|
on Microeconomic European Issues |
|
Issue of 2021‒11‒08
28 papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Thomas Grebel; Mauro Napoletano (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Lionel Nesta (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We study the productivity level distributions of manufacturing firms in France and Germany, and how these distributions evolved across the Great Recession. We show the presence of a systematic productivity advantage of German firms over French ones in the decade 2003-2013, but the gap has narrowed down after the Great Recession. Convergence is explained by the better growth performance of French firms in the post-recession period, especially of those located in the top percentiles of the productivity distribution. We also highlight the role of sectoral growth, firm size and export intensity in explaining the above convergence. In contrast, the contribution of allocative efficiency was small. |
| Keywords: | international productivity gaps,productivity distributions,firm level comparisons |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03374310&r= |
| By: | Cyprien Batut (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, DGTPE - Direction Générale du Trésor et de la Politique Economique - Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie); Ulysse Lojkine (UPN - Université Paris Nanterre, PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Paolo Santini (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we look at the long term evolution of the composition of union membershipin the four largest European countries: France, West Germany, Italy, and the United King-dom. Using unexploited micro data coming from post electoral, labor, and household surveys,we first revisit commonly accepted unionization levels from the past 60 years. We find that,for France and Italy, union density was at time under- and over- estimated respectively. Sec-ond, we present long run evidence on the evolution of the composition of unions in terms ofthe socio-economic characteristics (occupation, length of education, public or private sector,gender) of their members. Two types of unionisation emerge from this analysis. In Franceand Italy, the composition of unions has been primarily determined by structural changesin the composition of the workforce with no notable changes in the selection of the differentgroups into unions when aggregate density varied. In the UK and West Germany, instead,selection into unions has changed dramatically: Blue collars and less educated worker wereover-represented in the '60s, but this has declined over time. We argue that these two typesof unionization are related to the institutional characteristics of each country and show thatthe evolution of selection into union is linked to the public-sectorization of unions: as uniondensity fall, the share of public workers in unions increases. |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03364022&r= |
| By: | Angelici, M.; Berta, P.; Costa-Font, J; Turati, G. |
| Abstract: | We compare health system responses to the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and Spain. Although in both countries, healthcare is managed at the regional level, the central government behaved differently in the uncertainty surrounding the first wave, leaving more autonomy to regional governments in Italy than in Spain. Upon documenting evidence of national and regional health system responses, we show important differences in the number of infected cases, alongside regular and emergency hospital admissions, and mortality in the two countries, both at the national and at the regional level. We then discuss several potential mechanisms, such as policy stringency, the localization of the pandemic and mobility restrictions, measurement error, and especially the regional autonomy, enjoyed by Italian regions but not by Spanish regional governments amidst a state of alarm in both countries. We conclude that, given the strong localized effect of the pandemic, allowing more autonomy, and fostering experimentation and local solutions explains the gap between Italy and Spain in the first wave of the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | regional health systems; decentralization; policy stringency; health care; COVID-19; Italy; Spain; |
| JEL: | H75 I18 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:21/19&r= |
| By: | Giacomo Domini (Erasmus University Rotterdam); Marco Grazzi (Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Daniele Moschella (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna); Tania Treibich (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of investment in automation- and AI- related goods on within-firm wage inequality in the French economy during the period 2002-2017. We document that most of wage inequality in France is accounted for by differences among workers belonging to the same firm, rather than by differences between sectors, firms, and occupations. Using an event-study approach on a sample of firms importing automation and AI-related goods, we find that spike events related to the adoption of automation- or AI-related capital goods are not followed by an increase in within-firm wage nor in gender inequality. Instead, wages increase by 1% three years after the events at different percentiles of the distribution. Our findings are not linked to a rent-sharing behavior of firms obtaining productivity gains from automation or AI adoption. Instead, if the wage gains do not differ across workers along the wage distribution, worker heterogeneity is still present. Indeed, aligned with the framework in Abowd et al.(1999b), most of the overall wage increase is due to the hiring of new employees. This adds to previous findings showing picture of a `labor friendly' effect of the latest wave of new technologies within adopting firms. |
