during the evening peak, which indicates that parking prices are effective at reducing congestion in the evening peak, but lesser in the morning peak. |
| Keywords: | Parking, prices, traffic flow, congestion |
| JEL: | R41 R48 R51 R52 |
| Date: | 2021–02–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20210015&r=all |
| By: | Naomitsu Yashiro; Tomi Kyyrä; Hyunjeong Hwang; Juha Tuomala |
| Abstract: | Among various barriers to increasing employment of older workers, this paper focuses on two notable ones that are relevant for the future of work. First, older workers engaged in codifiable, routine tasks are particularly prone to the risk of being displaced by computers and robots. Second, several countries have in place various labour market institutions that encourage early retirement, such as exceptional entitlements or looser criteria for unemployment and disability benefits applied to older individuals. This paper presents evidence that these two factors reinforce each other to push older workers out of employment. It is found that older workers who are more exposed to digital technologies are more likely to leave employment, and that this effect is significantly magnified when they are eligible to an extension of unemployment benefits until they start drawing old age pension. Furthermore, a simple simulation based on the empirical findings illustrates that a reform that tightens the eligibility for the benefit extension would increase mostly the employment of older workers that are more exposed to digital technologies. |
| Keywords: | early retirement, technological change, unemployment benefits |
| JEL: | H55 J26 J65 O33 |
| Date: | 2021–03–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1659-en&r=all |
| By: | Augusto Cerqua; Roberta Di Stefano; Marco Letta; Sara Miccoli |
| Abstract: | We investigate the possibility of a harvesting effect, i.e. a temporary forward shift in mortality, of the COVID-19 pandemic by looking at the excess mortality trends of one of the areas with the highest death toll in the world, Northern Italy. We do not find any evidence of a sizable COVID-19 harvesting effect, neither in the summer months following the slowdown of the first wave nor at the beginning of the second wave. According to our estimates, only a minor share of the total excess deaths detected in Northern Italy over the entire period under scrutiny (February - November 2020) can be attributed to an anticipatory role of COVID-19. A somewhat more sizable harvesting effect is detected for the most severely affected areas (the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, in particular), but even in these territories, the harvesting effect only accounts for less than 20% of excess deaths. Furthermore, the lower excess mortality rates observed in these areas at the beginning of the second wave could be due to several factors other than a harvesting effect, including behavioral change and some degree of temporary herd immunity. The very limited presence of mortality displacement in the short-run restates once more the case for containment policies aimed at minimizing the health impacts of the pandemic. |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2103.01812&r=all |
| By: | Hugo Pinto; Carla Nogueira; John Edwards (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | Universities and other higher education institutions (HEIs) are expected to play a catalytic role in S3. They are increasingly being asked to fulfil many new and wide-ranging tasks, probably with an overly optimistic perspective. To be effective in answering to all demands - such as being sources of knowledge, providers of education and training for strategic leaders of regional regeneration, suppliers of knowledge intensive services and infrastructure, local connectors with external knowledge and markets, and also animators of their innovation systems – HEIs face internal and external limitations. This report presents the main results of the JRC project on Higher Education for Smart Specialisation in Portugal. The project intends to help build innovation capabilities by strengthening the participation of HEIs in regional networks; and by promoting the integration of higher education with research, innovation and regional development in the S3 policy mix. The results are divided into two categories. First, a quantitative and descriptive analysis of the publicly available information about the HE system and on the use of European Structural and Investment Funds. Second, the presentation of qualitative results, based on the content analysis of interviews administered to key stakeholders and focus groups conducted in all regions. Results identify aspects for the innovative and transformation potential of Portuguese regions while they also underline contextual and specific problems facing HEIs, while highlighting measures to help overcome these limitations. |
| Keywords: | Portugal, Higher Education |
| Date: | 2021–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc123230&r=all |
| By: | Daniel Graeber (DIW Berlin, University of Potsdam); Alexander S. Kritikos (DIW Berlin, University of Potsdam); Johannes Seebauer (DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the government-mandated measures to contain its spread, affect the self-employed – particularly women – in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are 35% more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. Conversely, we do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, i.e. the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship. |
| Keywords: | self-employed, COVID-19, income, gender, representative real-time survey data, decomposition methods |
| JEL: | J16 L26 J31 J71 I18 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:27&r=all |
| By: | Runst, Petrik; Höhle, David |
| Abstract: | Many countries have only recently introduced carbon taxation to reduce emissions and the time series data for evaluating these policies is not available yet. Consequently, we use the imposition quasi-carbon-taxes in the German transportation sector, i.e. taxes on fuel that are not calculated based on actual CO2content but which raise the implicit price of carbon emissions, to evaluate the effectiveness of environmental taxation. Our results indicate that the carbon price increase by about 66 €/t CO2led toa considerable decline of transport emissions by 0.2 to 0.35 t per person and year. Our quantitative results as well as a detailed qualitative analysis of a German car manufacturer's business reports suggests that the tax triggered an improvement in engine technology as well as an increased share of diesel engines. |
| Keywords: | Carbon taxation,transport sector,carbon emissions |
| JEL: | H23 Q48 R48 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifhwps:292021&r=all |
| By: | Jarkko Harju; Simon Jäger; Benjamin Schoefer |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effects of worker voice on job quality and separations. We leverage the 1991 introduction of worker representation on boards of Finnish firms with at least 150 employees. In contrast to exit-voice theory, our difference-in-differences design reveals no effects on voluntary job separations, and at most small positive effects on other measures of job quality (job security, health, subjective job quality, and wages). Worker voice slightly raised firm survival, productivity, and capital intensity. A 2008 introduction of shop-floor representation had similarly limited effects. Interviews and surveys indicate that worker representation facilitates information sharing rather than boosting labor’s power. |
| JEL: | G3 J3 J5 J63 L22 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28522&r=all |
| By: | Marta Fana (European Commission – JRC); Davide Villani (The Open University); Martina Bisello (Eurofound, Dublin) |
| Abstract: | This article investigates gender differences in tasks performed at the workplace over a period of 25 years, from 1991 and 2016 in France. We exploit data from the Enquête Complémentaire Emploi: Conditions de travail, the oldest survey at the worker level among European countries on a wide range of work attributes and working conditions measures. In our study, we focus both on the content of work form a material perspective, looking concretely at what job tasks are performed by men and women, and on work organisational practices, to capture gender disparities in authority and power relations at the workplace. Our findings reveal that women tend to perform different tasks compared to their male colleagues within the same job also after controlling for supply-side factors, like education, age and seniority. While in line with previous studies we find that women still tend to perform fewer physical tasks than men, despite significant increase in such activities in female dominated jobs, there is no strong evidence supporting the "brain" hypothesis. On the contrary, women appear to be less involved in intellectual tasks and, especially, social tasks such as managing and coordinating. Furthermore, social interactions with clients or customers do not significantly characterise feminised jobs, challenging the idea according to which gender segregation between jobs is explained by the predominance of this type of tasks. Additionally, and more importantly, our analysis shows that gender matters also in terms of work organisation and distribution of power, highlighting strong asymmetries in the way authority and autonomy are distributed between male and female workers, unbalanced in favor of men. Finally, our study shows that these gender effects often exacerbate within male dominated jobs, although they do not necessarily disappear as the share of female workers increases at the job level. We conclude that power and authority are structurally a prerogative of men, regardless of individual and job characteristics, even within female dominated jobs. |
| Keywords: | employment, working conditions, tasks, gender differences |
| JEL: | J01 J21 J81 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:laedte:202103&r=all |