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on Microeconomic European Issues |
| By: | Huebener, Mathias (Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (BiB)); Jessen, Jonas (IZA); Kühnle, Daniel (University of Duisburg-Essen); Oberfichtner, Michael (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Motherhood and parental leave are frequent causes of worker absences and employment interruptions, yet we know little about their effects on firms. Based on linked employer-employee data from Germany, we examine how parental leave absences affect small- and medium-sized firms. We show that they anticipate the absence with replacement hirings in the six months before childbirth. A 2007 parental leave reform extending leave absences reduces firm-level employment and total wages in the first year after childbirth, driven by firms with few internal substitutes for the absent mother. However, we do not find longer-term effects on firms' employment, wage-bill, or likelihood to shut down. We find that the reform increases replacement hirings, but firms directly affected do not respond to longer expected absences of mothers by subsequently hiring fewer young women. Overall, our findings show that extended parental leave does not have a lasting impact on firms when these can anticipate the absences. |
| Keywords: | parental leave, worker absences, worker substitutability |
| JEL: | J16 J18 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16843&r=eur |
| By: | Marta Pittavino (Department of Management - Venice School of Management, Ca' Foscari University of Venice); Bruno Arpino (Department of Statistical Sciences and Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology, University of Padua); Elena Pirani (Department of Statistics, Computer Science, Applications 'G. Parenti', Florence) |
| Abstract: | Availability of kin has profound effects on the lives of people, especially in later life when social networks tend to be composed prevalently of family members, and care needs increase. Using data from the last wave (wave 8; 2019-2020) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we estimate the prevalence of kinlessness (i.e., absence of close kin) among older adults aged 65 and more in 27 countries. We consider different definitions of kinlessness, from a less restrictive (i.e., based only on the absence of both partner and children) to a more restrictive one (based also on the absence of grandchildren, parents and siblings). Results show a large variation of kinlessness across countries. The proportion of adults aged 65 and above who lack both a partner and children range between 2-3.5% in Czech Republic, Romania, Israel, and Bulgaria, and more than 8% in Switzerland, Spain, Belgium and Malta. The percentage of older people lacking all considered kin ranges from 0.1 to 4.1%. In addition, in some countries there is a substantial heterogeneity in kinlessness by age and sex. Differences by education are, instead, rare. Understanding the prevalence of older individuals without close kin is critical for policymakers and healthcare providers to design appropriate support systems for this particularly vulnerable group of older people and their possibly unmet care needs. |
| Keywords: | Kin; family; older people; aging; SHARE |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fir:econom:wp2024_02&r=eur |
| By: | Giesing, Yvonne (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Kauder, Björn (CESifo); Mergele, Lukas (Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Potrafke, Niklas (University of Konstanz); Poutvaara, Panu (University of Munich) |
| Abstract: | We examine how cultural norms shape attitudes toward immigration. Our causal identification relies on comparing students who moved across the East-West border after German reunification with students who moved within former East Germany. Students who moved from East to West became more positive toward immigration. Results are confirmed among students whose move was plausibly exogenous due to national study place allocation mechanisms. Evidence supports horizontal transmission as the difference between East-West movers and East-East movers increases over time and is driven by East German students who often interacted with fellow students. Effects are stronger in less xenophobic West German regions. |
| Keywords: | cultural transmission, migration, attitudes toward immigration, German division and unification, political socialization |
| JEL: | D72 D91 J15 J20 P20 P51 Z10 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16833&r=eur |
| By: | Coskun, Sena (FAU Erlangen Nuremberg); Dauth, Wolfgang (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung); Gartner, Hermann (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Stops, Michael (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Weber, Enzo (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how the shift towards working from home during and after the Covid-19 pandemic shapes the way how labor market and locality choices interact. For our analysis, we combine large administrative data on employment biographies in Germany and a new working from home potential indicator based on comprehensive data on working conditions across occupations. We find that in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the distance between workplace and residence has increased more strongly for workers in occupations that can be done from home: The association of working from home potential and work-home distance increased significantly since 2021 as compared to a stable pattern before. The effect is much larger for new jobs, suggesting that people match to jobs with high working from home potential that are further away than before the pandemic. Most of this effect stems from jobs in big cities, which indicates that working from home alleviates constraints by tight housing markets. We find no significant evidence that commuting patterns changed more strongly for women than for men. |
