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on Microeconomic European Issues |
| By: | Niklas Scheuer |
| Abstract: | Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this paper examines how socioeconomic characteristics shape the distribution of happiness in Germany and how these effects translate into happiness inequality. I estimate quantile regressions for 2012 and show that key socioeconomic characteristics affect happiness differently across the happiness distribution. Building on this heterogeneity, I construct a counterfactual 2017 happiness distribution by evaluating the 2017 covariate distribution under the estimated 2012 quantile-regression coefficient structure. I then examine happiness inequality and find that, despite the stability of observed happiness inequality in the data, the counterfactual distribution predicts a more equal distribution of happiness, especially according to the Gini coefficient. To reconcile observed and counterfactual inequality, I distinguish between a mechanical effect arising from changes in observed characteristics under the estimated model and a residual effect capturing the remaining deviation. The results suggest that the persistence of happiness inequality reflects residual factors not captured by observed covariates or by systematic changes in estimated returns. |
| Keywords: | Life satisfaction, Happiness, Quantile regression, Income, Wealth, Distributional heterogeneity, Germany, Counterfactual |
| JEL: | C14 C21 D39 D63 I31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:trr:wpaper:202607 |
| By: | Tilman Schaefer |
| Abstract: | Heating-expenditure profiles over a residential spell vary systematically with aggregate gas price environments. Using 30 years of German SOEP panel data with 16, 055 residential spells among renter households, this paper estimates a negative cross-derivative of log heating and hot-water expenditures per square meter with respect to residence duration and the log gas price index (δ = -0.0045, bootstrap p = 0.003) in a residential spell and year fixed-effects design. The implied cumulative difference amounts to roughly 1.8 percent over ten years. Flexible specifications reveal offsetting effects across duration horizons, with positive moderation in the early years giving way to negative moderation at longer horizons. The continuous interaction estimate is stable across alternative price measures and sample restrictions, whereas flexible specifications indicate that price moderation is not well summarized by a single constant-slope shift. The results show that heterogeneity in heating expenditures is not only a matter of household characteristics or building quality, but also of where households stand within a residential spell. |
| Keywords: | Residential energy demand, Residence-duration, Price environments, Germany, SOEP panel data, High-dimensional fixed effects models |
| JEL: | D12 Q41 C23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1238 |
| By: | Loren Salas, Alexia |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates a collective model of household labour supply for married couples in Spain using microdata from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions for the period 2005-2019. Following the semilog specification of Chiappori et al. (2002), I estimate labour supply equations for wives and husbands as functions of own wages, partner wages, household non-labour income, and demographic characteristics. The estimated own-wage elasticities are negative for both spouses, indicating that income effects dominate substitution effects. The elasticity is larger in absolute value for wives (−0.38) than for husbands (−0.10), consistent with previous evidence that female labour supply is more responsive to wage changes. Non-labour income of both spouses is negatively associated with hours worked, consistent with the predictions of the collective model regarding the role of distribution factors. These results provide empirical evidence on intrahousehold labour supply dynamics in Spain and contribute to testing collective household models in a Southern European institutional context. |
| Keywords: | Collective household model; Household labour supply; Labour supply elasticity; Intrahousehold decision-making; Married couples; Wage effects; Spain |
| JEL: | D1 J2 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–06–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129358 |
