nep-lab New Economics Papers
on Labour Economics
Issue of 2020‒02‒10
fourteen papers chosen by
Joseph Marchand
University of Alberta

  1. States Taking the Reins? Employment Verification Requirements and Local Labor Market Outcomes By Shalise Ayromloo; Benjamin Feigenberg; Darren Lubotsky
  2. Gender norms and income misreporting within households By Roth, Anja; Slotwinski, Michaela
  3. How Should Unemployment Insurance Vary over the Business Cycle? By Serdar Birinci; Kurt See
  4. Services and the Decline of the U.S. Employment-to-Population Ratio By Margarida Duarte
  5. Time-Space Dynamics of Return and Circular Migration: Theories and Evidence By Constant, Amelie F.
  6. TURNING A BLIND EYE? COMPLIANCE TO MINIMUM WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT. By Andrea Garnero; Claudio Lucifora
  7. College Access and Adult Health By Benjamin W. Cowan; Nathan Tefft
  8. It’s the way people move! Labour migration as an adjustment device in Russia By Pastore, Francesco; Semerikova, Elena
  9. Innovation and Self-Employment By Ciarli, Tommaso; Di Ubaldo, Mattia; Savona, Maria
  10. Caught between Cultures: Unintended Consequences of Improving Opportunity for Immigrant Girls By Gordon B. Dahl; Cristina Felfe; Paul Frijters; Helmut Rainer
  11. PENELOPE: Luxembourg Tool for Pension Evaluation and Long-Term Projection Exercises By Luca Marchiori
  12. Gendered economic determinants of couple formation over 50 in France By C. BONNET; F. GODET; A. SOLAZ
  13. Designing fair and work-oriented unemployment benefits: The case of Belgium By Alexander Hijzen; Andrea Salvatori
  14. The mirror for (artificial) intelligence: Working in whose reflection? By Moore, Phoebe V.

  1. By: Shalise Ayromloo; Benjamin Feigenberg; Darren Lubotsky
    Abstract: We estimate the impact of state-level “E-Verify” legislation that mandates employment eligibility verification for private-sector workers. We document declines in formal sector employment and employment turnover after mandate passage, with effects concentrated among those likeliest to be work-ineligible. Using newly available data, we show that larger firms are far more likely to comply with mandates. Heterogeneity in adherence leads to substantial within-state employment spillovers from larger to smaller firms, as well as a reduction in the number of large firms. We find no evidence that work-ineligible populations relocate or that native-born workers’ labor market outcomes improve in response to mandates.
    JEL: J18 J21 J3 J61 J63
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26676&r=all
  2. By: Roth, Anja; Slotwinski, Michaela
    Abstract: We show that the discontinuity in the distribution of surveyed female income shares at the margin where a woman would outearn her partner is primarily driven by norm induced misreporting in surveys. We draw on unique Swiss data combining survey and administrative information for the same individual and their partner. We demonstrate that individuals misreport incomes in surveys to comply with the male breadwinner norm. The male breadwinner norm does, however, not affect real labor market decisions around this margin. The resulting survey bias leads to a considerable overestimation of policy relevant measures like the gender wage gap.
    Keywords: gender norms,female income shares,combination survey and administrative data,income misreporting,gender earnings gap
    JEL: D10 J01 J16
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20001&r=all
  3. By: Serdar Birinci; Kurt See
    Abstract: We study optimal unemployment insurance (UI) over the business cycle using a heterogeneous agent job search model with aggregate risk and incomplete markets. We validate the model-implied micro and macro labor market elasticities to changes in UI generosity against existing estimates, and provide an explanation for divergent empirical findings. We show that generating the observed demographic differences between UI recipients and non-recipients is critical in determining the magnitudes of these elasticities. We find that the optimal policy features countercyclical replacement rates with average generosity close to current U.S. policy but adopts longer payment durations reminiscent of European policies.