| Keywords: | working from home, commuting, urban labor markets |
| JEL: | J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16855&r=eur |
| By: | Andrea Neri (Bank of Italy); Matteo Spuri (Bank of Italy); Francesco Vercelli (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents the new quarterly experimental statistics on the Distributional Wealth Accounts (DWA) for the household sector, in line with national accounts aggregates. The Bank of Italy, together with the ECB, has coordinated the development of the methodology used for all the euro-area countries and compiles the DWA for Italy, exploiting survey data, balance sheets, information from administrative sources and banks' statistical reports. This paper analyses the methodology, based on assumptions widely used in the scientific literature. It also provides preliminary national evidence and an international comparison. The portfolio composition is heterogeneous across Italian households: the poorest ones mainly hold dwellings and deposits, while the richest ones diversify more. The wealthiest 5 per cent owns around 46 per cent of total net wealth. The main inequality indicators remained practically stable between 2017 and 2022, after the increase observed from 2010 to 2016. The concentration of wealth in Italy is lower than the euro-area average. |
| Keywords: | micro-macro linkage, wealth distribution |
| JEL: | D14 D31 G51 |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_836_24&r=eur |
| By: | Tervola, Jussi; Iivonen, Saija; Hiilamo, Heikki |
| Abstract: | Social insurance and social assistance reflect fundamental principles of social policies. Social insurance benefits cover employed individuals against a social risk event such as unemployment or disability in exchange of paid contributions. Social assistance benefits, in turn, are designed typically to secure the minimum standard of living, regardless of past contribution. In this article we ask if the dualism is feasible to depict contemporary social benefits that cover traditional social risks: unemployment, childbirth, sickness, disability, and old age. A policy analysis of six European countries with extensive social security systems – Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, Sweden, and United Kingdom – demonstrates that while traditional insurance benefits and assistance benefits still make up the majority of risk-based benefits, also different kinds of deviations from the pure forms are observed. Some countries provide hybrid benefits where past contribution affects benefit rate, but non-contributory minimum is guaranteed for all facing the risk. Some countries provide income-tested contributory benefits which is against the traditional insurance logic. Moreover, universal flat-rate benefits are found especially covering the risk of old age. |
| Date: | 2024–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:97xzj&r=eur |
| By: | Federico Fornasari (Bank of Italy); Giacomo Roma (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Insolvent firms' liquidation procedures are of crucial importance to the economic system, influencing ex ante the price and quantity of credit granted and ex post the reallocation of productive factors. Nevertheless, there are no studies available that evaluate the functioning of judicial liquidation procedures comparatively. The paper contributes to filling this gap in the literature and analyses the rules on asset liquidation in Italy, France, Germany and Spain, as they have recently been reformed. It focuses on the planning of liquidation procedures, on how assets are sold and how the appointed professionals are remunerated. Although some provisions may partially account for the different recovery rates and duration of procedures, these seem primarily due to institutional and contextual factors rather than to regulatory specificities. |
| Keywords: | bankruptcy law, civil justice efficiency, non-performing loans |
| JEL: | G21 K10 K40 |
| Date: | 2024–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_828_24&r=eur |
| By: | Maryam Sadighi; Jean-Pierre Ponssard; Maria Eugenia Sanin; Elodie Le Cadre Loret |
| Abstract: | Adopting disruptive technologies for decarbonizing hard-to-abate industrial sectors requires experimentation through demonstration (pilot) projects. However, from an economic perspective, the potential long-term benefits and the difficulties in designing relevant public policies are not addressed in the standard valuations of those projects. This paper shows that cost-benefit analysis (CBA) at the sector level provides clues to solve these issues, integrating knowledge spillovers from the pilot throughout the industry and the technical change from value-added cost components in adjacent activities. Such analysis gives the optimal trajectory for decarbonizing the sector. Our suggested CBA also delivers the relevant abatement cost for the pilot, a key indicator of public policy. Applied to France’s large-scale, high-quality container glass sector, CBA obtains an abatement cost of around 200€/tCO2 for the pilot deploying a decarbonized hybrid technology, which is 50% lower than previous standard approaches. Additionally, we show that subsidizing the pilot associated with a commitment to transfer knowledge to follower plants is sufficient to decentralize the social optimum if governments implement an emissions tax internalizing the environmental cost. This approach could be applied in other hard-to-abate sectors to trigger the early deployment of disruptive innovations and facilitate the designing of relevant public policies. |