| By: | Ottmer, Henning (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines a 1976 Swedish reform that lowered the normal retirement age (NRA) for public pensions from 67 to 65. The reform implied substantial increases in future pension benefits while leaving contribution rules unchanged. Using administrative data, I find sharp behavioral responses: employment at age 66 fell by 17 percentage points, or 47 percent relative to pre-reform levels, with little effect above the new NRA and modest effects below it. Exploiting variation across occupational pension schemes and reform timing, I use a set of back-of-the-envelope calculations to assess the relative importance of different mechanisms. The patterns are most consistent with behavioral responses and social norms playing a central role, while wealth effects appear to explain roughly one-fifth of the decline. I also provide suggestive evidence on employer-side factors, including automatic termination rules. The reform targeted an older age group than is typical in the literature on retirement ages, at a time when health and work capacity were more limited than today, making the findings relevant for contemporary policy settings in which increases in statutory retirement ages extend to older age. |
| Keywords: | Retirement; Retirement Policies; Social Security; Public Pensions |
| JEL: | H55 J26 |
| Date: | 2026–06–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_013 |
| By: | Kevin Pineda-Hernández (ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA), UMONS (Soci&ter)); François Rycx (ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA), UMONS (Soci&ter), UCLouvain (IRES), GLO and IZA@LISER); Thomas Senterre (ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA), UMONS (Soci&ter)); Mélanie Volral (UMONS (Soci&ter), ULB (CEBRIG, DULBEA)) |
| Abstract: | Although a growing number of studies highlight the moderating role of educational attainment on the wage differential between immigrants and natives, the influence of the field of study remains largely unexplored. We aim to fill this gap by drawing on detailed, matched employer-employee data on workers holding a master’s degree in Belgium for the period 1999-2016. After controlling for a wide range of covariates, our regression analyses show that the wage gap between immigrant and native workers with degrees in higher-paying fields (i.e. STEM and LEM) narrows considerably over two generations, but remains significant. By contrast, among workers with degrees in lower-paying fields (i.e. Other Social Sciences, Education, Services, Arts and Humanities) the wage gap between immigrants and natives disappears within two generations. Furthermore, our wage decompositions reveal that immigrant graduates are somewhat more likely to hold degrees in higher-paying fields than natives, which results in a small positive quantity effect. However, they also show that wage returns associated with fields of study are significantly lower for immigrants than for natives. This leads to a negative price effect, which, in percentage points, is halved over two generations. Altogether, the combined price and quantity effects – with the former far outweighing the latter – account for between 28 and 37% of the overall pay gap between natives and first- and second-generation immigrants, respectively. Sensitivity tests using a more detailed classification of fields of study further refine our results. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant-native wage gap, first- and second-generation immigrants, field of study, matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | I23 I24 I25 I26 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–06–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2026011 |
| By: | Pineda-Hernández, Kevin; Rycx, François; Senterre, Thomas; Volral, Mélanie |
| Abstract: | Although a growing number of studies highlight the moderating role of educational attainment on the wage differential between immigrants and natives, the influence of the field of study remains largely unexplored. We aim to fill this gap by drawing on detailed, matched employer-employee data on workers holding a master's degree in Belgium for the period 1999-2016. After controlling for a wide range of covariates, our regression analyses show that the wage gap between immigrant and native workers with degrees in higher-paying fields (i.e. STEM and LEM) narrows considerably over two generations, but remains significant. By contrast, among workers with degrees in lower-paying fields (i.e. Other Social Sciences, Education, Services, Arts and Humanities) the wage gap between immigrants and natives disappears within two generations. Furthermore, our wage decompositions reveal that immigrant graduates are somewhat more likely to hold degrees in higher-paying fields than natives, which results in a small positive quantity effect. However, they also show that wage returns associated with fields of study are significantly lower for immigrants than for natives. This leads to a negative price effect, which, in percentage points, is halved over two generations. Altogether, the combined price and quantity effects - with the former far outweighing the latter - account for between 28 and 37% of the overall pay gap between natives and first- and second-generation immigrants, respectively. Sensitivity tests using a more detailed classification of fields of study further refine our results. |