    Keywords: Business Cycles; Job Search; Unemployment Insurance
    JEL: E24 E32 J64 J65
    Date: 2019–01–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:87403&r=all
  4. By: Margarida Duarte
    Abstract: A decline in the employment-to-population ratio since 2000 follows several decades of upward trend. The sharp decline in manufacturing employment that started around 2000 has been proposed as the prime contributor to the decline in overall employment. I show that the key factor in the reversal of trend in the employment ratio is a marked slowdown in the growth of service employment. A standard model of structural transformation is broadly consistent with the changing patterns of sectoral employment in the U.S. economy between 1960 and 2019 and highlights the importance of convergence in labor force participation of women.
    Keywords: employment, manufacturing, services, productivity, structural transformation, labor force, women.
    JEL: E1 E24 J11 J16 J21 J22 O11 O41 O51
    Date: 2020–01–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-653&r=all
  5. By: Constant, Amelie F.
    Abstract: This chapter undertook the monumental task of providing a complete outlook about return, repeat, circular and onward migration by bringing together the perspectives of the host and the home country. In this endeavor, it reviewed and evaluated all theories about why people move, when they circulate, where they go, who are the people who migrate, who are the people who return, and how they change the economic and social structures in the home country. In the process, it revealed the new norm of joint decision-making by the family as a unit and underlined the importance of non-economic reasons for return. The chapter further provided a state-of-the-art literature review about empirical evidence regarding the disparate phenomena of return, circular and onward migration. It emphasized commonalities and compared differences in findings, while connecting them to the theories, policies and institutions. Return, repeat, and circular migrants are self-selected and extremely heterogeneous people and cannot conform under one theory or empirical study. Their de facto migration comportment can be understood by several different theories and, in the absence of good data, it can be explained by a variety of studies. The chapter ends with a critical conclusion and hope to inspire new avenues of research on the topic.
    Keywords: Return,circular,onward,international labor migration,public policy
    JEL: F22 J15 J18 J20 J61
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:446&r=all
  6. By: Andrea Garnero; Claudio Lucifora (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)
    Abstract: In this paper, we explore the relationship between non-compliance with bargained minimum wages and employment. We illustrate the role of labour courts with respect to the Constitutional provision of “fair” wage and sketch a model in which firms choose their desired levels of employment and non-compliance. We show that when employers internalize the expected costs of non-compliance, the effect of deviating from the bargained minimum wages on employment levels are modest, or null. Using data from the Italian LFS, we find evidence of a positive, but small, trade-off between non-compliance and employment. We discuss the policy implications of these findings for wage bargaining, also considering the costs that “turning a blind eye” to non-compliance implies for the Italian system of industrial relations.
    Keywords: collective bargaining, sectoral minimum wages, compliance.
    JEL: J08 J31 J52 J83
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def085&r=all
  7. By: Benjamin W. Cowan; Nathan Tefft
    Abstract: We investigate the relationship between college openings, college attainment, and health behaviors and outcomes later in life. Though a large prior literature attempts to isolate the causal effect of education on health via instrumental variables (IV), most studies use instruments that affect schooling behavior in childhood or adolescence, i.e. before the college enrollment decision. Our paper examines whether an increase in 2- and 4-year institutions per capita (“college accessibility”) in a state contributes to higher college attainment and better health later in life. Using 1980-2015 Census and American Community Survey data, we find consistent evidence that accessibility of public 2-year institutions positively affects schooling attainment and subsequent employment and earnings levels, particularly among whites and Hispanics. With restricted-use 1984-2000 National Health Interview Survey data, we again find that public 2-year accessibility increases schooling and benefits a host of health behaviors and outcomes in adulthood: it deters smoking, raises exercise levels, and improves self-reported health. However, most long-term health conditions are unaffected, which may be partially due to the age of our sample.
    JEL: I12 I23 I26
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26685&r=all
  8. By: Pastore, Francesco; Semerikova, Elena
    Abstract: This paper aims to assess the role of migration as an adjustment mechanism device to favor convergence across states and regions of Russia. In contrast to previous studies, we use variations in the population of a region as a proxy of its net migration rate and apply spatial econometric methodology in order to distinguish the effect from the neighbouring regions. We provide descriptive statistical evidence showing that Russia has more/less/the same intense migration flows than the USA and EU. The econometric analysis shows that migration flows are sensitive to both regional income and regional unemployment differentials. Nonetheless, we find that internal migration is sensitive to regional unemployment and income differentials of neighbouring regions. Dependent on the welfare, pre- or after-crisis period, income in neighbouring regions can create out- or in-migration flows. The relatively high degree of internal mobility coupled with the low sensitivity of migration flows to the local unemployment rate of distant regions might explain why migration flows tends not to generate convergence, but rather divergence across Russian regions.
