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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Lombardi, Stefano (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies threat effects of unemployment insurance (UI) benefit sanctions on job exit rates. Using a difference-in-differences design, I exploit two reforms of the Swedish UI system that made monitoring and sanctions considerably stricter at different points in time for different jobseeker groups. The results show that men and long-term unemployed individuals respond to the tighter monitoring and the threat of sanctions by finding jobs faster, whereas women do not. I also estimate the effect of receiving a sanction on the job exit rates and find significant sanction imposition effects. However, a decomposition exercise shows that these sanction imposition effects explain very little of the overall reform effects, so that most of the reform effects arise through threat effects. A direct policy implication is that the total impact of monitoring and sanctions may be severely underestimated when focusing solely on the effects on those actually receiving sanctions. |
| Keywords: | monitoring and sanctions; unemployment insurance; threat effects |
| JEL: | J08 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2019–09–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2019_022&r=all |
| By: | Erica M. Field; Rohini Pande; Natalia Rigol; Simone G. Schaner; Charity Troyer Moore |
| Abstract: | Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and influence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into these accounts or into the male household head’s account (the status quo). Women in a random subset of villages were also trained on account use. In the short run, relative to women just offered bank accounts, those who also received direct deposit and training increased their labor supply in the public and private sectors. In the long run, gender norms liberalized: women who received direct deposit and training became more accepting of female work, and their husbands perceived fewer social costs to having a wife who works. These effects were concentrated in households with otherwise lower levels of, and stronger norms against, female work. Women in these households also worked more in the long run and became more empowered. These patterns are consistent with models of household decision-making in which increases in bargaining power from greater control over income interact with, and influence, gender norms. |
| JEL: | J16 J22 O1 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26294&r=all |
| By: | Gu, Ran |
| Abstract: | Postgraduate degree holders experience lower cyclical wage variation than those with undergraduate degrees. Moreover, postgraduates have more specific human capital than undergraduates. Using an equilibrium search model with long-term contracts and imperfect monitoring of worker effort, this paper attributes the cyclicality of the postgraduate-undergraduate wage gap to the differences in specific capital. Imperfect monitoring creates a moral hazard problem that requires firms to pay efficiency wages. More specific capital leads to lower mobility, thereby alleviating the moral hazard and improving risk-sharing. Estimates reveal that specific capital explains the differences both in labour turnover and in wage cyclicality across education groups. |
| Keywords: | specific human capital, postgraduate, wage premium, wage cyclicality, long-term contracts |
| JEL: | E24 E32 I24 J31 J64 |
| Date: | 2019–09–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96254&r=all |
| By: | Akyol, Pelin (Bilkent University); Okten, Cagla (Bilkent University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of culture on female labor market outcomes using new micro-level data on two distinct Muslim denominations in Turkey: Sunni and Alevi Muslims. We find a positive and significant effect of being an Alevi Muslim on female labor force participation and employment probability compared to a Sunni Muslim whereas there are no significant differences in male labor market outcomes between the two denominations. We provide evidence that Alevi Muslims have more gender equal views regarding the role of women in the labor market and argue that differences in gender views drive the results. |
| Keywords: | female labor force participation, culture, gender |
| JEL: | J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12620&r=all |
| By: | Kenjiro Hirata (Faculty of Economics, Kobe International University); Ayako Suzuki (School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University); Katsuya Takii (Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the transferability of managerial experience by examining how managers' tenures in target firms influence their probability of retention as board members after mergers or acquisitions in Japanese firms. It develops a general equilibrium model that distinguishes several hypotheses on managerial experiences based on the coefficients of tenure on separation, given several data limitations. In particular, the paper provides a novel method to correct for selection biases by utilizing the timing of selection in a selected sample, which does not require a random sample from the population. Our results suggest that Japanese firms value both target firm-specific and general human capital after M&As and that experience as an employee increases firm-specific skills, but at the expense of the accumulation of general skills. However, experience as a board member does not have this effect. |