| Keywords: | Immigrant-native wage gap, first- and second-generation immigrants, field of study, matched employer-employee data |
| JEL: | I23 I24 I25 I26 J31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1776 |
| By: | Asger Lau Andersen (University of Copenhagen); Niels Johannesen (Saïd Business School, Oxford University); Jens Brøndum Petersen (University of Copenhagen); Sonja Settele (University of Cologne, ECONtribute, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics); Johannes Wohlfart (University of Cologne, ECONtribute, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics) |
| Abstract: | How do households respond when deposit rates drop below zero? Using administrative micro data and exploiting cross-bank variation in interest rate policies, we study a major episode of negative deposit rates in Denmark affecting two thirds of household deposits. We find that households strongly reduced deposit balances when exposed to negative deposit rates, allocating funds to stock portfolios and consumption. In a large-scale survey, we document important roles for loss aversion, perceived unfairness, intertemporal substitution and return considerations in driving these responses. Our findings suggest that monetary policy can have strong consumption effects in negative territory. |
| Keywords: | Negative interest rates, households, consumption, monetary policy |
| JEL: | D14 D83 D84 D91 E21 E43 E52 E71 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:418 |
| By: | Reichel, Felix |
| Abstract: | Single-use plastics (SUPs) impose substantial environmental costs. Following Directive (EU) 2019/904, Austria introduced producer charges and mandatory participation in collection and recycling systems. This paper exploits a monthly aggregated and disaggregated panel of retail offer spells drawn from a price-comparison platform to estimate the extent to which compliance costs pass through to posted online prices in Austria. The treated sample comprises keyword-matched SUP products—balloons, to-go cups, wet wipes, plastic bags, food containers, tobacco-filter items, beverage bottles, and plastic wraps—observed alongside a control group of non-SUP listings over 2020–2024. A two-way fixed-effects (TWFE) specification places the average post-treatment price increase at approximately 4.1 percent. A sequential TWFE model that disaggregates the administrative reporting phase (from March 2023) from the payment-due phase (from March 2024) reveals that the larger adjustment occurs during the earlier reporting stage, with a reporting-only effect of approximately 8.1 percent and an incremental payment-phase effect of 5.6 percent. For balloons—a category subject to pronounced regulatory fee exposure—event-study estimates exceed 50 percent in the months immediately following the initial payment date and remain elevated throughout most of the post-treatment window. Taken together, these findings indicate that Austrian online retailers began adjusting prices in advance of fee-payment deadlines, a pattern consistent with anticipatory pass-through of expected compliance costs rather than a discrete response to realized payments. As the data contain price observations but not quantity data, the analysis speaks to price incidence and does not extend to consumption or environmental outcomes. |
| Keywords: | single-use plastics; environmental policy; extended producer responsibility; price pass-through; event study; difference in differences; retail prices; Austria |
| JEL: | C23 D12 H23 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026–05–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129303 |
| By: | Baumann, Ursel; Faia, Ester; Ferrando, Annalisa; Rariga, Judit; Cullen, Zoe; Perez-Truglia, Ricardo |
| Abstract: | How well does innovation diffuse across geographic boundaries? To shed light on this question, we present a large-scale field experiment involving 3, 300 firms across twelve European Union countries. We elicit firms’ perceptions of the share of similar firms in their own country that had invested in artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the corresponding share among similar firms in Germany, France, and Italy. We randomly provide half of the sample with accurate information about both domestic and foreign AI investment. We show that firms substantially underestimate competitors’ current AI investment, both domestically and abroad, and that they update their expectations about competitors’ future AI investment in response to the information treatment. The treatment also causes a statistically significant increase in firms’ own expected AI investment rate. We find strong strategic complementarities within borders: a 1 pp increase in the expected share of domestic peers investing in AI raises a firm’s own expected AI investment rate by 0.570 pp. These complementarities are absent across borders: the effect of an increase in the expected share of foreign peers investing in AI on a firm’s own expected AI investment rate is statistically insignificant. Overall, our evidence shows that innovation diffusion and strategic complementarities in AI investment are much stronger domestically than internationally. JEL Classification: O33, D22, C93, L21 |
