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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Nathan Chappell (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Isabelle Sin (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | An amendment to legislation in 2009 enabled New Zealand firms with fewer than 20 employees to hire new workers on trial periods. The scheme was subsequently extended to employers of all sizes. The policy was intended to encourage firms to take on more employees, and particularly more disadvantaged job seekers, by reducing the risk associated with hiring an unknown worker. We use unit record linked employer-employee data and the staggered introduction of the policy for firms of different sizes to assess the policy effect on firm hiring behaviour. We find no evidence that the policy affected the number of hires by firms on average, either overall or into employment that lasted beyond the trial period. We also do not find an effect on hiring of disadvantaged jobseekers. However, our results suggest that the policy increased hiring in industries with high use of trial periods by 10.3 percent. |
| Keywords: | 90-day trials, employment, labour market flexibility, firm hiring |
| JEL: | J08 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:16_10&r=lab |
| By: | Basu, Arnab K. (Cornell University); Chau, Nancy (Cornell University); Fields, Gary S. (Cornell University); Kanbur, Ravi (Cornell University) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes an overlapping generations multi‐sector model of the labor market for developing countries with three heterogeneities – heterogeneity within self‐employment, heterogeneity in ability, and heterogeneity in age. We revisit an iconic paradox in a class of multi‐sector labor market models in which the creation of high‐wage employment exacerbates unemployment. Our richer setting allows for generational differences in the motivations for job search to be reflected in two distinct inverted U‐shaped relationships between unemployment and high‐wage employment, one for youth and a different one for adults. In turn, the relationship between overall unemployment and high‐wage employment is shown to be non‐monotonic and multi‐peaked. The model also sheds light on the implications of increasing high‐wage employment on self‐employed workers, who make up most of the world's poor. Non‐monotonicity in unemployment notwithstanding, increasing high‐wage employment has an unambiguous positive impact on high‐paying self‐employment, and an unambiguous negative impact on free‐entry (low‐wage) self‐employment. |
| Keywords: | multisector labor market, overlapping generations, poverty reduction, Harris‐Todaro model |
| JEL: | O17 I32 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp9972&r=lab |
| By: | JAMES, Jonathan; VUJIC, Suncica |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of education on the timing of fertility. First, we use an institutional rule that led to women obtaining qualifications due to their month of birth (Easter Leaving Rule). Second, we exploit a large expansion of post-compulsory schooling that occurred from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. This expansion resulted in the proportion of 18 year olds in full time education rising from around 17% in 1985 to over 35% in the late 1990s. We find that neither the exogenous increase in qualifications as a result of the Easter Leaving Rule nor the expansion in post-compulsory schooling led to a reduction in the probability of having a child as a teenager. However, we do find that both sources of variation in education led to delays in having a child. There is no evidence that the mechanism driving these findings are due to an incapacitation effect. Instead the results point to both a direct human capital effect and an improvement in labour market opportunities as a result of holding qualifications. |
| Keywords: | Education, Fertility timing |
| JEL: | I26 J13 |
| Date: | 2016–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ant:wpaper:2016005&r=lab |
| By: | Gerards, Ruud (ROA / Training and employment); Welters, Ricardo |
| Abstract: | Research shows that financial pressure – implied as a consequence of benefit sanctions or exhaustion – prompts the unemployed to intensify their job search. However, there is less agreement about whether that intensified job search produces better quality job outcomes. Building on Self-Determination Theory we posit that financial pressure is a controlled motivator to search for work. Controlled motivators are conducive to goal pursuit (job search activity), yet unfavorable to goal achievement (job search success and job quality). Using the HILDA longitudinal data for Australia, we are able to include direct measures of both financial pressure (cash flow problems and hardship), objective job quality (hourly pay and hours worked) as well as subjective job quality (satisfaction with pay and hours). We find that financial pressure intensifies job search without improving the job find rate and job quality outcomes if a job is secured. Interestingly, if a job is secured the unemployed who searched under financial pressure perceive the job to be of lower quality (in terms of satisfaction with pay and hours worked) even though objectively (in terms of actual pay and hours worked) it is similar to the jobs found by the unemployed who searched without financial pressure. Policy implications are discussed. |
| Keywords: | job search, job quality, financial pressure, hardship, unemployment, motivation |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J28 J32 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2016008&r=lab |
| By: | Giovanna Mascheroni; Jane Vincent |