| Keywords: | Automation, AI, wage inequality, gender pay gap |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:laedte:202115&r= |
| By: | Martins, Pedro S. |
| Abstract: | This study proposes and applies a new methodology to analyse firms' and workers' occupational preferences. We use microdata covering all 2014-2018 vacancy and jobseeker registrations from the Public Employment Services of Belgium, Morocco, and South Korea. We find that a small number of occupations are responsible for a large share of registrations and may thus deserve particular attention. We also find considerable stability in occupation preferences (especially by jobseekers) but that the correlation between firms' and workers' preferences weakens over time. Finally, we find different responsiveness levels of jobseeker preferences to vacancy gaps. However, young jobseekers do not appear to respond more quickly to such gaps. |
| Keywords: | Labour adjustment,Occupations,Job search,Vacancy gaps |
| JEL: | J24 J62 J68 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:971&r= |
| By: | Cevat Giray Aksoy; Panu Poutvaara; Felicitas Schikora |
| Abstract: | We study the causal effect of local unemployment and attitudes towards immigrants at the time of arrival on refugees’ multi-dimensional integration outcomes. We leverage a centralized allocation policy in Germany where refugees were exogenously assigned to live in specific counties. Both high unemployment and negative attitudes hurt refugees’ economic and social integration, independently of each other. A onestandard-deviation increase in unemployment or in negative sentiment index based on geo-coded tweets in 2014 predicts five percentage points lower probability of refugees being employed in 2016 to 2018. The estimated negative effects of far-right vote share are qualitatively similar. |
| Keywords: | International migration, refugees, integration, allocation policy, far-right voting, negative sentiment |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ifowps:_361&r= |
| By: | Pauline Givord (Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE)); Milena Suarez (INSEE) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new method that goes beyond the measurement of average value-added of schools by measuring whether schools mitigate or intensify grades dispersion among initially similar students. In practice, school value-added is estimated at different levels of final achieve- ments' distribution by quantile regressions with school specific fixed effects. This method is applied using exhaustive data of the 2015 French high-school diploma and controlling for initial achievements and socio-economic background. Results suggest that almost one-sixth of the high schools significantly reduce, or on the contrary increase, the dispersion in final grades which were expected given the initial characteristics of their intake. |
| Keywords: | school value-added, quantile regression, Student Growth Percentiles |
| Date: | 2020–10–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03389176&r= |
| By: | Javier Ortega; Gregory Verdugo (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of local immigration inflows on natives' wages using a large French administrative panel from 1976-2007. We show that local immigration inflows are followed by reallocations of blue-collar natives across commuting zones. Because these reallocations vary with the initial occupation and blue-collar location movers have wages below the blue-collar average, controlling for changes in local composition is crucial to assess how wages adjust to immigration. Immigration temporarily lowers the wages of blue-collar workers, with unskilled workers experiencing larger losses. Location movers lose more than stayers in terms of daily wages but move to locations with cheaper housing. |
| Keywords: | immigration,wages,employment,France |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03370661&r= |
| By: | Hélène Périvier (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Gregory Verdugo (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We examine the consequences of recent policies promoting parental leave sharing using a 2015 French reform. The reform reduced the duration of mothers' paid leave to give 12 months of non transferable leave to fathers. Leave can be taken while working part-time for up to 80% of standard working hours, which can be a more attractive option for fathers. We find that the take-up rates for fathers remained low, as less than 3% of fathers took any form of leave after the reform. Surprisingly, we also find low take-up rates for fathers working part-time after the reform and for whom taking paid part-time leave would have increased their median income by 15% without requiring them to change in their labour supply. For fathers working part-time, non-take-up rates of part-time leave benefits are as high as 81% compared with less than 25% for mothers. The reform dramatically increased the annual earnings of mothers, but it had no effect on the earnings of fathers. |
| Keywords: | parental leave,labor supply,gender inequality |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03364048&r= |
| By: | Karaarslan, Can |