| Keywords: | disruptive technologies, pilot projects, cost-benefit analysis, carbon neutrality, knowledge spillover |
| JEL: | Q55 Q52 Q42 O33 O38 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10973&r=eur |
| By: | Fabrice Murtin; Milenko Fadic |
| Abstract: | This paper provides two innovative measures of well-being for French communes, namely a well-being aggregate index and an index of multi-dimensional poverty. These measures provide an unprecedented view of well-being at the local level by using 7 of the 11 key dimensions of the OECD Better Life Initiative (income, unemployment, housing, education, civic engagement, health and environmental quality). The results show that joint deprivation in at least five dimensions of well-being is starkly concentrated among 316 communes, representing as many as 5.2 million inhabitants (7.7% of the French population). |
| Keywords: | poverty, spatial inequality, well-being |
| JEL: | I14 I31 I32 |
| Date: | 2024–04–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:wiseaa:23-en&r=eur |
| By: | Thibault Lecourt (AU - Avignon Université, ESPACE - Études des Structures, des Processus d’Adaptation et des Changements de l’Espace - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - AU - Avignon Université - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | In France, municipalities play a crucial role in land use planning. For this purpose, they have three powers at their disposal: a regulatory power that enables them to define the rules of urbanization and building permits; an incentive power through the tax lever, as well as by playing a role as an animator of the local market with calls for projects, co-financing, and communication campaigns; and finally, power through land ownership, which allows control of the location and destination of a development project. The two primary powers in urban development are regulatory and incentive. However, the success of urban development ultimately depends on the willingness of investors to comply with regulations or withdraw from the market. Additionally, land ownership provides greater control over projects and the allocation of land resources. Municipalities and their groups, as the first public owners on the land markets, have significant resources to guide land use planning. However, in the current economic context, public actors are increasingly selling their land assets, thereby depriving themselves of the power of development. This is due to the spread of the neo-liberal management model and resulting austerity policies (Peck, 2012), which are forcing public authorities to reduce their expenditure and generate new revenue. In a context of rising land prices since the 2000s, they are even more tempted to sell their assets. The privatization of public land is a well-documented phenomenon in Canada, the United Kingdom, Italy, and France, mainly concerning state railway and military land (Adisson and Artioli, 2020; Christophers, 2018; Whiteside, 2020). It is important to question the future ability of municipalities to control the development of their territory without land control as landowners. To provide decision-makers with clarity on this matter, this communication proposes an evaluation of the land ownership of the municipal block that could be utilized for development operations. This will be based on an analysis of land-registry tax-based data, known as les Fichiers Fonciers, at the scale of metropolitan France. The initial stage of this work involves outlining the boundaries and contents of municipal land ownership as it is recorded in the land registry. Municipalities may directly own land parcels, or delegate ownership to a municipal service or external body for development operations. In some cases, plots may be held in multi-ownership by different actors, requiring analysis to determine the level of municipal control. We aim to categorize municipal land ownership into distinct market segments based on Joseph Comby's typology (Comby, 2010), which we have adapted to evaluate the development potential of municipalities through land ownership. It is important to note that owning built heritage and land assigned to a specific use does not necessarily confer the same development potential as owning a vacant plot (Casanova Enault et al., 2021). The plots are qualified based on four determining indicators for their potential mobilization: morphology, topography, use assignment, and state of pollution. No changes in content have been made. This qualification work is carried out on a national scale, at the granularity of the plot, and involves specific methods of spatial database management and automated processing powered by PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and Python, using exogenous public data. Municipal land plots are scored based on their potential for development operations, ranging from 1 for plots with low probability of mobilization to 5 for easily mobilized plots without major constraints. After quantifying and mapping the levels of property concentration and dispersion, we provide an explanatory analysis of their unequal distribution among municipalities. By analyzing the residuals of a Chi-square test of independence, we demonstrate that urban municipalities primarily have land already designated for urban services (such as urban parks and sports fields) for their future development, which raises questions about their future. Although rural municipalities have a higher percentage of non-mobilizable land, such as forests and mountains, suburban municipalities possess significant land reserves that are available for urbanization and are likely to be privatized and developed in the future. |