| Abstract: | This paper draws on qualitative data collected as a part of a comparative study on children and teenagers’ uses of smartphones in nine European countries to explore the meanings and emotions associated with the enhanced possibility of “full-time” contact with peers provided by smartphones. It argues that full-time access to peers—which interviewees identify as the main consequence of smartphones and instant messaging apps on their interactions with friends—is a communicative affordance, that is, a set of socially constructed opportunities and constraints that frame possibilities of action by giving rise to a diversity of communicative practices, as well as contradictory feelings among young people: intimacy, proximity, security as well as anxiety, exclusion and obligation. Understanding the perceptions and emotions around the affordance of “anywhere, anytime” accessibility, therefore, helps in untangling how communicative affordances are individually perceived but also, and more importantly, socially appropriated, negotiated, legitimised, and institutionalised. |
| Keywords: | children and young people; communicative affordances; emotions; perpetual contact; smartphones |
| JEL: | L91 L96 |
| Date: | 2016–05–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:66938&r=lab |
| By: | Tommaso Ferraresi (Università degli Studi di Firenze [Firenze]); Andrea Roventini (Laboratory of Economics and Management (Pisa) (LEM)); Willi Semmler (New School for Social Research) |
| Abstract: | In this work we investigate the interrelations among technology, output and employment in the different states of the U.S. economy (recessions vs. expansions). More precisely, we estimate different threshold vector autoregression (TVAR) models with TFP, hours, and GDP, employing the latter as threshold variable, and we assess the ensuing generalized impulse responses of GDP and hours as to TFP shocks. We find that positive productivity shocks, while spurring GDP growth, display a negative effect on hours worked at least on impact, independently of the state of the economy. In the 1957-2011 period, the effects of productivity shocks on employment are abundantly negative in downturns, but they are not significantly different from zero in good times. However, the impact of TFP shocks in different business cycle regimes depends on the chosen sample: after the mid eighties (1984-2011), productivity shocks increase hours during recessions. Finally, we express and test some conjectures that might have caused the changes in the responses in different time periods. |
| Keywords: | Technology shocks; Employment; Threshold vector autoregression; Generalized impulse response functions |
| JEL: | E32 O33 C32 E63 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2beljp6noq9u6oh9p9agr8ugra&r=lab |
| By: | Du Caju, Philip; Rycx, François; Tojerow, Ilan |
| Abstract: | We study how unemployment affects the over-indebtedness of households using the new European Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS). First, we assess the role of different labor market statuses (i.e. employed, unemployed, disabled, retired, etc.) and other household characteristics (i.e. demographics, housing status, household wealth and income, etc.) to determine the likelihood of over-indebtedness. We explore these relationships both at the Euro area level and through country-specific regressions. This approach captures country-specific institutional effects concerning all the different factors which can explain household indebtedness in its most severe form. We also examine the role that each country’s legal and economic institutions play in explaining these differences. The results of the regressions across all countries show that the odds of being over-indebted are much higher in households where the reference person is unemployed. These odds ratios remain fairly stable across different over-indebtedness indicators and specifications. Interestingly, we find similar results for secured debt only. Turning to country specific results, the role of unemployment varies widely across countries. In Spain, France or Portugal, for example, the odds ratio for the unemployed group is just below 2, whereas in Austria, Belgium, or Italy the odds ratio is higher than 4. Secondly, we situate the analysis in a macro-micro frame to identify households and countries that are especially vulnerable to adverse macroeconomic shocks in the labor market. For the Euro area, we find that the percentage of households plagued by over-indebtedness increased by more than 10%, suggesting that another unemployment shock could have a major impact on the financial solvency of Euro area households. Finally, the impact of this shock on single-headed households is much higher than on couple-headed ones. JEL Classification: D14, D91, J12 |
| Keywords: | financial fragility, HFCS, household finance, labor market status, over-indebtedness, unemployment |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20161908&r=lab |
| By: | Pamela Campa; Michel Serafinelli |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the extent to which attitudes are affected by political regimes and government policies. We focus on female attitudes toward work and gender-role attitudes in the population at large, which have been shown to have significant effects on labor market outcomes. We exploit the imposition of state-socialist regimes across Central and Eastern Europe, and their efforts to promote womenÕs economic inclusion, for both instrumental and ideological reasons, presenting evidence from two different datasets. First, we take advantage of the German partition into East and West after 1945 and unique access to restricted information on place of residence to implement a spatial regression discontinuity design. We find more positive attitudes toward work in the sample of East German women. We also find evidence that increased female access to higher education and fulltime employment, arguably two of the very few positive aspects of living under state-socialism, may have served as channels for regime influence. Second, we employ a difference-in-differences strategy that compares attitudes formed in Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and Western European Countries (WECs), before and after the imposition of state socialism in CEECs. Gender-role attitudes formed in CEECs during the state socialist period appear to be significantly less traditional than those formed in WECs. |
