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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Dan A. Black; Yu-Chieh Hsu; Seth G. Sanders; Lynne Steuerle Schofield; Lowell J. Taylor |
| Abstract: | We examine inferences about old age mortality that arise when researchers use survey data matched to death records. We show that even small rates of failure to match respondents can lead to substantial bias in the measurement of mortality rates at older ages. This type of measurement error is consequential for three strands in the demographic literature: (1) the deceleration in mortality rates at old ages, (2) the black-white mortality crossover, and (3) the relatively low rate of old age mortality among Hispanics—often called the “Hispanic paradox.” Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men (NLS-OM) matched to death records in both the U.S. Vital Statistics system and the Social Security Death Index, we demonstrate that even small rates of missing mortality matching plausibly lead to an appearance of mortality deceleration when none exists, and can generate a spurious black-white mortality crossover. We confirm these findings using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) matched to the U.S. Vital Statistics system, a dataset known as the “gold standard” (Cowper et al., 2002) for estimating age-specific mortality. Moreover, with these data we show that the Hispanic paradox is also plausibly explained by a similar undercount. |
| JEL: | J1 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23574&r=lab |
| By: | Nüß, Patrick |
| Abstract: | Based on a correspondence experiment covering 3,124 fictitious job applications, the paper identifies and quantifies duration dependence in Germany, with a particular emphasis on company and vacancy characteristics as potential determinants. The experiment reveals that duration dependence manifests itself in a sharp decline of 26% to 35% in callbacks when an individual has been unemployed for 10 months, pointing to the existence of an unemployment stigma for Germany. The results are driven by labor market tightness, companies' access to applicants and screening behavior related to company size, with no evidence for an unemployment stigma determined by the contract type. |
| Keywords: | Field Experiments,Labor Demand,Unemployment,Unemployment Duration,Labor Discrimination |
| JEL: | C93 J23 J60 J64 J71 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:88&r=lab |
| By: | SeEun Jung (Department of Economics, Inha University); Radu Vranceanu (ESSEC Business School) |
| Abstract: | In a classical experiment, Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) used the dichotomous choice of individuals between a piece rate and a tournament payment scheme as an indication of their propensity to compete. This paper reports results from a two person interaction of a similar type to analyze whether the preference for competition is dependent on the gender of the partner. It introduces a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism to elicit individual willingness to compete (WTC), defined as the amount of money that makes an individual indifferent between the two compensation schemes. Even when controlling for risk aversion, past performance and over-confidence, the male WTC is e3.30 larger than the female WTC. The WTC instrument allows for a more precise analysis of the impact of the partner's gender on the taste for competition. WTC data confirm that in this experiment the partner's gender has not a significant impact on the propensity to compete. |
| Keywords: | Willingness to Compete, Gender, BDM mechanism |
| JEL: | C91 D03 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inh:wpaper:2017-5&r=lab |
| By: | Konle-Seidl, Regina (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Lüdeke, Britta |
| Abstract: | "The most commonly used statistical sources for the analysis of unemployment are registered unemployment (RU) at the national level and internationally harmonised unemployment data provided by the European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) standard. The logic behind both unemployment statistics is to count people 'without work' only when they are 'actively looking' and 'available for work'. This logic does not coincide necessarily with the understanding of unemployment in the general public. That's why governments and Public Employment Services (PES) are often blamed to 'hide' unemployed individuals participating in active labour market measures or being temporarily ill. Our methodological study provides an in-depth analysis of the discrepancies between registered unemployment (RU) and internationally harmonised unemployment (LFSU) in a comparative view. For ten selected EU-countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK) we show in which countries the registers are more restrictive than the survey and vice versa. We then identify the populations groups which help to understand the discrepancies between both figures in most countries (young and older people, marginally employed, participants in active labour market programmes) and extend the view to additional indicators of non-employment. Finally, we explore differences in the calculation of the length of individual unemployment spells between both data sources and show that neither register based national nor survey based international statistics adequately reflect the long-term exclusion from regular, genuinely market-based employment." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Date: | 2017–07–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabfob:201706&r=lab |
| By: | Elveren, Adem Yavuz; Toksöz, Gülay |
| Abstract: | This study examines the gender dimension of the brain drain in Turkey to argue that gender inequality in sending countries can be a push factor for women. Considering how the political, social and cultural atmosphere damages gender equality in Turkey due to a shift toward a conservative, authoritarian regime over the last decade, the paper uses an online survey to analyze the gender gap in the return intentions of Turkish professionals and students living abroad. The findings clearly reveal a gender gap in return intentions regardless of other main factors such as age, study field/occupation or marital status. The study also highlights the significant correlation between the gender gap in migration decisions and gender inequality in Turkey’s labor market. |
| Keywords: | Brain drain, gender, skilled workers, students, migration |