| Keywords: | Tenure; Managerial Skill; Managerial Turnover after M&As; Selection Bias; Cox Proportional Hazards Model |
| JEL: | G34 J41 J63 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osp:wpaper:19e010&r=all |
| By: | Costas Cavounidis; Kevin Lang; Russell Weinstein |
| Abstract: | African Americans face shorter employment durations than apparently similar whites. We hypothesize that employers discriminate in either acquiring or acting on ability-relevant information. We construct a model in which firms may "monitor" workers. Monitoring black but not white workers is self-sustaining: new black hires are more likely to have been screened by a previous employer, causing firms to discriminate in monitoring. We confirm the model's prediction that the unemployment hazard is initially higher for blacks but converges to that for whites. Two additional predictions, lower lifetime incomes and longer unemployment durations for blacks, are known to be strongly empirically supported. |
| JEL: | J01 J3 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26319&r=all |
| By: | Molinder, Jakob (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University); Karlsson, Tobias (Department of Economic History, Lund University); Enflo, Kerstin (Department of Economic History, Lund University) |
| Abstract: | This paper revisits the Power Resource Theory (PRT) by testing one of its more influential claims: the relation between the strength of the labor movement and the reduction of industrial conflicts. Using panel data techniques to analyze more than 2,000 strikes in 103 Swedish towns we test whether a shift in the balance of power towards Social Democratic rule was associated with fewer strikes. The focus is on the formative years between the first general election in 1919 and 1938, when Sweden went from a country of fierce labor conflicts to a state of industrial peace. We find that Social Democratic power reduced strikes, but only in towns where union presence was strong. We do not see any tangible concessions in terms of increased social spending by local governments after a left-wing victory as predicted by PRT. Instead the mechanism leading to fewer strikes appears to be related to corporatist explanations. |
| Keywords: | Power Resource Theory; industrial conflicts; strikes; labor markets; local politics |
| JEL: | H53 J51 N34 N44 |
| Date: | 2019–09–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:luekhi:0207&r=all |
| By: | John V. Leahy; Aditi Thapar |
| Abstract: | We study whether the effects of monetary policy are dependent on the demographic structure of the population. We exploit cross-sectional variation in the response of US states to an identified monetary policy shock. We find that there are three distinct age groups. In response to an increase in interest rates, the responses of private employment and personal income are weaker the greater the share of population under 35 years of age, are stronger the greater the share between 40 and 65 years of age, and are relatively unaffected by the share older than 65 years. We find that all age groups become more responsive to monetary policy shocks when the proportion of middle aged increases. We provide evidence consistent with middle aged entrepreneurs starting and expanding businesses in response to an expansionary monetary shock. |
| JEL: | E32 E52 J11 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26324&r=all |
| By: | Erwin Bulte; John A. List; Daan Van Soest |
| Abstract: | Social scientists have recently explored how framing of gains and losses affects productivity. We conducted a field experiment in peri-urban Uganda, and compare output levels across 1000 workers over isomorphic tasks and incentives, framed as either losses or gains. We find that loss aversion can be leveraged to increase the productivity of labor. The estimated welfare costs of using the loss contract are quite modest – perhaps because the loss contract is viewed as a (soft) commitment device. |
| JEL: | C93 D03 J01 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26286&r=all |
| By: | Abel, Martin (Middlebury College) |
| Abstract: | I hire 2,700 workers for a transcription job, randomly assigning the gender of their (fictitious) manager and provision of performance feedback. While praise from a manager has no effect, criticism negatively impacts workers' job satisfaction and perception of the task's importance. When female managers, rather than male, deliver this feedback, the negative effects double in magnitude. Having a critical female manager does not affect effort provision but it does lower workers' interest in working for the firm in the future. These findings hold for both female and male workers. I show that results are consistent with gendered expectations of feedback among workers. By contrast, I find no evidence for the role of either attention discrimination or implicit gender bias. |
| Keywords: | gender discrimination, gig economy, female leadership |
| JEL: | J50 J70 |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12611&r=all |