    Keywords: Internal and International migration,Adjustment mechanism,spatial econometrics,Russia
    JEL: F15 F22 J61 R23
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:445&r=all
  9. By: Ciarli, Tommaso; Di Ubaldo, Mattia; Savona, Maria
    Abstract: The paper adds to the literature on innovation and employment by looking at the relationship between R&D investments and the rise of alternative work arrangements, particularly selfemployment (SE). A literature review on the determinants of the emergence of non-standard work, alternative work arrangements and self-employment if offered first. The contributions that have looked at SE in relation to innovation strategies is surprisingly limited. General trends of SE in Europe are considered. The empirical contribution is focused on the analysis of local labour markets in the UK (Travel-To-Work-Areas, TTWAs), where their initial concentration of routinized and non-routinized jobs is considered. The probability that an individual shifts from paid employment to either unemployment or self-employment over the period 2001-13, as linked to changes in R&D investments in the TTWA is empirically accounted for. Results show that overall R&D has negligible effects on the probability of workers to become self-employed. R&D increases the probability of moving from unemployment to paid employment, especially in routinized areas, and reduces the permeability between routinised and nonroutinised workers. Also, a non-negligible increase in the probability that a routinized worker becomes SE as a result of R&D increase is found in low routinised local labour markets, but not in highly routinised areas. The paper sheds new lights on the effect of R&D on employment and self-employment in areas with different degrees of routinization, and adds to the discussion on the more general raise of alternative work arrangements in Europe by disentangling the characteristics of self-employment as resulting from R&D investments.
    Keywords: R&D,employment,unemployment,self-employment,routinized local labour markets
    JEL: J6 O3 O32
    Date: 2020
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:449&r=all
  10. By: Gordon B. Dahl; Cristina Felfe; Paul Frijters; Helmut Rainer
    Abstract: What happens when immigrant girls are given increased opportunities to integrate into the workplace and society, but their parents value more traditional cultural outcomes? Building on Akerlof and Kranton's identity framework (2000), we construct a simple game-theoretic model which shows how expanding opportunities for immigrant girls can have the unintended consequence of reducing their well-being, since identity-concerned parents will constrain their daughter's choices. The model can explain the otherwise puzzling findings from a reform which granted automatic birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after January 1, 2000. Using survey data we collected in 57 schools in Germany and comparing those born in the months before versus after the reform, we find that birthright citizenship lowers measures of life satisfaction and self-esteem for immigrant girls. This is especially true for Muslims, where traditional cultural identity is particularly salient. Birthright citizenship results in disillusionment where immigrant Muslim girls believe their chances of achieving their educational goals are lower and the perceived odds of having to forgo a career for family rise. Consistent with the model, immigrant Muslim parents invest less in their daughters' schooling and have a lower probability of speaking German with their daughters if they are born after the reform. We further find that immigrant Muslim girls granted birthright citizenship are less likely to self-identify as German, are more socially isolated, and are less likely to believe foreigners can have a good life in Germany. In contrast, immigrant boys experience, if anything, an improvement in well-being and little effect on other outcomes. Taken together, the findings point towards immigrant girls being pushed by parents to conform to a role within traditional culture, whereas boys are allowed to take advantage of the opportunities that come with citizenship. Alternative models can explain some of the findings in isolation, but are not consistent more generally.
    JEL: J15 J16 Z1
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:26674&r=all
  11. By: Luca Marchiori
    Abstract: This document presents the structure of PENELOPE, a macro-accounting tool aimed at examining the long-run sustainability of the Luxembourg pension system. PENELOPE complements othermodels studying the Luxembourg pension systemby proposing a disaggregated pension analysis in which demographic changes affect macroeconomic variables. The results of PENELOPE’s reference scenario are compared with those of other studies, while additional simulations focus on (i) the effects of different population projections and assumptions on cross-border worker inflows, (ii) the implications of the 2012 pension reform and of alternative proposals, as well as (iii) the evolution of the pension reserve under different scenarios.