| Keywords: | artificial intelligence, field experiment, innovation diffusion, survey data |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263246 |
| By: | Soura Vamseekar, Marti |
| Abstract: | EU Pay Transparency Directive 2023/970/EU requires mandatory gender pay gap reporting and joint pay assessments across all member states by June 2026. The Directive’s implicit premise — that structured disclosure will close gaps that competitive labour markets have failed to address — has not been empirically tested against cross-country tightness data. We test it using a 20-country, 11-sector, 6-year (2019–2024) Eurostat panel covering the EU27. We compute four composite workforce intelligence indices — Hiring Pressure Index (HPI), Labour Resilience (LR), Equity Risk Score (ERS), and Transition Readiness (TR, in development) — and find that labour market tightness and gender pay equity risk are structurally misaligned. The Pearson correlation between employment rates and gender pay gaps across the 20-country sample is weakly positive (r ≈ +0.41; p ≈ 0.07, n = 20), contradicting competitive equalisation theory. This cross-sectional correlation is treated as indicative; the panel dimension of the dataset provides the stronger basis for inference. The five tightest labour markets (Netherlands HPI=100, Germany HPI=99, Czech Republic HPI=95, Hungary HPI=88, Estonia HPI=67) record all-sector gaps of 11.4%, 16.8%, 17.5%, 16.9%, and 16.3% respectively — all above the EU27 average of 11.1%. A novel Combined Risk Quadrant, plotting HPI against ERS for all 20 countries, identifies Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Latvia as Priority intervention cases: maximum hiring pressure coexisting with near-maximum equity risk. The Finance sector (EU27 average gap 24.28%) is the highest-risk sector in virtually every country, followed by ICT (19.68%). Construction’s negative EU27 average gap (−3.49%) is a statistical artefact of extreme occupational segregation, not evidence of equality. Apparently low gaps in Italy (3.3%) and Spain (8.9%) reflect positive selection of women into employment rather than genuine pay equity. We present WorkforceGuard, an open-source analytics system that implements these indices over a DuckDB/dbt pipeline ingesting live Eurostat data, with provenance metadata on very output, evidence-bounded LLM analysis, and a SHA-256 hash-chained governance log meeting the Directive’s audit requirements. The system and all data are publicly available. |
| Keywords: | gender pay gap; pay transparency; EU Pay Transparency Directive; labour market tightness; composite indicators; hiring pressure; equity risk; Eurostat; open-source analytics JEL codes: J31, J16, J21, J71, J58, C43, K31 |
| JEL: | C43 J21 J31 J58 J71 K31 |
| Date: | 2026–05–25 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:129330 |
| By: | Gaetano Basso; Maria De Paola; Salvatore Lattanzio; Matteo Paradisi |
| Abstract: | We study whether workplace flexibility is a key driver of the motherhood penalty. Exploiting the sharp and heterogeneous diffusion of work-from-home (WFH) contracts after COVID-19 in a difference-in-differences framework, we combine administrative data on the universe of Italian WFH contracts with matched employer--employee records, mother-father links, fertility records, and firm balance sheets. Greater exposure to flexible work substantially reduces mothers' post-childbirth earnings losses, primarily through higher weeks worked, lower part-time incidence, lower parental leave take-up, and improved career progression. IV estimates indicate that holding a WFH contract offsets about 77% of mothers' earnings losses around childbirth. Gains are larger among younger, lower-earning, and commuting mothers, in households where the father is the dominant earner, and in occupations with steeper hours-earnings profiles, consistent with flexibility relaxing constraints where most binding. Fathers' own earnings do not respond to flexibility around childbirth, yet fathers' exposure to flexible work reduces mothers' earnings losses by a comparable magnitude, pointing to household-level time constraints as a central mechanism. Consistent with this interpretation, fertility, a joint household decision, rises for women more exposed to flexibility, as flexibility lowers the labor-market cost of the marginal child. A counterfactual exercise shows that the life-cycle widening of the gender earnings gap would have been 10.7% smaller under current WFH diffusion and up to 29.4% smaller if all remotable jobs had adopted flexible arrangements. |