| JEL: | F22 J16 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–07–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80290&r=lab |
| By: | Gonzalo Olcina (ERICES and University of Valencia); Elena Mas Tur (Eindhoven University of Technology); Luisa Escriche (ERICES and University of Valencia) |
| Abstract: | This paper contributes to explain the persistence of differences in levels of entrepreneurship within and across countries. We analyse in a dynamic setting the mutual relationship among the distribution of preferences for entrepreneurship in the population, public administration efficiency, and entrepreneurial productivity when preferences and productivity evolve over time. Individuals with entrepreneurial preferences start their own business, while the other individuals join the public and traditional sectors. In each generation, individuals vote on the taxes the entrepreneurs will pay. Under a balanced public budget, the collected taxes are used to pay the civil servants' wages. The effort of civil servants captures the effort made to generate an efficient normative and regulatory environment, and it will affect the probability of success of entrepreneurship. The dynamic of entrepreneurial productivity is determined by the relative proportion of entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial individuals among generations. We show that an economy can reach two different long-run equilibria: a traditional equilibrium, with a low proportion of entrepreneurs, low productivity, high taxes and an ineffcient Administration and an entrepreneurial equilibrium with a high proportion of entrepreneurs, a higher productivity and lower taxes but enough to implement an efficient Administration. Our main result is that the equilibrium achieved completely depends on the tax policy followed by the different generations. If decisions are made by majority voting in a myopic way, then the initial conditions of the society become crucial. This result explains persistence: an economy evolves around similar levels of entrepreneurship unless some reforms are implemented. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Cultural Transmission, Entrepreneurial Preferences, Tax policy, Public Administration efficiency |
| JEL: | J62 L26 M13 J62 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbe:wpaper:0117&r=lab |
| By: | Anthony Edo |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the dynamics of wage adjustment to an exogenous increase in labor supply by exploiting the sudden and unexpected inflow of repatriates to France created by the independence of Algeria in 1962. I track the impact of this particular supply shift on the average wage of pre-existing native workers across French regions in 1962, 1968 and 1976. I find that regional wages decline between 1962 and 1968, before returning to their pre-shock level 15 years after. While regional wages recovered, this particular supply shock had persistent distributional effects. By increasing the relative supply of high educated workers, the inflow of repatriates contributed to the reduction of wage inequality between high and low educated native workers over the whole period considered (1962-1976). |
| Keywords: | Labor Supply Shock,;Wages;Immigration;Natural Experiment. |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J61 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2017-13&r=lab |
| By: | Donna Feir,Rob Gillezeau, Maggie Jones (Department of Economics, University of Victoria) |
| Abstract: | In the late-19th century, the North American Bison was slaughtered in a dramatic near-extinction episode that occurred in a period of just over ten years. We argue that the rapidity of this slaughter led to a “reversal of fortunes” for the Native American societies that were built on the bison. We exploit regional variation in the speed at which the bison were slaughtered and tribal variation in bison-dependence to show that bison-dependent Native American tribes suffered a significant change in living standards immediately after the bison's near-extinction, as measured by changes in height. Once the tallest people in the world, the generations of bison-dependent people born after the slaughter were amongst the shortest. We show that these effects persist into the present. Previously bison-dependent societies have persistently worse living conditions compared to the average Native American nation, with between 20-40% less income per capita today, and this effect is strongest among the least historically diverse economies. Our results are robust to the inclusion of cultural, colonial, and geographic factors and hold in both Canada and the United States. While the relative living conditions of historically bison-dependent nations improved modestly between 1910 and 2010, as measured by standardized occupational rank, outcomes remain lower than non-bison-dependent nations, particularly for those living on Native American reservations. We suggest that the restrictions on mobility and economic diversification that were placed on Native Americans by federal Indian policy during the 19th and 20th centuries likely hampered the ability of these economies to adjust in the long-run. |
| Keywords: | North American Bison, Buffalo, Extinction, Economic History, Development, Displacement, Native Americans, Indigenous, Income Shock, Intergenerational Mobility |
| JEL: | I15 J15 J24 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2017–07–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vic:vicddp:1701&r=lab |
| By: | Bagues, Manuel; Campa, Pamela |
| Abstract: | We provide a comprehensive analysis of the short- and medium-term effects of gender quotas in candidate lists using evidence from Spain, where quotas were introduced in 2007 in municipalities with more than 5,000 inhabitants, and were extended in 2011 to municipalities with more than 3,000 inhabitants. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we find that quotas raise the share of women among council members but they do not affect the quality of politicians, as measured by their education attainment and by the number of votes obtained. Moreover, within three rounds of elections, women fail to reach powerful positions such as party leader or mayor, and we do not observe any statistically or economically significant changes in the size and composition of public finances. |
| Keywords: | gender quotas in candidate lists; regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | D72 H72 J16 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:12149&r=lab |