| Abstract: | The right to engage in work and choose an occupation to freely work at, is declared a fundamental human right in the EU. Behaviour that restrains somebody from doing so, due to sexual orientation discrimination for example, is prohibited. Inquiries on the dimension of this particular behaviour, as well as the magnitude of harm it causes in the population, is of vital importance for policy makers and the entire civil society. A growing number of research pertaining to labour market outcomes due to sexual orientation has been conducted rececently. Most of the studies have been carried out in western countries, where annual income, hourly wages, labour market participation and employment decisions have been in the focus of researchers. Ahmet, Andersson and Hammarstedt have been the pioneering scientists in this field in Sweden and contributed by extending their inquiries from the individual to the couple level (Ahmed, et al., 2011a) and to field experiments (Ahmed, et al., 2011b) in detecting discrimination against homosexuals. The present paper aims to contribute to the labour market discrimination literature by estimating the differences in the employment probabilities and in the duration of unemployment by sexual orientation in Sweden using survival analysis techniques. Time-to-event data is rare in social sciences, which is particularly valid for data sets where the sexual orientation of individuals is observable. Due to this scarcity, the present study represents the first paper investigating the effect of sexual preferences on the duration in unemploymnet using survival analysis techniques. In contrast to other estimation methods, survival techniques enable us to incorporate the particular nature of time-to-event data, such as its particular skewness, strict non- negative nature, as well as censoring and truncation. Separately Zero Inflated Negative Binomial regression has been conducted to the duration in unemployment and Probit estimation to the event of getting employed, where differing significant outcomes by sexual orientation have been detected for some specifications. The remainder of the article is organized as follows. A detailed literature review is provided in section 2. Section 3 comprises the theoretical framework of the investigation, while section 4 contains the methodical framework and research design. Data and descriptive statistics are presented in section 5, followed by the results of the estimation in section 6. Section 7 concludes with the final discussion. |
| Keywords: | Sexual Orientation,Unemployment |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ouwpmm:52&r= |
| By: | Claudio Deiana (Università di Cagliari and University of Essex); Ludovica Giua (European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)); Roberto Nisticò (Università di Napoli Federico II, CSEF and IZA) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the long-run effects of ineligibility for legalization on immigrants' formal employment and assimilation at work. Our empirical approach exploits the exogenous change in probability of obtaining legal status induced by a 2002 Italian amnesty program targeting irregular foreign workers. We show that immigrants unexposed to the amnesty have a 15% lower probability of being regularly employed a decade later than their counterparts. They also experience a deterioration in their working conditions in the long run, with increases in job immobility and segregation, and a decline in linguistic assimilation. |
| Keywords: | Undocumented immigrants, Amnesty program, Formal employment, Discrimination, Segregation. |
| JEL: | J15 J61 K37 |
| Date: | 2021–09–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:625&r= |
| By: | Hérault, Nicolas; Jenkins, Stephen P. |
| Abstract: | We apply the Kakwani approach to decomposing redistributive effect into average rate, progressivity, and reranking components using yearly UK data covering 1977-2018. We examine cash and in-kind benefits, and direct and indirect taxes. In addition, we highlight an empirical implementation issue - the definition of the reference ('pre-fisc') distribution. Drawing on an innovative counterfactual approach, our empirical analysis shows that trends in the redistributive effect of cash benefits are largely associated with cyclical changes in average benefit rates. In contrast, trends in the redistributive effects of direct and indirect taxes are mostly associated with changes in progressivity. For in-kind benefits, changes in the average benefit rate and progressivity each played the major roles at different times. |
| Keywords: | Kakwani decomposition,inequality,redistributive effect,progressivity,reranking,benefits,taxes |
| JEL: | D31 H24 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:967&r= |
| By: | Laudicella, Mauro (University of Southern Denmark, DaCHE - Danish Centre for Health Economics); Li Donni, Paolo (University of Palermo, Department of Economics, Business and Statistics) |
| Abstract: | Many high-income countries have successfully reduced hospital mortality in several acute health conditions. We test the hypothesis that variation in the supply of care directed to saving the life of individuals with a health shock may result in increasing the demand for health care as individuals are likely to contribute to the demand after surviving the health shock. We examined repeated cross-sections of individuals exposed to an AMI or a stroke over a time window of ten years in Denmark. Hospital survival probabilities in the interval 0- 30 days from the shock are used as an indicator of the supply, while individual health care expenditure in the interval 31-365 days is used as an indicator of the demand. We find the demand is highly elastic to supply-driven variation in time to death. Results are robust to a placebo test on individuals exposed to the shock without entering time to death. |
