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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Michele Battisti; Yvonne Giesing; Nadzeya Laurentsyeva |
| Abstract: | We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the impact of job-search assistance on the employment of recently arrived refugees in Germany. The treatment group received job-matching support: an NGO identified suitable vacancies and sent the refugees' CVs to employers. Results of follow-up phone surveys show a positive and significant treatment effect of 13 percentage points on employment after twelve months. These effects are concentrated among low-educated refugees and those facing uncertainty about their residence status. These individuals might not search effectively, lack access to alternative support programmes, and may be disregarded by employers due to perceived higher hiring costs. |
| Keywords: | refugees, labour market integration, job search assistance, field experiment |
| JEL: | E24 F22 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7292&r=lab |
| By: | Michèle Belot; Philipp Kircher; Paul Muller |
| Abstract: | We study how job seekers respond to wage announcements by assigning wages randomly to pairs of otherwise similar vacancies in a large number of professions. High wage vacancies attract more interest, in contrast with much of the evidence based on observational data. Some applicants only show interest in the low wage vacancy even when they were exposed to both. Both findings are core predictions of theories of directed/competitive search where workers trade off the wage with the perceived competition for the job. A calibrated model with multiple applications and on-the-job search induces magnitudes broadly in line with the empirical findings. |
| Keywords: | online job search, directed search, wage competition, field experiments |
| JEL: | J31 J63 J64 C93 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7302&r=lab |
| By: | Felix Ehrenfried; Christian Holzner |
| Abstract: | Models of random search, directed search, or stock-ow matching differ substantially in the way they assume that job seekers and firms behave during the recruitment process. In this paper we identify new patterns about the recruitment behaviour of firms using the entropy balancing technique and argue that stock-flow matching models - if suitably amended by a time-consuming screening technology - are best able to explain why the vacancy-filling hazard is increasing during the planned search period and decreases thereafter, why most applicants arrive early in the recruitment process, and why the willingness to pay higher wages or to hire less qualified or experienced applicants increases for firms, which have been unlucky and unable to hire until the intended starting date. |
| Keywords: | recruitment, planned search duration, stock-flow matching |
| JEL: | J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7283&r=lab |
| By: | Volker Meier |
| Abstract: | We consider positive and normative aspects of subsidizing work arrangements where subsidies are paid in time of low demand and reduced working hours so as to stabilize workers’ income. In a matching framework such an arrangement increases labor demand. Tightening eligibility to short-time work benefits tends to reduce the wage while the impact on unemployment remains ambiguous. We develop a modified Hosios condition characterizing an efficient combination of labor market tightness and short-time benefit loss rate. |
| Keywords: | short-time work, unemployment insurance, employment subsidies |
| JEL: | E24 H24 J41 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7281&r=lab |
| By: | Anja Roth; Michaela Slotwinski |
| Abstract: | We revisit the prominent finding that women’s incomes are disproportionally often observed just below the income of their partner. So far, this bunching has been explained by couple formation or couples’ labor market decisions. We propose an additional mechanism: income misreporting in surveys. Drawing on survey and administrative data, we show that income misreporting accounts for the discontinuity in the distribution of women’s relative incomes just below the point where a woman outearns her partner. This misreporting is best explained by the role of gender norms in individuals’ self-portrayals and self-perception. |
| Keywords: | gender norms, women’s relative income shares, combination survey and administrative data |
| JEL: | D10 J01 J16 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7298&r=lab |
| By: | Paul Pelzl; Steven Poelhekke |
| Abstract: | We analyse the local effect of exogenous shocks to the value of mineral deposits at the district level in Indonesia using a panel of manufacturing plants. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to model and estimate the effect of heterogeneity in natural resource extraction methods. We find that in areas where mineral extraction is relatively capital-intensive, mining booms cause virtually no upward pressure on manufacturing earnings per worker, and both producers of traded and local goods benefit from mining booms in terms of employment. In contrast, labour-intensive mining booms drive up local manufacturing wages such that producers of traded goods reduce employment. This source of heterogeneity helps to explain the mixed evidence for `Dutch disease' effects in the literature. In addition, we find no evidence that fiscal revenue sharing between sub-national districts leads to any spillovers. |
| Keywords: | dutch disease, natural resources, mining, labour intensity, Indonesia |
| JEL: | L16 L72 O12 O13 Q30 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7284&r=lab |
| By: | Cantore, Christiano; Ferroni, Filippo; León-Ledesma, Miguel A. |
| Abstract: | The textbook New-Keynesian (NK) model implies that the labor share is pro-cyclical conditional on a monetary policy shock. We present evidence that a monetary policy tightening robustly increased the labor share and decreased real wages and labor productivity during the Great Moderation period in the US, the Euro Area, the UK, Australia, and Canada. We show that this is inconsistent not only with the basic NK model, but with a wide variety of NK models commonly used for monetary policy analysis and where the direct link between the labor share and the markup can be broken down. |
