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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Hirsch, Boris (Leuphana University Lüneburg); Lentge, Philipp (Leuphana University Lüneburg); Schnabel, Claus (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from these union agreements, which workers are not covered anymore, and what this means for their wages. We show that about 9 percent of workers in plants with collective agreements do not enjoy individual coverage (and thus the union wage) anymore. Econometric analyses with unconditional quantile regressions and firm-fixed-effects estimations demonstrate that not being individually covered by a collective agreement has serious wage implications for most workers. Low-wage non-union workers and those at low hierarchy levels particularly suffer since employers abstain from extending union wages to them in order to pay lower wages. This jeopardizes unions' goal of protecting all disadvantaged workers. |
| Keywords: | collective bargaining, union wage, uncovered workers, Germany |
| JEL: | J31 J53 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15112&r= |
| By: | Abigail Adams-Prassl; Boneva Teodora; Marta Golin; Christopher Rauh |
| Abstract: | Not all countries provide universal access to publicly funded paid sick pay. Amongst countries that do, compensation rates can be low and coverage incomplete. This leaves a significant role for employer-provided paid sick pay in many countries. In this paper, we study who has access to employer-provided sick pay, how access to sick pay relates to labor supply when sick, and how much it is valued by workers for themselves and others. We find that workers in jobs with high contact to others are particularly unlikely to have employer provided sick pay, as are economically insecure workers who are least able to afford unpaid time off work. We find that workers without sick pay are more likely to work when experiencing cold-like symptoms and are less willing to expose themselves to health risks at work during the pandemic. Using vignettes, we reveal that large shares of workers have a very high, but even more have a very low willingness to sacrifice earnings for access to sick pay. Together our findings highlight the unequal distribution of access to sick pay and the potentially strong negative externalities of not providing it publicly. The pandemic may have made these issues more salient as perceived probabilities of having to self-isolate are positively related to support for publicly provided sick pay. Finally, we find that providing information on the health externality of paid sick leave increases support for the public provision of sick pay, suggesting that there might be a public under-provision because individuals do not factor in the externalities. |
| Date: | 2022–08–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:966&r= |
| By: | Coraggio, Luca (University of Naples Federico II); Pagano, Marco (University of Naples Federico II, and); Scognamiglio, Annalisa (University of Naples Federico II, and); Tåg, Joacim (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)) |
| Abstract: | Does the matching between workers and jobs help explain productivity differentials across firms? To address this question we develop a job-worker allocation quality measure (JAQ) by combining employer-employee administrative data with machine learning techniques. The proposed measure is positively and significantly associated with labor earnings over workers' careers. At firm level, it features a robust positive correlation with firm productivity, and with managerial turnover leading to an improvement in the quality and experience of management. JAQ can be constructed for any employer-employee data including workers' occupations, and used to explore the effect of corporate restructuring on workers' allocation and careers. |
| Keywords: | Jobs; Workers; Matching; Mismatch; Machine Learning; Productivity; Management |
| JEL: | D22 D23 D24 G34 J24 J31 J62 L22 L23 M12 M54 |
| Date: | 2022–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1427&r= |
| By: | Lindquist, Matthew J. (SOFI, Stockholm University); Sauermann, Jan (IFAU); Zenou, Yves (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | We study both endogenous and exogenous peer effects in worker productivity using an explicit network approach. We apply this method to data from an in-house call center of a multinational mobile network operator that include detailed information on individual performance. We find that a 10% increase in average co-worker current productivity increases worker productivity by 5.3%. A 10% increase in average co-worker permanent productivity decreases worker productivity by 3.2%. Older workers, low tenure workers, and low-permanent productivity workers respond the most to changes in co-worker productivity. These workers free ride in the presence of co-workers from the top quartile of the distribution of permanent productivity. Counterfactual exercises demonstrate how managers could mitigate the problem of free riding by re-shuffling workers into different co-worker networks. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, endogenous peer effects, exogenous peer effects, social networks, worker productivity |
| JEL: | J24 M50 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15131&r= |
| By: | Gohl, Niklas; Haan, Peter; Kurz, Elisabeth; Weinhardt, Felix |
