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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Delia Furtado (University of Connecticut); Kerry L. Papps (University of Bath); Nikolaos Theodoropoulos (University of Cyprus) |
| Abstract: | Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) take-up tends to increase during recessions despite the fact that the program is intended to insure against the possibility of a work-preventing disability, not job loss. We examine the role that social costs—such as taboos against receiving government benefits or the difficulty of obtaining information about the program within one’s social circle—play in the decision to apply for SSDI in response to changes in economic conditions. We show that immigrants from country-of-origin groups that have lower social costs to participation, as measured by past SSDI participation rates for their origin group, are more sensitive to economic downturns than immigrants from high cost groups. We present evidence that this is mainly driven by differences across origin countries in norms regarding the importance of work, rather than by information sharing or taboos against cheating the government. |
| Keywords: | Disability Insurance, Immigrants, Unemployment Rates, Ethnic Networks |
| JEL: | H55 J61 I18 J15 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:1908&r=all |
| By: | Annalisa Frigo (UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)); Eric Roca Fernandez (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, EHESS, Centrale Marseille, AMSE, Marseille, France) |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with the historical roots of gender equality. It proposes and empirically assesses a new determinant of gender equality: gender-specific outside options in the marriage market. In particular, enlarging women's options besides marriage - even if only temporarily - increases their bargaining power with respect to men, leading to a persistent improvement in gender equality. We illustrate this mechanism focusing on Belgium, and relate gender-equality levels in the 19th century to the presence of medieval, female-only communities called beguinages that allowed women to remain single amidst a society that traditionally advocated marriage. Combining geo-referenced data on beguinal communities with 19th-century census data, we document that the presence of beguinages was instrumental in decreasing the gender gap in literacy. The reduction is sizeable, amounting to a 5.3 % drop in gender educational inequality. |
| Keywords: | Economic Persistence, Culture, Institutions, Religion, Gender Gap |
| JEL: | I25 J16 N33 O15 O43 Z12 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2019013&r=all |
| By: | Peter J. Kuhn; Lizi Yu |
| Abstract: | Identifying the causal effects of turnover on organizational productivity is challenging, due to data constraints and endogeneity issues. We address these challenges by using day-to-day variation in the composition and performance of small retail sales teams, and by exploiting an advance notice requirement for quits. We find robust and statistically significant productivity losses at four distinct times during the departure process: after the worker gives notice, before she departs, after she leaves, and after a new worker starts. We attribute the first two effects to a combination of recruitment activities by incumbent workers and reductions in morale, and the last two to short-staffing and on-boarding costs. Almost two thirds (63 percent) of these productivity losses occur before the departing worker leaves, and only 24 percent result from operating with an unfilled vacancy. Overall, we estimate that the costs of a ten percent increase in turnover are equivalent to a 0.6 percent wage increase; wage hikes will therefore pay for themselves (in turnover cost savings) only if the elasticity of quits to wages exceeds 16.8 in absolute value. |
| JEL: | J31 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26179&r=all |
| By: | Santiago Pérez |
| Abstract: | I study the selection and economic outcomes of Italians in Argentina and the US, the two largest destinations during the age of mass migration. Prior cross-sectional work finds that Italians had faster assimilation in Argentina, but it is inconclusive on whether this was due to differences in selection or host-country conditions. I assemble data following Italians from passenger lists to censuses, enabling me to compare migrants with similar pre-migration characteristics. Italians had better economic outcomes in Argentina, and this advantage was unlikely to be due to selection. Migration path dependence can rationalize these differences in an era of open borders. |
| JEL: | J15 J61 N30 N31 N36 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26127&r=all |
| By: | Filippo Belloc |
| Abstract: | Using data on more than 13000 European establishments over the 2009-2013 period, I analyze the relationship between discharge regulation and industrial actions. I introduce a simple theoretical framework allowing for both positive and negative effects of dismissal constraints on the occurrence of labor disputes, and empirically answer the question as whether stricter dismissal laws make EU establishments experience more frequent and intense industrial actions (work-to-rule, strikes and occupation). I find that a change from employment at-will to a regime with very strict dismissal constraints is associated with an increase in the likelihood of observing an industrial action at the establishment-level ranging between 10.5 and 14.8 percentage points, and that this effect reduces to around 6.7 percentage points when only company-specific industrial actions are considered. Discharge constraints effects on industrial actions are then confirmed through a difference-in-differences analysis, by exploiting quasi-experimental variations in national dismissal regulations. My findings show that less strict discharge regulations moderate labor conflicts in EU establishments, by disciplining workers and restraining unions' activism. |
| Keywords: | industrial action, dismissal regulation, unions, European Company Survey |
| JEL: | J52 J58 K31 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:806&r=all |
| By: | Jonathan Briody; Orla Doyle; Cecily Kelleher |