| Keywords: | Health care demand; Hospital quality of care; Time to death |
| JEL: | I10 |
| Date: | 2021–10–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sduhec:2021_003&r= |
| By: | Gilbert Cette; Jimmy Lopez |
| Abstract: | We assess the economic impact of reforms promoting self-employment in the three countries that have implemented such reforms since the early 2000s: the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. To that end, we use an unbalanced cross country-industry dataset of 4,226 observations, including 12 OECD countries and 20 market industries, over the 1995-2016 period. We first observe, using country-level data, that the share of self-employed workers in total employment is quite stable or declines over the period in all countries in our dataset, except in the three countries where large reforms promoting self-employment have been implemented, and only after these reforms. We econometrically confirm this impact on self-employment in our set of 20 industries and we find that, at the end of the period, the reforms may have increased the share of self-employed workers in total employment by 5.5pp on average in the Netherlands, 2.5pp in the United Kingdom and 2pp in France. Then, we investigate the impact of reforms on total employment and value added using a difference-in-differences approach. In spite of a broad sensitivity analysis, we find no evidence that the reforms may have impacted either total employment or value-added.These results suggest that the reforms promoting self-employment may have raised the number of self-employed workers, but mostly through a substitution effect between the self-employed and employees, and not through a supply effect or a substitution effect with informal activities. This means that the reforms may have failed to achieve their main objectives. |
| Keywords: | Self-employment, Entrepreneurship, Structural Reforms. |
| JEL: | H24 J21 J38 K31 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfr:banfra:838&r= |
| By: | Giesselmann, Marco; Brady, David; Naujoks, Tabea |
| Abstract: | More than one million refugees migrated to Germany in 2015-2016. The increase in refugees was rapid, visible and controversial, and varied substantially across German districts. Therefore, the increase provides unique leverage for analyzing the consequences of immigration and ethnolinguistic heterogeneity. We innovatively focus on within-district/within-person change with individual-level panel data and precise measures of district-level refugee shares. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel 2009-2017, we analyze three-way (person, year and district) fixed effects models of five exclusionary beliefs and behaviors. At the national level, concerns about immigration and social cohesion and strong far right party support increased at the same time as refugee shares increased. However, district-level refugee shares are robustly negatively associated with concerns about immigration and (less robustly) with strong far right party support. They are also not associated with concerns about social cohesion, residential moves, or subjective fair tax rates. Interaction estimators reveal that where unemployment is high, there are positive relationships between refugee shares and concerns about immigration and residential moves. Aside from high unemployment districts however, the results mostly support contact theory, and contradict fractionalization and minority threat theories. Overall, rising district-level refugee shares reduced or at least did not heighten exclusionary beliefs and behaviors. |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbrpi:spi2021502&r= |
| By: | Chiara Burlina; Andres Rodriguez-Pose; |
| Abstract: | Solitude is a rising phenomenon in the western world. The number of people affected by solitude has been rising for some time and the Covid-19 pandemic has brought this trend to the fore. Yet, we know next to nothing about the aggregate subnational economic consequences of the rise in solitude. In this paper we analyse the consequences of solitude on regional economic performance across Europe, distinguishing between two of its key dimensions: alone living, proxied by the regional share of the population in one-person households; and loneliness, proxied by the aggregate share of social interactions. We find that solitude has important implications for economic development, but that these go in different directions. While alone living is a substantial driver of economic growth across European regions, high shares of lonely people undermine it. The connection of loneliness with economic growth is, however, dependent on the frequency of in-person meetings, with large shares of the population meeting others on a weekly basis yielding the best economic returns. |
| Keywords: | solitude, alone living, loneliness, growth, GDP per capita, regions |
| JEL: | J12 P48 R23 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:egu:wpaper:2133&r= |
| By: | Molitor, Friederike; Munnes, Stefan; Wójcik, Piotr; Hipp, Lena |
| Abstract: | We study the working conditions of care and domestic workers who offer their services on digital platforms in Australia, Germany, Denmark, Spain and the United Kingdom. By drawing on survey data collected on a digital platform in 2019, we examine workers' demographics and their experiences with the online platform and with their clients. |
| Keywords: | Care and domestic service work,platform economy,gender |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbwac:spi2021503&r= |