| Keywords: | Work-from-home; Motherhood penalty; Gender earnings gap; Fertility; Labor market adjustment |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J31 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26140 |
| By: | Aikaterini E. Karadimitropoulou; Tryfonas Christou; Michael Chletsos; Alexandros P. Bechlioulis |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether minimum wage reforms affect income inequality among low-wage workers. We construct a novel “within-occupation” measure of wage dispersion, using a Greek dataset between 2010 and 2020. Using modern difference-in-differences analysis for causal inference, our findings show non-symmetrical effects on wage dispersion when a minimum wage reform is imposed. In particular, the minimum wage cut of 2012 did not alter the wage dispersion of low-wage workers, while the minimum wage increase of 2019 led to a decrease in wage inequality at the bottom segment of the labor market. Our paper equips policymakers with a solid understanding of the effects of minimum wage reforms on wage inequality and highlights the important role of wage rigidities in shaping these effects. |
| Keywords: | income inequality, wage inequality, minimum wage reform; modern difference-in-difference analysis; quantile regression |
| JEL: | C31 J08 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hel:greese:209 |
| By: | Kyriakos Andreou; Andreas Fousteris; Sotirios Kokas; Alexandros Kontonikas; Emmanouil Pyrgiotakis |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the prevalence, dynamics, and failure risk of zombie firms in Greece during the post-crisis and post-Covid period, using firm-level Orbis data over the period 2015–2023. Building on the composite zombie classifica?on introduced in PwC (2015), which does not rely mechanically on interest coverage ra?os and is well suited to the Greek corporate environment, we document four main findings. First, the share of zombie firms declined substan?ally over the recovery period, despite a temporary increase during the Covid-19 episode. Second, zombifica?on is predominantly transitory: most zombie firms recover, while a non-negligible frac?on remains persistently weak or exits the market. Third, using a Cox propor?onal hazards model, we show that zombie status is associated with a hazard of firm failure approximately 2.7 ?mes higher, even a?er controlling for standard firm-level characteris?cs. Fourth, we document pronounced heterogeneity across firm size, with zombie incidence and failure risk par?cularly elevated among micro firms. The results highlight zombifica?on as a dis?nct firm state associated with materially higher failure risk. |
| Keywords: | Greek non-financial corpora?ons, zombies, survival, Cox model |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hel:greese:216 |
| By: | Schulze, Torsten; Kraan, Casper; Hamon, Katell; van de Pol, Lennert; Olsen, Jeppe; Jonsson, Patrik; Sys, Klaas; Lasner, Tobias |
| Abstract: | The economic challenge for five European fisheries fleets from the potential loss of fishing grounds was evaluated by combining commercial fisheries data with spatial information on future fisheries management in marine protected areas and offshore wind farms in the greater North Sea basin. By employing the concept of Stress Level (SL, revenues and catch) the impact of area losses on ten gear-groups and 16 species-groups was estimated for single national fleets and also for the aggregated fleets of Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Sweden. Further, the Individual Stress Level (ISL) for revenues was calculated for single vessels and aggregated to ISL-profiles of gear-groups, national and aggregated fleets, single and national ports combined. The results show that whereas a specific fishery might show only a medium SL value, single vessels are at risk to encounter a much higher economic challenge. Further, the found SL values and ISL-profiles indicate that the spatial losses are likely to have different impact on the investigated gear-groups between the national fleets. The results also indicate that the potential economic constraints are not uniformly distributed throughout all ports where landings occur. Also, there is considerable variation of ISL profiles of ports within each of the studied countries. This study breaks down the ISL to the level of single ports and thus makes it possible to pinpoint mitigation measures to those coastal regions where the associated offshore fishing activities encounter higher spatial challenges. It is important to understand that this study is merely a snapshot in time since fisheries data of the years 2018- 2022 are used and the assumptions on fisheries management in 2030 were based on the knowledge of 2023. Therefore, this study will need to be regularly repeated. |