    Keywords: Pension expenditure projections, demographic trends, labor inflows, pension reform
    JEL: H55 H68 J11
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bcl:bclwop:bclwp140&r=all
  12. By: C. BONNET (Ined); F. GODET (Insee); A. SOLAZ (Ined)
    Abstract: Couple formation over 50 has been largely unexplored until now. The lack of literature on this topic especially in France lies in the low number of events for this age group, even if it is increasing. From the Fideli 2016 two-year panel which combines comprehensive income and housing tax returns, we study the determinants of the union between women and men after 50 years (logistic regression), the type of union chosen: marriage, PACS or common-law union (multinomial regression), and the degree of homogamy within these new couples. The probability to form an union is higher for men than for women but sharply decreases with age for both. Previous marital status and income play different roles depending on the sex. Compared to never-married men, widowers are more likely to form a new couple. It is the opposite for women. Divorced men and women more often form a new union than others. While a high income increases the chances of repartnering for men, it decreases them for women. However, the effects of supply (less opportunity on the marriage market) cannot be disentangled from the effects of demand (less willingness and need to form a couple). For low income, forming a couple is one way to increase one's standard of living, at ages when it is difficult to increase the labor market participation. The type of union chosen also differs according to previous marital status and income. Over 50, the ex-spouses are more likely to marry, except for the widows who are the least likely to marry. Income plays positively on the fact of contracting an union for men. For women, the probability to contractualize theirs unions is highest at both ends of the income distribution. Over 50, men enter new unions with younger women and women who have similar levels of income. Women form new partnership with men who earn more than them.
    Keywords: Union formation ; elderly ; retired ; economic resources ; socioeconomic characteristics ; gender ; marital status ; repartnering ; mariage ; Pacs ; cohabitation
    JEL: J12 J14 J16
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nse:doctra:g2019-13&r=all
  13. By: Alexander Hijzen; Andrea Salvatori
    Abstract: This note focuses on the design of fair and work-oriented unemployment benefits, with a specific focus on Belgium, a country in which the design of the unemployment benefits system has become the subject of an intense policy debate in recent years. After taking stock of the most recent literature and international policy practices, the note describes the main features of the Belgian unemployment benefit system and proposes a number of policy recommendations that can help to make the current unemployment benefit system more work-oriented and fair across all groups of unemployed.
    JEL: J65
    Date: 2020–01–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:237-en&r=all
  14. By: Moore, Phoebe V.
    Abstract: The mirror for (artificial) intelligence: In whose reflection?' sets out the parameters for caution in considering as-yet relatively un-debated issues in artificial intelligence (AI) research, which is the concept itself of 'intelligence'. After the AI 'winters' ending in the late 1990s, during which AI development met substantive obstacles, a new AI summer commences. What is still missing is a careful consideration of the historical significance of the weighting that has been placed on particular aspects of consciousness and surrounding seemingly human-like workplace behaviour which takes increasing significance given the interest in machinic autonomous intelligence. The discussion paper argues that a series of machinic and technological invention and related experiments show how machines facilitate not only the processes of normalization of what are considered intelligent behaviours, via both human and machinic intelligence, but also facilitate and enable the integration of autonomous machines into everyday work and life. Today, ideas of autonomous machinic intelligence, seen in the ways AI-augmented tools and applications in human resources, robotics, and gig work are incorporated into workplaces, facilitate workplace relations via machinic intelligent behaviours, that are explicitly assistive, prescriptive, descriptive, collaborative, predictive and affective. The question is, given these now autonomous forms of intelligence attributed to machines, who/what is looking in the mirror at whose/which reflection?
    Keywords: Cybernetics,Artificial Intelligence,Robotics,Autonomous Machines,Workplace Relations,Human-Machine interaction,History of Technology,Kybernetik,Künstliche Intelligenz,Robotik,Autonome Maschinen,Beziehungen am Arbeitsplatz,Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion,Innovationsgeschichte
    JEL: O30 J81 L00 I15
    Date: 2019
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:wzbgwp:spiii2019302&r=all

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