| By: | Vanessa Cirulli; Giuliano Resce; Marco Ventura |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the causal effect of co-payment exemption on the utilization of healthcare services with a particular emphasis on the number of specialist visits in the Italian National Health System (NHS). As the co-payment exemption may be considered as a sort of insurance, a relevant research question is to ask whether such a protection has had any effect on healthcare services utilization. Exploiting a discontinuity in the multiple eligibility criteria for co-payment exemption, we apply Multiple Regression Discontinuity (MRD) in a quasi-experimental setting, considering both age and income requirements.This discontinuity also allows us to identify the effect of co-payment on a particularly fragile sub-population of less wealthy people. Our findings provide convincing evidence of a positive and significant effect of co-payment exemption on the number of specialist visits. The result may be useful to the policy maker to tailor ad-hoc policies aimed at disadvantaged sub-populations. |
| Keywords: | Healthcare; Co-payment; Demand effects; Multiple Regression Discontinuity; National Health System |
| JEL: | I11 I14 I18 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp203&r= |
| By: | Severin Reissl; Alessandro Caiani; Francesco Lamperti; Mattia Guerini; Fabio Vanni (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Giorgio Fagiolo; Tommaso Ferraresi; Leonardo Ghezzi; Mauro Napoletano (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po); Andrea Roventini (OFCE - Observatoire français des conjonctures économiques - Sciences Po - Sciences Po) |
| Abstract: | We build a novel computational input-output model to estimate the economic impact of lockdowns in Italy. The key advantage of our framework is to integrate the regional and sectoral dimensions of economic production in a very parsimonious numerical simulation framework. Lockdowns are treated as shocks to available labor supply and they are calibrated on regional and sectoral employment data coupled with the prescriptions of government decrees. We show that when estimated on data from the first "hard" lockdown, our model closely reproduces the observed economic dynamics during spring 2020. In addition, we show that the model delivers a good out-of-sample forecasting performance. We also analyze the effects of the second "mild" lockdown in fall of 2020 which delivered a much more moderate negative impact on production compared to both the spring 2020 lockdown and to a hypothetical second "hard" lockdown. |
| Keywords: | input-output,Covid-19,lockdown,Italy |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03373672&r= |
| By: | Nicolas Herault (University of Melbourne); Stephen P. Jenkins (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We apply the Kakwani approach to decomposing redistributive effect into average rate, progressivity, and reranking components using yearly UK data covering 1977–2018. We examine cash and in-kind benefits, and direct and indirect taxes. In addition, we highlight an empirical implementation issue – the definition of the reference (‘pre-fisc’) distribution. Drawing on an innovative counterfactual approach, our empirical analysis shows that trends in the redistributive effect of cash benefits are largely associated with cyclical changes in average benefit rates. In contrast, trends in the redistributive effects of direct and indirect taxes are mostly associated with changes in progressivity. For in-kind benefits, changes in the average benefit rate and progressivity each played the major roles at different times. |
| Keywords: | Kakwani decomposition, inequality, redistributive effect, progressivity, reranking, benefits, taxes |
| JEL: | D31 H24 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2021-592&r= |
| By: | Michela Bia; German Blanco; Marie Valentova |
| Abstract: | Within the context of Luxembourg, we analyze the causal effect of parental leave take up on post-birth hourly wages of an important subpopulation of parental-leave-eligible mothers, i.e., first-time mothers that are always employed regardless of having taken parental leave. In our analysis, we simultaneously address selection of eligible mothers in taking parental leave, and selection of eligible mothers into employment. To deal with the first complication, we assume that conditional on observed pre-intervention covariates there are no unobserved factors associated to both the assignment to parental leave and the potential post-birth hourly wages. To this end, we control for a rich set of pre-intervention characteristics that were obtained from Social Security administrative data from 2005 to 2010. The second complication arises since the outcome of hourly wages is only defined for the (post-birth) employed subpopulation. We deal with selection into employment by utilizing a Principal Stratification framework and recent non-parametric bounds. We argue that the monotonicity-type assumptions employed for bounding causal parameters are plausible in the context analyzed and potentially weaker than conventional alternatives. Our estimated bounds allow us to undertake inference for a subpopulation of parental-leave-eligible mothers that are always employed regardless of having taken parental leave. This subpopulation accounts for about 80 percent of all eligible mothers in our dataset. Our estimated bounds on average effects of parental leave take-up on hourly wages are consistent with important, albeit statistically insignificant, reductions in all periods analyzed (i.e., 2, 3, 4 and 5 years after birth). Interestingly, we find evidence of heterogeneous impacts of parental leave take-up across the distribution of post-birth wages. Our estimated bounds, in general, show that the quantile treatment effects of parental leave take-up on post-birth wages of always employed mothers are negative and significant in most quantiles above the median. |