| Abstract: | In der vorliegenden Studie wurden die wirtschaftlichen Herausforderungen für fünf europäische Fischereiflotten bewertet, die sich aufgrund des potenziellen Verlusts von Fanggründen in Zukunft ergeben könnten. Hierfür wurden Daten der kommerziellen Fischerei mit räumlichen Informationen über künftige spezifische Fischereimanagementmaßnahmen in Meeresschutzgebieten und Windparks im gesamten Nordseebecken kombiniert. Mittels des Konzepts des Stresslevels (SL) wurden die potentiellen Auswirkungen von Gebietsverlusten auf zehn Fanggerätegruppen und 16 Artengruppen sowohl für einzelne nationale Flotten als auch für die aggregierten Flotten von Belgien, den Niederlanden, Deutschland, Dänemark und Schweden analysiert. Darüber hinaus wurde der individuelle Stresslevel (ISL) für die Erlöse einzelner Schiffe berechnet. Es wurden ISL-Profile von Fanggerätegruppen, nationalen und aggregierten Flotten, sowie von einzelnen und allen Häfen einer Nation erstellt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass zwar eine Fanggerätegruppe insgesamt nur einen mittleren SL-Wert aufweisen kann, die Spannweite jedoch sehr hoch ist. So können einzelne Schiffe eines Fischereisegments durchaus existenzbedrohliche ISL-Werte durch Gebietsverluste aufweisen. Die Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass sich die räumlichen Verluste wahrscheinlich unterschiedlich auf die untersuchten Fanggerätegruppen der verschiedenen nationalen Flotten auswirken. Außerdem sind die sich daraus ergebenen potenziellen wirtschaftlichen Einbußen nicht gleichmäßig über alle Häfen verteilt und es gibt erhebliche Unterschiede bei den ISL-Profilen der Häfen innerhalb der einzelnen Nationen. Die Aufschlüsselung der ISL auf die Ebene einzelner Häfen ermöglicht es Maßnahmen zur Risikominderung gezielt auf jene Küstenregionen auszurichten, in denen die damit verbundenen Offshore-Fischereitätigkeiten mit größeren räumlichen Herausforderungen konfrontiert sind. Es ist zu beachten, dass die Studie lediglich eine Momentaufnahme darstellt da die Fischereidaten der Jahren 2018 bis 2022 verwendet wurden und die Annahmen zum Fischereimanagement im Jahr 2030 auf dem Wissensstand von 2023 basieren. Es wird geraten, die Studie regelmäßig zu wiederholen. |
| Keywords: | commercial fisheries, spatial conflicts, specific management, nature protection, off-shore wind farms, OWF, renewable energy, VMS, revenues, catch, Greater Norths Sea Basin Initiative, GNSBI, Individual StressLevel, stress level profiles, ports, coastal areas, gewerbliche Fischerei, räumliche Konflikte, spezifisches Management, Naturschutz, Offshore-Windparks, erneuerbare Energien, Erlöse, Fangmengen, individuelles Stresslevel, Stresslevel-Profile, Häfen, Küstengebiete |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:jhtire:341414 |
| By: | Dogan Gülümser |
| Abstract: | This paper studies hiring and wage setting in new jobs. Using Swedish matched employer-employee data covering 1.7 million new hires, I show that entrants into occupations new to the firm have more labor market experience and are more likely to be hired from other employers. Conditional on entrant characteristics, new jobs have a 3 percent entry-wage premium and exhibit lower turnover than old jobs. The premium declines as firms accumulate occupation-specific employment experience, consistent with hiring uncertainty that resolves as the firm gains experience in the occupation. The new job wage premium is a previously undocumented source of wage dispersion among similar workers. |
| Keywords: | Hiring uncertainty, information frictions, wage setting, match quality |
| JEL: | J31 J23 J63 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26155 |
| By: | Enrico Miglino (Bank of Italy); Giacomo Roma (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Regulation often relies on size thresholds to determine the applicable legal and tax regime. Using data on the universe of Italian firms, this paper estimates the costs of firm growth by measuring the extent to which firms bunch just below such thresholds in order to avoid more burdensome rules. We first identify all the rules, defined in terms of revenues, assets and employment, which generate bunching. We then embed the estimated bunching in a profit maximization model and estimate a behavioural elasticity specific to each underlying variable, leveraging directly observable costs to calibrate the model. Finally, we combine the estimated elasticities with the observed bunching at each threshold to quantify the costs of all regulations. The largest costs, relative to the average value added for firms located near the threshold, are associated with the loss of a flat-tax regime for the self-employed, followed by the loss of simplified bookkeeping and quarterly VAT settlement, the mandatory appointment of a board of statutory auditors, and the increase in worker protection in the event of dismissal. |
| Keywords: | regulatory costs, firm growth, size thresholds, bunching |
| JEL: | D22 L51 H25 H32 K22 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_1018_26 |