| Keywords: | land management, land registry, land reserve, local government, urban development |
| Date: | 2023–09–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04491816&r=eur |
| By: | Roozbeh Qorbanian; Nils L\"ohndorf; David Wozabal |
| Abstract: | Corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) are long-term contracts that enable companies to source renewable energy without having to develop and operate their own capacities. Typically, producers and consumers agree on a fixed per-unit price at which power is purchased. The value of the PPA to the buyer depends on the so called capture price defined as the difference between this fixed price and the market value of the produced volume during the duration of the contract. To model the capture price, practitioners often use either fundamental or statistical approaches to model future market prices, which both have their inherent limitations. We propose a new approach that blends the logic of fundamental electricity market models with statistical learning techniques. In particular, we use regularized inverse optimization in a quadratic fundamental bottom-up model of the power market to estimate the marginal costs of different technologies as a parametric function of exogenous factors. We compare the out-of-sample performance in forecasting the capture price using market data from three European countries and demonstrate that our approach outperforms established statistical learning benchmarks. We then discuss the case of a photovoltaic plant in Spain to illustrate how to use the model to value a PPA from the buyer's perspective. |
| Date: | 2024–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2403.08846&r=eur |
| By: | Bruno Fontaine (SMASH - Société de Mathématiques Appliquées et de Sciences Humaines, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Antoine Teixeira (ADEME - Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Julien Lefevre (AgroParisTech, CIRED - Centre International de Recherche sur l'Environnement et le Développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - Université Paris-Saclay - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Saclay (COmUE)); Fanny Vicard (ADEME - Agence de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie) |
| Abstract: | Net-zero emissions scenarios (NZE) generally do not focus on imported green-house gases emissions. On an other side, input-ouput environmental assessments of decarbonization scenarios often miss the macroeconomic consequences of the energy transition. In this study, we built and evaluated the material and environmental footprints of detailed and coherent NZE scenarios for France, describing a various range of mitigation actions and transition ideologies, through a bottom-up coupling with hybrid input-output analysis (HIO). We discuss the relative effectiveness of these actions, classified into sufficiency, efficiency and substitution categories. This highlights the efficiency of sufficiency actions to reduce both material and carbon footprints. |
| Keywords: | Sufficiency, efficiency, Green growth, net-zero emissions, Carbon footprint, Input-output |
| Date: | 2023–11–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04483018&r=eur |
| By: | Gabor Hajnal (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the Central Bank of Hungary)); Zsuzsanna Hosszu (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the Central Bank of Hungary)); Akos Attila Ozoroczy (Student at John Von Neumann University); Balint Dancsik (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the Central Bank of Hungary)) |
| Abstract: | Our study deals with interest rate pass-through for household and corporate deposits in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region, focusing on the tightening cycle starting in the middle of 2021. This period is of particular interest for interest rate pass-through, as the sharp hikes by central banks in response to a high inflation environment followed a period characterised by a significant abundance of liquidity. We examine the relationship between interbank and deposit rates using two methods: wavelet transform and error-correction models. Based on the wavelet analysis, we found a weakening of pass-through and a slowdown in the repricing of deposit rates in the current tightening cycle among the countries of the CEE region, particularly in the household segment. Based on the error-correction models, in the sample including the tightening cycle, a weakening in the degree and speed of interest rate pass-through is consistently observed in the Hungarian and Polish deposit markets; and the extent of pass-through of the benchmark rate declined most in the Hungarian household deposit market among the CEE countries. Furthermore, a comparison of the interest rate paths estimated on the basis of the transmission correlations for the period excluding the tightening cycle starting in 2021 and the actual interest rate time series shows that the pass-through of the benchmark rate is the least efficient in the Hungarian household deposit market among the countries of the CEE region. |