| Keywords: | parental leave; wage; human capital; take-up |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:irs:cepswp:2021-08&r= |
| By: | Tobias Schlegel; Uschi Backes-Gellner |
| Abstract: | The empirical literature on knowledge spillovers provides evidence that higher education institutions (HEIs) have positive effects on regional firm location, i.e., the number of start-ups or firms located in a region. However, less is known about how HEIs in different fields of study impact regional firm location in different industries. To estimate effects on firm location in different industries, we exploit the establishment of universities of applied sciences (UASs)-bachelor degree-granting three-year HEIs in Switzerland-in different fields of study. We find that effects are heterogeneous and UASs specializing in "chemistry and life sciences" and "business, management, and services" are the only UASs that positively affect regional firm location. These positive effects are limited to service industries that are characterized by both radical service innovations and incremental product and process innovations. |
| Keywords: | Higher Education and Research Institutions, Government Policy, Regional Economic Development |
| JEL: | I23 I28 O18 |
| Date: | 2021–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0187&r= |
| By: | Joëlle Noailly, Roger Smeets |
| Abstract: | Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and of climate neutrality by 2050 in the European Union will require mobilizing financial investments towards clean energy innovation. This study examines the role of internal finance (cash flows and cash holdings) and financing constraints for innovation in energy technologies. We construct a dataset for 1,300 European firms combining balance-sheet information and patenting activities in renewable (REN) and fossil-fuel (FF) technologies and estimate the sensitivity of patenting activities to firm’s internal finance. We use count estimation techniques and control for a large set of firm-specific characteristics and market developments in REN and FF technologies. We find that patenting activities of firms specialized in REN innovation are significantly more sensitive to a shock in cash flows than firms specializing in FF innovation. Hence, our results emphasize that innovative firms in clean energy may be particularly vulnerable to financing constraints. We discuss the implications of these results for energy transition policies aiming to redirect finance towards clean energy R&D. |
| Date: | 2021–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gii:ciesrp:cies_rp_69&r= |
| By: | Leonardo Becchetti (Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università di Roma Tor Vergata); Sara Mancini (Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università di Roma Tor Vergata); Nazaria Solferino (Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF, Università della Calabria) |
| Abstract: | Based on results of the different fields of the game theoretic literature on strategic interactions and social dilemmas, gift exchange and procedural utility, we argue that corporate social responsibility and relational skills i) with other firms; ii) between employers and workers iii) among workers and iv) with stakeholders are associated to positive effects on productivity. We test our research hypothesis on a large representative sample of Italian firms including the universe of medium and large companies and accounting for 91.3 percent of domestic employees. We find that companies with higher relational skills report significantly higher value added per worker after controlling for relevant concurring factors. More specifically, the identified significant skill related components are: i) corporate policies considering strategic workers’ wellbeing; ii) team working attitudes considered as priority soft skills when hiring workers; iii) initiatives in favour of the productive network operating in the same local area and iv) involvement of stakeholders in CSR projects. |
| Keywords: | relational skills, corporate productivity, gift exchange, team working |
| JEL: | L22 L25 L14 J53 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:202106&r= |
| By: | Cyprien Batut (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, DGTPE - Direction Générale du Trésor et de la Politique Economique - Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie); Caroline Coly (Bocconi University - Bocconi University [Milan, Italy], PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, AXA - Groupe AXA, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Sarah Schneider-Strawczynski (PSE - Paris School of Economics - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement) |