| By: | Ignacio Gonzalez Vazquez (European Commission - JRC); Santo Milasi (European Commission - JRC); Stephanie Carretero Gomez (European Commission - JRC); Joanna Napierala (European Commission - JRC); Nicolas Robledo Bottcher (European Commission - JRC); Koen Jonkers (European Commission - JRC); Xabier Goenaga Beldarrain (European Commission - JRC); Eskarne Arregui Pabollet (European Commission - JRC); Margherita Bacigalupo (European Commission - JRC); Federico Biagi (European Commission - JRC); Marcelino Cabrera Giraldez (European Commission - JRC); Francesca Caena (European Commission - JRC); Jonatan Castano Munoz (European Commission - JRC); Isabel Clara Centeno Mediavilla (European Commission - JRC); John Edwards (European Commission - JRC); Enrique Fernandez Macias (European Commission - JRC); Emilia Gomez Gutierrez (European Commission - JRC); Estrella Gomez Herrera (European Commission - JRC); Andreia Inamorato Dos Santos (European Commission - JRC); Panagiotis Kampylis (European Commission - JRC); David Klenert (European Commission - JRC); Montserrat Lopez Cobo (European Commission - JRC); Robert Marschinski (European Commission - JRC); Annarosa Pesole (European Commission - JRC); Yves Punie (European Commission - JRC); Songul Tolan (European Commission - JRC); Sergio Torrejon Perez (European Commission - JRC); Cesira Urzi Brancati (European Commission - JRC); Riina Vuorikari (European Commission - JRC) |
| Abstract: | This report aims to shed light on some of the key drivers which are worth taking into account when assessing the effect of new technologies on the future of work and skills. It combines a synthesis of the most recent and robust scientific evidence available with original JRC research on issues which have been often overlooked by existing studies. In particular, the report provides new insights on the interplay between automation and work organisation, the extent and nature of platform work, and the patterns of occupational changes across EU regions. The first chapter discusses the impact of technology on employment. It overviews the most recent estimates on technology-induced job creation and destruction, and provides new insights on the role of workplace organisation in shaping the effect of new technologies on labour markets. The second chapter discusses how skills needs are shifting towards digital and non-cognitive skills, showing evidence of an increasing shortage of these skills in the EU, which education systems are not fully tackling yet. The third chapter reviews the opportunities and challenges related to the recent upwards trend in new forms of employment in the EU, focusing on the results of the second wave of the COLLEEM survey on platform work in the EU. The final chapter presents results from a new JRC-Eurofound study on the patterns of occupational change in EU regions in the last 15 years which shows that low-wage jobs have increasingly concentrated in peripheral regions while higher-wage jobs are becoming more and more concentrated in capital regions, leading to increasing territorial disparities, both across and within EU Member States. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Technological change, Non-cognitive skills, Digital labour platforms, Future of work, Digital skills, Regional employment, Structural transformation |
| Date: | 2019–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc117505&r=all |
| By: | Holmlund, Helena (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates to what extent assortative mating contributes to intergenerational earnings persistence. I use an errors-in-variables model to demonstrate how pooling of partners’ ‘potential’ earnings affects intergenerational earnings persistence, and simulate persistence under different assumptions about assortative mating and women’s earnings distribution. Using Swedish data on cohorts born 1945–1965, I show that a substantial decline in marital sorting has contributed little to lowering intergenerational persistence. Variations in marital sorting must be large to affect intergenerational mobility to a great extent. Instead, the relative earnings distributions of men and women, in combination with sorting, are important for intergenerational persistence. |
| Keywords: | assortative mating; intergenerational mobility |
| JEL: | I24 J12 J62 |
| Date: | 2019–09–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2019_021&r=all |
| By: | Giorgio Presidente |
| Abstract: | This paper documents a positive relationship between labor-friendly institutions and investment in industrial robots in a sample of advanced economies. Institutions explain a substantial proportion of cross-country variation in automation. The relationship between institutions and robots is stronger in sunk cost-intensive industries, where producers are more vulnerable to holdup. This suggests that automation is used by producers as a tool to thwart rent appropriation by labor. |
| Keywords: | automation, robots, holdup, institutions, unions, sunk costs, appropriability, bargaining, frictions, rents, technology adoption |
| JEL: | O33 O43 O57 J50 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7834&r=all |