| Abstract: | The relationship between recessions and health is mixed, with some evidence from the most recent financial crisis finding a positive effect on heath behaviours. This study uses longitudinal data spanning the periods before, during and after the Irish crisis of 2008, to test the impact of economic expansion and contraction on mothers physical and mental health and health behaviours. Three waves of data from the Irish Lifeways Cohort Study for the period 2001-2011, and local area employment rates from the Irish Census, are used to capture the impact of the recession on health, independent of individual employment status. The results from fixed effect linear probability models demonstrate that increases in the local unemployment rate are associated with significant increases in the probability of mothers reporting poor self-rated health and poor mental well-being. Yet the association between local area unemployment and health behaviours is mostly positive, with higher unemployment reducing the probability of being obese and tobacco consumption. The relationship with physical activity is more ambiguous. These results are largely consistent with the US literature, which is predominantly based on working men, thus demonstrating the universal impact of recessions on health. |
| Keywords: | Lifestyles; Health; Macroeconomic conditions; Panel data; Unemployment; The Great Recession |
| JEL: | I1 I12 I14 I18 C33 J10 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201918&r=all |
| By: | Albrecht, James; Cai, Xiaoming; Gautier, Pieter A.; Vroman, Susan |
| Abstract: | We consider a labor market with search frictions in which workers make multiple applications and firms can post and commit to general mechanisms that may be conditioned both on the number of applications received and on the number of offers received by its candidate. When the contract space includes application fees, there exists a continuum of equilibria of which only one is socially efficient. In the inefficient equilibria, firms have market power that arises from the fact that the value of a worker's application portfolio depends on what other firms offer, which allows individual firms to free ride and offer workers less than their marginal contribution. Finally, by allowing for general mechanisms, we are able to examine the sources of inefficiency in the multiple applications literature. |
| Keywords: | competing mechanisms; directed search; efficiency; market power; multiple applications |
| JEL: | C78 D44 D83 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13912&r=all |
| By: | LEBIHAN, Laetitia; MAO TAKONGMO, Charles Olivier |
| Abstract: | Little is known about the effects of paid parental leave (in particular fathers' quotas) on parental health and involvement. In this paper, we exploit a reform that took place in the Canadian province of Quebec to address that important topic. In 2006, Quebec opted out of the federal plan and established its own parental insurance plan, named the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). This program has lowered the eligibility criteria, increased income replacement and introduced fathers' quotas. Using three data sets, we investigate the impact of the QPIP on breastfeeding and parental health and behavior. Our results show that the reform increased breastfeeding duration and parental involvement. Results also suggest that the policy had limited positive effects on parental health. |
| Keywords: | Parental leave; family health; breastfeeding; parental behavior. |
| JEL: | I12 I18 I30 J18 |
| Date: | 2019–08–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95719&r=all |
| By: | Ericsson, Sanna (Department of Economics, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of increased female empowerment on domestic violence. I use individual level data from high-quality Swedish administrative registers on women's relative earnings and hospital visits relating to assault. With this third-party reported violence measure, I overcome the issue of selective under-reporting of violence. I first show that the raw relationship between female empowerment and domestic violence is U-shaped, and that the sign of the association differs depending on which spouse is the main breadwinner of the household. However, the U-shape does not depict a causal effect, as it does not account for selective marriage matches or endogenous earnings. To overcome the concerns of endogeneity, I derive a measure of wives' potential earnings, caused by local changes in gender-specific labour demand. I show that the causal effect of increasing wives' potential earnings on domestic violence is positive and substantial. A positive effect is consistent with a male backlash story, which, together with the noted U-shaped association that depends on breadwinner status, indicates that traditional gender norms may play an important role in determining the relationship between female empowerment and domestic violence, even in presumably gender-equal Sweden. |
| Keywords: | domestic violence; relative earnings; household bargaining; male backlash; local labour demand |
| JEL: | D13 I12 J12 J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2019–08–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2019_012&r=all |
| By: | Goller, Daniel; Lechner, Michael; Moczall, Andreas; Wolff, Joachim |
| Abstract: | Matching-type estimators using the propensity score are the major workhorse in active labour market policy evaluation. This work investigates if machine learning algorithms for estimating the propensity score lead to more credible estimation of average treatment effects on the treated using a radius matching framework. Considering two popular methods, the results are ambiguous: We find that using LASSO based logit models to estimate the propensity score delivers more credible results than conventional methods in small and medium sized high dimensional datasets. However, the usage of Random Forests to estimate the propensity score may lead to a deterioration of the performance in situations with a low treatment share. The application reveals a positive effect of the training programme on days in employment for longterm unemployed. While the choice of the “first stage” is highly relevant for settings with low number of observations and few treated, machine learning and conventional estimation becomes more similar in larger samples and higher treatment shares. |
| Keywords: | Programme evaluation, active labour market policy, causal machine learning, treatment effects, radius matching, propensity score |
| JEL: | J68 C21 |
| Date: | 2019–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2019:10&r=all |