| By: | Maczulskij, Terhi |
| Abstract: | Abstract TThe EU ETS is the main climate policy instrument in the European Union. By putting a price on carbon emissions, it aims to reduce GHG emissions while encouraging firms to adopt cleaner technologies. This policy brief summarizes the results from the recent paper examining the effects of the EU ETS on productivity, innovation activity, and environmental performance among Finnish energy-intensive firms. The analysis is based on various firm-level datasets covering the period 2000–2020. The data include financial statements, emissions, energy use, innovation activity, and R&D expenditure. Causal effects are identified by exploiting the staggered difference-in-difference method. The results show that the EU ETS did not reduce firms’ productivity or R&D expenditure. At the same time, regulated firms became significantly more likely to introduce both process and product innovations. In addition, energy intensity declined by approximately ten percent following regulation. These findings suggest that carbon pricing can stimulate technological adaptation and innovation without generating measurable costs on firm competitiveness. The innovation effects appear to arise primarily through technology adoption and process improvements rather than increased R&D inputs. Overall, the results support the use of climate policies as an effective tool for promoting the green transition while maintaining economic performance. |
| Keywords: | EU ETS, Innovation, Productivity |
| JEL: | D24 O31 O33 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026–06–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:briefs:181 |
| By: | Maczulskij, Terhi |
| Abstract: | Abstract This study examines the impact of the EU Emission Trading System on firms’ productivity and innovation behavior in the Finnish energy-intensive sector. Using unique administrative data on emissions and firm characteristics from 2000 onwards, the effect of the ETS is analyzed using staggered difference-in-difference design. The results show that while firms do not increase productivity or innovation inputs, those regulated are significantly more likely to introduce both process and product innovations. Additional findings suggest that the ETS effectively reduced energy intensity. Together the findings suggest that carbon pricing may stimulate technological adaptation and environmental improvements without generating measurable losses in productivity. |
| Keywords: | EU ETS, Innovation, Productivity |
| JEL: | D24 O31 O33 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2026–06–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:139 |
| By: | Junna, Liina; Remes, Hanna; Murphy, Michael; Martikainen, Pekka |
| Abstract: | Objective: This study quantifies sibling experiences across childhood by birth cohort and maternal education. Background: As family structures evolve, sibling complexity—the presence of half and stepsiblings—is becoming more common. Yet, little is known about how sibling constellations unfold across childhood, vary between cohorts, or differ by social background. Method: Annual register data of full Finnish birth cohorts 1988 (n = 64, 597) and 2000 (n = 56, 413) were used to identify all full, half, and step‐sibling constellations from birth to age 16. Sequence analysis was employed to create relative frequency plots and calculate the number of and time spent in different sibling constellations. Results: By age 16, 35% of children in the 2000 cohort had experienced sibling complexity, nearly 20% more than the 1988 cohort. The most common experience of sibling complexity was growing up with older full and half siblings. Trajectories with stepsiblings were less common, and having both half and stepsiblings remained rare. Children of basic‐educated mothers experienced more sibling complexity and instability, with greater increases over time than children of more educated mothers. Conclusion: Increases in family complexity extend into changing sibling kinships, but the experiences of sibling complexity vary considerably by social background. Research and policy should acknowledge the growing share of families navigating diverse sibling constellations and attend to both the causes and consequences of these evolving experiences. |
| Keywords: | social class; demography; family structure; siblings; longitudinal research |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2026–06–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:138716 |
| By: | Victoria Gregory; Guido Menzio; Giovanni M. Topa |