| By: | Guimarães, Luis; Gil, Pedro |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of an automation-augmenting shock in an economy with matching frictions and endogenous job destruction. In the model, tasks can be produced by workers or by machines, but workers have a comparative advantage in producing advanced tasks. Firms choose the input at the time of entry. And according to the evolution of the workers’ comparative advantage, some firms using labor prefer to fire the worker and automate the task. In our model, an automation-augmenting shock reduces the labor share, increases job creation, and increases job destruction. The effects on employment depend on how rapidly workers may lose their comparative advantage: an automation-augmenting shock increases employment in slow-changing environments but catastrophically reduces it in rapid-changing ones. |
| Keywords: | Automation; Employment; Labor-Market Frictions; Technology Choice |
| JEL: | E24 J64 L11 O33 |
| Date: | 2019–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96238&r=all |
| By: | Sharma, Ajay |
| Abstract: | This paper is an attempt to extend the dialogue on the nature of commuting between rural and urban areas and its implications for labour market outcomes in rural and urban India. We show that over the period 2004–2005 to 2011–2012, the magnitude of commuting workers has not changed but the composition has changed with reduction in rural no fixed place workers and increase in urban-no fixed place workers. We further highlight that rural–urban commuting can be considered mobility for better opportunities on account of diversification of livelihood strategy and underemployment in rural areas. |
| Keywords: | Commuting, Rural-urban interaction, No fixed place workers, India |
| JEL: | J61 O18 R0 R23 |
| Date: | 2019–09–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:96205&r=all |
| By: | Pastore, Francesco |
| Abstract: | This paper aims to study the shortcomings and merits of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). This system, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act, has reactivated and revitalized the sector by providing important job opportunities to jobless workers. The system has the typical problems of quasi-markets in the provision of public services (lion's share of private organizations; cherry picking; gaming). However, different expedients are devised in the program to minimize these shortcomings. The empirical analysis suggest that such phenomena if existent are at a physiological level. Analysis of the determinants of completing successfully the program provides non-trivial results as to, among others, the role organizations of different ownership type and of services provided. |
| Keywords: | Public employment services,Quasi-markets,Cherry-picking,Gaming,Lombardy region,Jobs Act |
| JEL: | H44 H52 H76 I38 J68 R23 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:408&r=all |
| By: | Fetzer, Thiemo (University of Warwick) |
| Abstract: | Can public interventions persistently reduce conflict? Adverse weather shocks, through their impact on incomes, have been identified as robust drivers of conflict in many contexts. An effective social insurance system moderates the impact of adverse shocks on household incomes, and hence, could attenuate the link between these shocks and conflict. This paper shows that a public employment program in India, by providing an alternative source of income through a guarantee of 100 days of employment at minimum wages, effectively provides insurance. This has an indirect pacifying effect. By weakening the link between productivity shocks and incomes, the program uncouples productivity shocks from conflict, leading persistently lower conflict levels. |
| Keywords: | social insurance, civil conflict, India, NREGA, insurgency JEL Classification: D74, H56, J65, Q34 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:436&r=all |
| By: | Narula, Rajneesh (Henley Business School, University of Reading, UK) |
| Abstract: | The 2013 Rana Plaza disaster led external stakeholders to insist on higher labour standards in apparel global value chains (GVCs). Stakeholders now expect MNEs to take 'full-chain' responsibility. However, the increased monitoring and enforcement costs of a large network of suppliers have been non-trivial. MNEs instead implement a 'cascading compliance' approach, coupled with a partial re-internalisation. Elevated costs are further exacerbated in developing countries where the informal and formal sector are linked, and cost competitiveness greatly depends on this duality. Monitoring actors in the informal sector is difficult, and few informal actors can achieve compliance. GVCs have therefore reduced informal sector engagement by excluding non-compliant actors and investing in greater automation. By seeking to strictly enforce compliance, MNEs are attenuating some of the positive effects of MNE investment, particularly the prospects for employment creation (especially among women), and enterprise growth in the informal sector. I discuss how these observations might inform other cross-disciplinary work in development, ethics, and sociology. Finally, I note implications for IB theory from the disparities between the ownership, control and responsibility boundaries of the firm. |
| Keywords: | informal economy, MNEs, duality, Bangladesh, compliance, GVCs |
| JEL: | E26 F23 J8 |
| Date: | 2019–09–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2019034&r=all |