| By: | Herzer, Dierk (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg); Nagel, Korbinian (Helmut Schmidt University, Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effects of adult and non-adult mortality on the long-run level of income in a heterogeneous dynamic and cross-sectionally dependent panel. Employing data for 20 countries between 1800 and 2010, it is found that (i) while non-adult mortality has no long-run effect on GDP per capita, reductions in adult mortality lead to statistically and economically significant increases in the long-run level of per capita income; (ii) there are no significant differences in the long-run effects of adult mortality and non-adult mortality on GDP per capita before and after the onset of the demographic transition; and (iii) mortality in middle adulthood has the greatest impact on economic development, whereas early adulthood mortality and mortality in later adulthood have little to no impact on the long-run level of per capita income. |
| Keywords: | Life expectancy; Adult mortality; Non-adult mortality; Economic development; Heterogeneous panel data models; Cross-sectional dependence; Demographic transition |
| JEL: | C23 I15 J11 O11 |
| Date: | 2017–07–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ris:vhsuwp:2017_177&r=lab |
| By: | James Alm (Department of Economics, Tulane University); Ali Enami (Department of Economics, Tulane University) |
| Abstract: | Following the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010, many – but not all – states decided to expand their Medicaid program in line with provisions of the new law. Will low-income individuals respond to the incentives of living in a state with better health subsidies by relocating to the state? This paper addresses this question by examining the population growth rate of low-income individuals in Massachusetts following the Massachusetts Health Care Reform (MHCR) of 2006. Like the ACA, the MHCR expanded the Medicaid program, and also provided subsidized health insurance for low-income individuals. Using difference-in-differences and triple-differences models and Internal Revenue Service tax return data, we show that the reform did not have a global effect on the movement of low-income individuals across all cities in Massachusetts. However, we also show that the reform did have a local (or border) effect on the movement into border cities of the state, an effect that is relatively large for cities very close to the border but disappears quickly once the distance to border goes beyond 15 miles. |
| Keywords: | Massachusetts health care reform, interstate migration, Medicaid expansion, subsidized health insurance, border analysis |
| JEL: | H24 I13 J11 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tul:wpaper:1703&r=lab |
| By: | Ramstetter, Eric D. |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of foreign worker shares and MNE ownership on wages after controlling for worker sex and occupation in Malaysian manufacturing plants during 1994-1996, an important period during which use of foreign workers began to increase substantially. In a previous paper, I estimated similar wage equations separately for five occupation groups of both sexes in large heterogeneous samples of plants in many industries and more homogeneous samples of plants in seven industries. Results indicated that use of foreign workers generally had insignificant effects on plant wages for most occupation-sex-(and industry) combinations and that that MNE-local differentials were almost always insignificant in three industries and consistently significant in only one. Although separate estimation by sex and occupation has the strong advantage of accounting for worker characteristics relatively well, it has the disadvantages of complexity (10 results per sample) and being difficult to compare to more common approaches, which use sex and occupation as controls. The primary purpose of this paper is thus to see if using sex and occupation as independent variables generates results that differ from estimating wage equations separately for each sex-occupation cohort. Results suggest that the effects of foreign worker shares differ substantially among foreign worker occupations and among industries. Plants that have relatively large foreign manager shares tend to pay relatively high wages in most industries, but the effects of other foreign worker occupations are usually insignificant or inconsistent. Results that assume all foreign workers impart the same effects thus appear misleading, as do results assuming identical slope coefficients among industries. Similar to previous estimates, MNE-local wage differentials were consistently positive and significant in only two relatively small industries, chemicals and food, in marked contrast to previous results for 2000-2004, which did not account for the effects of foreign worker shares. |
| Keywords: | foreign workers, multinational enterprise, wages, manufacturing, Malaysia, F22, F23, F66, J61, L60, O24, O53 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000133&r=lab |
| By: | Tom Krebs; Pravin Krishna; William F. Maloney |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a framework for the quantitative analysis of individual income dynamics, mobility and welfare, with ex-ante identical individuals facing a stochastic income process and market incompleteness implying that they are unable to insure against persistent shocks to income. We show how the parameters of the income process can be estimated using repeated cross-sectional data with a short panel dimension, and use a simple consumption-saving model for quantitative analysis of mobility and welfare. Our empirical application, using data on individual incomes from Mexico, provides striking results. Most of measured income mobility is driven by measurement error or transitory income shocks and therefore (almost) welfare-neutral. Only a small part of measured income mobility is due to either welfare-reducing income risk or welfare-enhancing catching-up of low-income individuals with high-income individuals, both of which, nevertheless, have economically significant effects on social welfare. Strikingly, roughly half of the mobility that cannot be attributed to measurement error or transitory income shocks is driven by welfare-reducing persistent income shocks. Decomposing mobility into its fundamental components is thus crucial from the standpoint of welfare evaluation. |
| JEL: | F0 J0 J6 |
| Date: | 2017–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23578&r=lab |