| Abstract: | We propose a novel empirical strategy to infer the extent to which firm-worker matches are inspection or experience goods. We argue that the informative content of the signals that firms and workers receive about the productivity of their match before entering an employment relationship can be inferred from the gaps between the separation rates of workers hired from unemployment, employment at low-tenure jobs, and employment at high-tenure jobs. We implement the strategy using German administrative data. We find that, before entering an employment relationship, a firm and a worker receive a signal that reduces the variance of their beliefs about the productivity of the match by 67%. The informative content of the signal varies according to the gender and the education of the worker, and it has increased over time. If matches were pure inspection goods, labor productivity would be 1.5% higher, and output 2% higher. If matches were pure experience goods, labor productivity would be 2% lower, and output 4% lower. |
| JEL: | J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35236 |
| By: | Jakub Sokołowski; Stefan Bouzarovski |
| Abstract: | Collective decisions to retrofit multi-family residential buildings require co-owners to agree on how the total cost is divided among dwellings, yet the distributional properties of alternative allocation rules have been insufficiently investigated at scale. Using harmonised Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) microdata covering over 4 million apartments in almost 450, 000 buildings across Poland, England and Wales, and the Netherlands, we simulate five allocation rules: area-proportional, progressive-area, emissions-proportional, inefficiency-proportional, and Shapley-value allocation. For each building, we evaluate the resulting cost-share distributions using within-building inequality indices, size-progressivity measures, and cooperative-game-theoretic stability criteria. We find that performance-based rules produce within-building Gini coefficients 2 to 11 times higher than area-proportional allocation, with systematic variation across national building stocks. These rules are also less proportional in terms of dwelling size, assigning larger cost shares to smaller dwellings than their floor-area shares warrant. For retrofit governance in multi-owner buildings, allocation design should therefore be treated as a central component of policy implementation rather than a technical-administrative choice. |
| Keywords: | multi-family housing; energy-efficiency retrofits; cost allocation; Shapley value; cooperative game theory; Energy Performance Certificates |
| JEL: | D63 Q48 R31 C71 H23 Q52 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp042026 |
| By: | Albanese, Andrea (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)); Marguerit, David (Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER)) |
| Abstract: | Cross-border work is expanding in the EU, yet its labor-market effects on the cross-border workers themselves remain largely undocumented. Using linked Belgian administrative registers that identify cross-border spells in Luxembourg, we estimate the effects of cross-border employment on post-return labor-market outcomes through dynamic double machine learning. Returnees face a short-run employment penalty that fades with cross-border tenure and time since return. They are also more likely to receive Belgian unemployment benefits than comparable stayers, with higher daily benefit levels among recipients. |
| Keywords: | cross-border commuting, return migration, unemployment insurance, EU labor mobility, administrative data |
| JEL: | J61 J65 J64 I38 C21 C14 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18674 |
| By: | Julián Costas-Fernández; Sebastian Findeisen; Anna Raute; Uta Schönberg |
| Abstract: | This paper examines firms' incentives to provide workplace amenities, focusing on employer-provided childcare, and the implications for gender inequality. Using rich matched employer-employee data linked to a comprehensive firm survey in Germany, we document substantial and persistent effects of employer-provided childcare on mothers' labor market trajectories. Firms that offer childcare experience higher retention rates and notably shorter career interruptions among first-time mothers, especially those with high pre-birth wages, resulting in meaningful reductions in child penalties of 4.7 percentage points for high-wage mothers. The adoption of firm provided childcare is also associated with stronger employment growth -particularly among mothers and female talent in high-wage occupations-without systematic adverse wage effects for women or mothers. Our findings align with models of imperfect competition, indicating that firms with greater monopsony power have stronger incentives to provide valuable workplace amenities. While firm-provided childcare plays a critical role in reducing gender gaps within firms, our findings also show that access to these benefits is uneven, widening disparities among women and mothers across firms. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps; childcare; workplace amenities; child penalty; monopsony |
| JEL: | J16 J32 J42 J13 J23 |
| Date: | 2026–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:26141 |