| Keywords: | deposit interest rates, interest rate pass-through, wavelet transform, error-correction model |
| JEL: | C51 C69 E32 E43 E52 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mnb:opaper:2024/151&r=eur |
| By: | Aleksandra Kolasa (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences) |
| Abstract: | Universal child benefits are an important component of the social protection systems in many developed economies, particularly in Europe. When evaluating their impact, most studies tend to focus primarily on the empirical evidence and short-term effects. However, given their large-scale implementation, such programs can have sizable general equilibrium effects. The aim of this paper is to study the long-run implications of universal child benefits within a theoretical framework that can capture the complexities of household decisions regarding consumption, labor participation, and the timing of children. To this end, I develop an overlapping generations model with idiosyncratic earnings risk, infertility shocks, and endogenous temporal fertility. According to the model simulations, universal child benefits lead to a reduction in the spacing between children and, on average, lower maternal age at childbirth for all births. This, in turn, alleviates some of the negative aggregate effects typically associated with redistributive policies, but has a detrimental impact on the average quality of children. Finally, universal child benefits increase ex-ante welfare by 0.42% of lifetime adult consumption, significantly outperforming broad-based transfer policies not tied to the number of children. |
| Keywords: | universal child benefits, infertility risk, temporal fertility, social welfare, general equilibrium models |
| JEL: | I38 H53 H31 E61 D52 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2024-04&r=eur |
| By: | Lise Arena (GREDEG - Groupe de Recherche en Droit, Economie et Gestion - UNS - Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (1965 - 2019) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur); Richard Arena (UniCA - Université Côte d'Azur) |
| Abstract: | This article seeks to analyse the circumstances and the nature of the emergence of management research from economic analysis in the 1950s in Britain and France. It also looks at the more recent shifts in the boundaries between these two social sciences; and to understand their analytical and methodological significance by taking into account the different historical and cultural contexts within which they were embedded. |
| Keywords: | Microeconomics, Management research, Intellectual traditions, Methodology |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04489596&r=eur |
| By: | Hugo Gaillard (ARGUMans - Laboratoire de recherche en gestion Le Mans Université - UM - Le Mans Université); Julien Cloarec (Iaelyon - Iaelyon School of Management - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon, Laboratoire de Recherche Magellan - UJML - Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3 - Université de Lyon - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises (IAE) - Lyon); Juliette Senn (MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UM1 - Université Montpellier 1 - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UM2 - Université Montpellier 2 - Sciences et Techniques - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School, Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School); Albane Grandazzi (EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management) |
| Abstract: | Ce rapport analyse les tendances actuelles de la thèse en management à partir des données de l'Observatoire des Thèses en Sciences de Gestion et du Management et de plusieurs collectes complémentaires. Il met en lumière des évolutions majeures telles que le partenariat entre les Écoles et les Universités, la progression de l'anglicisation, et le renforcement de la thèse sur essais. Le rapport souligne également l'importance des symboles qui font fonction de régulateurs tels que la qualification par le CNU et des éléments de distinction tels que le CEFAG et les prix de thèse qui facilitent l'accès au premier poste après la thèse. Il passe également en revue quelques tendances en matière de mobilité nécessaire et de durée moyenne d'accès au premier poste académique. En complétant les résultats par des encadrés d'experts, ce travail aboutit à des recommandations, notamment une plus grande sensibilisation aux choix du format et de langue des thèses, souvent opérés en début de parcours, le renforcement des formations pour les doctorantes et doctorants dans la valorisation de leur travail de recherche, la nécessité d'approfondir la compréhension des finalités de la thèse en management, et la création de postes supplémentaires, en particulier dans le secteur public, pour répondre à la croissance des effectifs étudiants et soutenir la structuration de notre discipline. |
| Keywords: | thèse en gestion, doctorat, prix de thèse, CEFAG, distinction académique, carrière académique, insertion professionnelle |
| Date: | 2024–03–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:gemwpa:hal-04505472&r=eur |