| Abstract: | This paper provides a novel test of a key prediction of human capital theory that educational investment decisions depend on the length of the pay-off period. We obtain causal estimates by leveraging a unique reform of the German public pension system that, across a sharp date-of-birth cutoff, increased the early retirement age by three years. Using RDD, DiD, and IV estimation strategies on census and householdpanel data, we show that this reform causally increased educational investment in the form of on-thejob training. In contrast, non-job related training before retirement was not affected. We explore heterogeneity and additional outcomes. |
| Keywords: | human capital; retirement policies; RDD |
| JEL: | J24 J26 H21 |
| Date: | 2021–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114422&r= |
| By: | Gottlieb, Daniel; Moreira, Humberto |
| Abstract: | We study a principal-agent model with moral hazard and adverse selection. Risk-neutral agents with limited liability have arbitrary private information about the distribution of outputs and the cost of effort. We show that under a multiplicative separability condition, the optimal mechanism offers a single contract. This condition holds, for example, when output is binary. If the principal’s payoff must also satisfy free disposal and the distribution of outputs has the monotone likelihood ratio property, the mechanism offers a single debt contract. Our results generalize if the output distribution is “close” to multiplicatively separable. Our model suggests that offering a single contract may be optimal in environments with adverse selection and moral hazard when agents are risk neutral and have limited liability. |
| Keywords: | principal-agent problem; contract theory; mechanism design |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2021–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114348&r= |
| By: | Blundell, Jack |
| Abstract: | In this paper I study a policy in which employers are required to publicly report gender pay gap statistics. Proponents argue that increasing the information available to workers and consumers places pressure on firms to close pay gaps, but opponents argue that such policies are poorly targeted and ineffective. This paper contributes to the debate by analyzing the UK’s recent reporting policy, in which employers are mandated to publicly report simple measures of their gender pay gap each year. Exploiting a discontinuous size threshold in the policy’s coverage, I apply a difference-in-difference strategy to linked employer-employee payroll data. I find that the introduction of reporting requirements led to a 1.6 percentage-point narrowing of the gender pay gap at affected employers. This large-magnitude effect is primarily due to a decline in male wages within affected employers, and is not caused by a change in the composition of the workforce. To explain this effect, I propose that a worker preference against high pay gap employers induces the closing of pay gaps upon information revelation. Newly-gathered survey evidence shows that female workers in particular exhibit a significant preference for low pay gap employers. In a hypothetical choice experiment, over half of women accept a 2.5% lower salary to avoid a high pay gap employer. I also demonstrate substantial heterogeneity in the interpretation of pay gap statistics across workers, and show that this affects |
| Keywords: | gender pay gap; gender pay gap reporting; transparency; discrimination; information; public policy |
| JEL: | R14 J01 |
| Date: | 2021–03–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:114416&r= |
| By: | Brandily, Paul (Paris School of Economics); Hémet, Camille (Paris School of Economics); Malgouyres, Clément (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We study job displacement in France. In the medium run, losses in firm-specific wage premium account for a substantial share of the overall cost of displacement. However, and despite the positive correlation between premium and productivity in the cross-section of firms, we find that workers are reemployed by high productivity, low labor share firms. The observed reallocation is therefore productivity-enhancing, yet costly for workers. We show that destination firms are less likely to conclude collective wage agreements and have lower participation rates at professional elections. Overall, our results point to a loss in bargaining power. |
| Keywords: | displaced workers, wage, reallocation, productivity, labor share |
| JEL: | J63 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15105&r= |
| By: | Moscelli, Giuseppe (University of Surrey); Sayli, Melisa (University of Surrey); Mello, Marco (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the relationship among staff engagement, job complementarities and labour supply in the hospital sector, where excessive turnover of the clinical staff (doctors and nurses) can be detrimental for quality of care. We exploit a unique and rich panel dataset constructed by combining employee-level payroll and survey records from the universe of English NHS hospitals. System-GMM estimates remove the endogeneity bias due to reverse causality, revealing nurses' elasticities of retention with respect to engagement of 0.1 and 0.85, and doctors' elasticities of retention with respect to nurses' retention of 0.16 and 0.2, respectively within the hospital and the NHS. Estimates of unconditional quantile regressions confirm these findings, with nurses' engagement-elasticities as large as 1.4 for providers with low retention. Higher engagement is also beneficial to reduce staff absences. Our work is informative on the role played by staff engagement and labour supply complementarities in the workforce planning and management of large organizations. |
| Keywords: | labour supply, workforce retention, staff engagement, job complementarities, healthcare organization, endogeneity |
| JEL: | C33 C36 I11 J22 J28 J63 |
| Date: | 2022–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15126&r= |