| Abstract: | Sexual harassment and sexists behaviors are pervasive issues in the workplace. Around 12% of women in France have been subjected to toxic behaviors at work in the last year, including sexist comments, moral, sexual or physical harassment, or violence. Such toxic behaviors can not only deter women from entering the labor market, but can also lead them to leave toxic workplaces at their own expense. This article is one of the first to examine the relationship between toxic behaviors and worker flows. We use the #MeToo movement as an exogenous shock to France's workplace norms regarding toxic behaviors. We combine survey data on reported toxic behaviors in firms with exhaustive administrative data to create a measure of toxic behaviors risk for all French establishments. We use a tripledifference strategy comparing female and male worker flows in high-risk versus low-risk firms before and after #MeToo. We find that #MeToo increased women's relative quit rates in higher-risk workplaces, while men's worker flows remained unaffected. This demonstrates the existence of a double penalty for women working in high-risk environments, as they are not only more frequently the victims of toxic behaviors, but are also forced to quit their jobs in order to avoid them. |
| Keywords: | Occupational Gender Inequality,Workflows,Sexual harassment,Social Movement |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-03403513&r= |
| By: | Hussinger, Katrin; Carvalho, João N. |
| Abstract: | A major source of research funding for university professors are competitive research grants. With focus on Luxembourg, we present results from a difference-in-difference analysis which show that research grants by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), the central research funding agency in Luxembourg, increase the scientific output of university professors by 31% which corresponds to one additional publication. We further show that the scientific output drops again around five years after the grant receipt. However, we find that those university professors who realize a quality increase of their journal publications in the years following the grant receipt benefit from a long-lasting publication quality effect. |
| Keywords: | competitive research grants,university professors,scientific output,difference-in-difference estimation |
| JEL: | I23 O38 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:21078&r= |
| By: | Sofia Patsali (Université Côte d'Azur, France; CNRS, GREDEG); Michele Pezzoni (Université Côte d'Azur, France; CNRS, GREDEG); Fabiana Visentin (Maastricht University; UNU-MERIT) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the effect of research independence during the PhD period on students' career outcomes. We use a unique and detailed dataset on the French population of STEM PhD students who graduated between 1995 and 2013. To measure research independence, we compare the PhD thesis content with the supervisor's research. We employ advanced neural network text analysis techniques evaluating the similarity between student's thesis abstract and supervisor's publications during the PhD period. After exploring which characteristics of the PhD training experience and supervisor explain the level of research similarity, we estimate how similarity associates with the likelihood of pursuing a research career. We find that the student thesis's similarity with her supervisor's research work is negatively associated with starting a career in academia and patenting probability. Increasing the PhD-supervisor similarity score by one standard deviation is associated with a 2.1 percentage point decrease in the probability of obtaining an academic position and a 0.57 percentage point decrease in the probability of patenting. However, conditional on starting an academic career, PhD-supervisor similarity is associated with a higher student's productivity after graduation as measured by citations received, network size, and probability of moving to a foreign or US-based affiliation. |
| Keywords: | Research independence, Early career researchers, Scientific career outcomes, Neural network text analysis |
| JEL: | D22 O30 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2021-35&r= |
| By: | Ismail, Muhammad (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology); Warsame, Abukar (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology); Wilhelmsson, Mats (Department of Real Estate and Construction Management, Royal Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: | The impact of COVID-19 on various aspects of our life is evident. Proximity and close contact with individuals infected with the virus, and as well as the extent of such contact, contribute to the intensity of the spread of the virus. Healthy and infected household members, who both require sanctuary and quarantine space, come into proximate and extended contact in housing. In other words, housing and living conditions can impact the health of occupants and the spread of COVID-19. This study investigates the relationship between housing characteristics and variations in the spread of COVID-19 per capita across Sweden's 290 municipalities. For this purpose, we have used the number of infected COVID-19 cases per capita during the pandemic period, February 2020 through April 2021, per municipality. The focus is variables that measure housing and housing conditions in the municipalities. We have used exploratory and principal components analysis to reduce highly correlated variables into a set of linearly uncorrelated variables. We then use the generated variables to estimate direct and indirect effects in a spatial regression analysis. The results indicate that housing and housing availability are important explanatory factors for the geographical spread of COVID-19. Overcrowding, availability, and quality are all critical explanatory factors. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19; Housing; Exploratory analysis |
| JEL: | I10 R10 R30 |
| Date: | 2021–11–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:kthrec:2021_005&r= |