| Keywords: | labor share; monetary policy shocks; DSGE models |
| JEL: | C52 E23 E32 |
| Date: | 2018–11–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:90873&r=lab |
| By: | Dani Rodrik |
| Abstract: | Many of the exports of developing countries are channeled through global value chains (GVCs), which also act as conduits for new technologies. However, new capabilities and productive employment remain limited so far to a tiny sliver of globally integrated firms. GVCs and new technologies exhibit features that limit the upside and may even undermine developing countries’ economic performance. In particular, new technologies present a double whammy to low-income countries. First, they are generally biased towards skills and other capabilities. This bias reduces the comparative advantage of developing countries in traditionally labor-intensive manufacturing (and other) activities, and decreases their gains from trade. Second, GVCs make it harder for low-income countries to use their labor cost advantage to offset their technological disadvantage, by reducing their ability to substitute unskilled labor for other production inputs. These are two independent shocks that compound each other. The evidence to date, on the employment and trade fronts, is that the disadvantages may have more than offset the advantages. |
| Keywords: | GVCs, economic development, international trade |
| JEL: | O33 O40 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7307&r=lab |
| By: | OSHIO Takashi |
| Abstract: | This study examines the health capacity to work of the elderly—that is, how much longer the elderly can work judging by their health status—and its long-term trend between 1986 and 2016 by using microdata obtained from the nationwide, population-based survey, "Comprehensive Survey of the Living Conditions," which was conducted and released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of the Japanese Government. Based on the estimated relationship between health and work statuses among individuals in their 50s, this study simulated their work capacity in their 60s and early 70s. The simulation results revealed a large additional work capacity among the elderly, as well as the possibility of some shift from part-time to full-time jobs among the male elderly. This study further observed that the elderly's additional work capacity has increased over the past 30 years along with the improvement of health status, although health conditions still prevent some individuals from working. Results underscore the need for policy measures to utilize the extra work capacity of the elderly. |
| Date: | 2018–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:18079&r=lab |
| By: | Haiyue Yu; Jin Cao; Shulong Kang |
| Abstract: | China has set to increase the minimum retirement age, to ease the pressure from pension expenditure and the falling labor supply caused by the aging population. However, policy debates have so far neglected the crucial fact that families in China largely rely on retired grandparents for childcare. Using novel and high-quality survey data, we demonstrate that intra-family downward labor transfer towards childcare significantly increases young females’ labor force participation rate and their labor income, and such effects do not exist for males. Furthermore, we show that the positive effects from grandparental childcare are higher for better-educated, urban females with younger children. This paper thus reveals a large, hidden cost in the new retirement policy — the reduced feasibility of grandparental support, due to postponed retirements, may crowd out productive labor of young females, — and rationalizes a series of social protection policies to accompany the phase-in of the new retirement scheme. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational labor division, grandparental childcare, female employment, human capital accumulation, minimum retirement age |
| JEL: | C24 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2018 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7293&r=lab |
| By: | Bindl, Uta K.; Unsworth, Kerrie L.; Gibson, Cristina B.; Stride, Christopher B. |
| Abstract: | Employees often self-initiate changes to their jobs, a process referred to as job crafting, yet we know little about why and how they initiate such changes. In this paper, we introduce and test an extended framework for job crafting, incorporating individuals’ needs and regulatory focus. Our theoretical model posits that individual needs provide employees with the motivation to engage in distinct job-crafting strategies—task, relationship, skill, and cognitive crafting—and that work-related regulatory focus will be associated with promotion- or prevention-oriented forms of these strategies. Across three independent studies and using distinct research designs (Study 1: N=421 employees; Study 2: N=144, using experience sampling data; Study 3: N=388, using a lagged study design), our findings suggest that distinct job-crafting strategies, and their promotion- and prevention-oriented forms, can be meaningfully distinguished and that individual needs (for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) at work differentially shape job-crafting strategies. We also find that promotion- and prevention-oriented forms of job-crafting vary in their relationship with innovative work performance; and we find partial support for work-related regulatory foci strengthening the indirect effect of individual needs on innovative work performance via corresponding forms of job crafting. Our findings suggest that both individual needs and work-related regulatory foci are related to why and how employees will choose to craft their jobs, as well as the consequences job crafting will have in organizations. |
| Keywords: | job crafting; regulatory focus theory; individual needs; innovative work performance; proactivity |
| JEL: | J50 |
| Date: | 2018–09–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:90175&r=lab |