| Keywords: | gender-role attitudes, state-socialism, Central and Eastern Europe |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:don:donwpa:089&r=lab |
| By: | Kasey S. Buckles; Daniel M. Hungerman |
| Abstract: | While the fertility effects of improving teenagers’ access to contraception are theoretically ambiguous, most empirical work has shown that access decreases teen fertility. In this paper, we consider the fertility effects of access to condoms—a method of contraception not considered in prior work. We exploit variation across counties and across time in teenagers’ exposure to condom distribution programs in schools. We find that access to condoms in schools increases teen fertility by about 10 percent. These effects are driven by communities where condoms are provided without mandated counseling. |
| JEL: | J13 |
| Date: | 2016–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:22322&r=lab |
| By: | Natália P. Monteiro (Department of Economics/NIPE, University of Minho); Odd Rune Straume (Department of Economics/NIPE, University of Minho) |
| Abstract: | We analyse empirically whether cooperatives and investor-owned fims differ in terms of productive efficiency. Using rich Portuguese panel data covering a wide range of industries, we apply two different empirical approaches to estimate potential diffferences in total factor productivity between the two groups of fi rms. The results from our benchmark random-effects model show that cooperatives are signi cantly less productive, on average, than investor-owned fi rms. This conclusion is to a large extent confi rmed by the results from System-GMM estimations. The lower productivity of cooperatives applies to a wide spectrum of industries. In six out of thirteen industries, cooperatives are outperformed by investor-owned firms in all empirical speci cations considered, while there is no industry in which cooperatives are consistently found to be the more productive type of firm. |
| Keywords: | Cooperatives; investor-owned fi rms; productive effiiciency |
| JEL: | D24 J54 P12 P13 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nip:nipewp:09/2016&r=lab |
| By: | Alexandra Avdeenko; Thomas Siedler |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the importance of parental socialization on the development of children’s far right-wing preferences and attitudes towards immigration. Using longitudinal data from Germany, our intergenerational estimates suggest that the strongest and most important predictor for young people’s right-wing extremism are parents’ right-wing extremist attitudes. While intergenerational associations in attitudes towards immigration are equally high for sons and daughters, we find a positive intergenerational transmission of right-wing extremist party affinity for sons, but not for daughters. Compared to the intergenerational correlation of other party affinities, the high association between fathers’ and sons’ right-wing extremist attitudes is particularly striking. |
| Keywords: | political preferences, extremism, gender differences, longitudinal data, intergenerational links |
| JEL: | C23 D72 J62 P16 |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp845&r=lab |
| By: | Friedrich Poeschel |
| Abstract: | This paper is part of the joint project between the Directorate General for Migration and Home Affairs of the European Commission and the OECD’s Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs on “Review of Labour Migration Policy in Europe”. This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Grant: HOME/2013/EIFX/CA/002 / 30-CE-0615920/00-38 (DI130895) A previous version of this paper (DELSA/ELSA/MI(2015)5) was presented and discussed at the OECD working party on migration in June 2015. The functioning of labour markets in the European Union can benefit if third-country nationals become more mobile between EU member states. Using micro data from the EU Labour Force Survey, this paper measures their mobility and investigates whether it is raised by naturalisation or long-term resident status. While third-country nationals are overall less mobile than EU citizens, tertiary-educated persons appear equally mobile in both groups. Raising the mobility of all third-country nationals to the level of EU citizens would add at least 25 000 mobile persons. Causal effects on mobility from long-term resident status and naturalisation are identified through a difference-in-difference approach. Results suggest that long-term resident status increases the mobility of third-country nationals by 2%-6%. To avoid selection bias in the results for naturalisation, this paper draws on a natural experiment: following the accession of Central and Eastern European countries to the EU, all their citizens indiscriminately obtained the rights of EU citizens. The evidence suggests that those who were already living in other EU countries became more mobile as a result. These findings highlight that intra-EU mobility of third-country nationals depends on their rights to reside and work in other EU countries. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 K37 |
| Date: | 2016–06–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:187-en&r=lab |