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on Labour Economics |
| By: | DellaVigna, Stefano (University of California, Berkeley); Heining, Jörg (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Schmieder, Johannes F. (Boston University); Trenkle, Simon (IZA) |
| Abstract: | The job finding rate of Unemployment Insurance (UI) recipients declines in the initial months of unemployment and then exhibits a spike at the benefit exhaustion point. A range of theoretical explanations have been proposed, but those are hard to disentangle using data on job finding alone. To better understand the underlying mechanisms, we conducted a large text-message-based survey of unemployed workers in Germany. We surveyed 6,800 UI recipients twice a week for 4 months about their job search effort. The panel structure allows us to observe how search effort evolves within individual over the unemployment spell. We provide three key facts: 1) search effort is flat early on in the UI spell, 2) search effort exhibits an increase up to UI exhaustion and a decrease thereafter, 3) UI recipients do not appear to time job start dates to coincide with the UI exhaustion point. A model of reference-dependent job search can explain these facts well, while a standard search model with unobserved heterogeneity struggles to explain the second fact. The third fact also leaves little room for a model of storable offers to explain the spike. |
| Keywords: | reference dependence, job search, unemployment, survey |
| JEL: | J64 J65 D91 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13189&r=all |
| By: | Jonathan Briody (School of Economics & Geary Institute for Public Policy, University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | The incidence of adiposity in the early years of life has outgrown the prevalence rate in older children and adolescents globally; however, the relationships between unemployment and weight are predominantly studied in adults. This study examines the relationship between changing economic conditions during the Irish recession and child weight. Fixed effect logistic regression is used to examine the effects of parental unemployment on weight using the Growing up in Ireland infant cohort from 2008 to 2013. This study is the first to use longitudinal anthropometric measurements to estimate the impact of parental unemployment on children’s weight before, during and after a recession. Child growth charts are used to quantify children according to overweight for BMI, weight for age, and weight for height measures. For BMI, the probability of a child being overweight is 6 percentage points higher if either parent has experienced unemployment. For weight for age the probability is of similar magnitude across several alternative growth charts and definitions of adiposity. The analysis is repeated, cross-sectionally, for physical activity and diet to clarify mechanisms of effect. The probability of a child consuming healthy food and physical activity with an implied cost is lower if either parent becomes unemployed. A focus on excess adiposity in the early years is of crucial importance as if current trends are not addressed a generation of children may grow up with a higher level of chronic disease. |
| Keywords: | Health; Panel data; Unemployment; The Great Recession, Children |
| JEL: | I12 I18 C33 J10 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–05–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucd:wpaper:202002&r=all |
| By: | Farré, Lídia (University of Barcelona); Jofre-Monseny, Jordi (University of Barcelona); Torrecillas, Juan (University of Barcelona) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the contribution of increasing travel times to the persistent gender gap in labor market participation. In doing so, we estimate the labor supply elasticity of commuting time from a sample of men and women in US cities using microdata from the Census for the last decades. To address endogeneity concerns, we adopt an instrumental variables approach that exploits the shape of cities as an exogenous source of variation for travel times. Our estimates indicate that a 10 minutes increase in commuting decreases the probability of married women to participate in the labor market by 4.6 percentage points. In contrast, the estimated effect on men is small and statistically insignificant. We also find that women with children and immigrant women originating from countries with more gendered social norms respond the most to commuting time variations. This evidence suggests that the higher burden of family responsibilities supported by women may magnify the negative effect of commuting on their labor supply. From our findings, we conclude that the increasing trend in travel times observed in the US and in many European countries during the last decades may have contributed to the persistence of gender disparities in labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | commuting time, labor supply, gender roles, family responsibilities, city shape |
| JEL: | R41 J01 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13213&r=all |
| By: | Robert E. Hall; Marianna Kudlyak |
| Abstract: | It is a remarkable fact about the historical US business cycle that, after unemployment reached its peak in a recession, and a recovery began, the annual reduction in the unemployment rate was stable at around 0.55 percentage points per year. The economy seems to have had an irresistible force toward restoring full employment. There was high variation in monetary and fiscal policy, and in productivity and labor-force growth, but little variation in the rate of decline of unemployment. We explore models of the labor market's self-recovery that imply gradual working off of unemployment following a recession shock. These models explain why the recovery of market-wide unemployment is so much slower than the rate at which individual unemployed workers find new jobs. The reasons include the fact that the path that individual job-losers follow back to stable employment often includes several brief interim jobs, sometimes separated by time out of the labor force. We show that the evolution of the labor market involves more than the direct effect of persistent unemployment of job-losers from the recession shock--unemployment during the recovery is elevated for people who did not lose jobs during the recession. |
| Keywords: | Business cycle; Recovery; Unemployment; Recession |
| JEL: | E32 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:88050&r=all |
| By: | Carrillo-Tudela, Carlos; Gartner, Hermann (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Leo, Kaas |
| Abstract: | "Recruitment behavior is important for thematching process in the labormarket. Using unique linked survey-administrative data, we explore the relationships between hiring and recruitment policies. Faster hiring goes along with higher search effort, lower hiring standards and more generous wages. To analyze the mechanisms behind these patterns, we develop a directed search model in which firms use different recruitment margins in response to productivity shocks. The calibrated model points to an important role of hiring standards for matching efficiency and for the impact of labor market policy, whereas search effort and wage policies play only a minor role." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | E24 J23 J63 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202015&r=all |
| By: | Folke, Olle (Uppsala University); Rickne, Johanna (Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a comprehensive empirical analysis of sexual harassment in the Swedish labormarket. First, we use nationally representative survey data linked with employer-employee datato describe rates of self-reported sexual harassment across occupations and workplaces. The riskof sexual harassment is clearly imbalanced across the sex segregated labor market. In gender-mixed and male-dominated occupations and workplaces, women have a higher risk than men,and men have a higher risk than women in female-dominated contexts. We use a hypotheticaljob-choice experiment with vignettes for sexual harassment to measure the disutility of sexualharassment risks. Both men and women have an equally high willingness to pay for avoidingworkplaces where sexual harassment has occurred. But the willingness to pay is conditional onthe sex of the fictional harassment victim. People reject workplaces where the victim is the samesex as themselves, but not where the victim is of the opposite sex. We return to the administrativedata to study employer compensation for the disutility of sexual harassment risks. Withinworkplaces, a high risk is associated with lower, not higher wages. People who self-report sexualharassment also have higher job dissatisfaction, more quit intentions, and more actual quits.Both these patterns indicate a lack of full compensation. We conclude that sexual harassmentshould be conceptualized as gender discrimination in workplace amenities, and that thisdiscrimination reinforces sex segregation and pay-inequalities in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | Gender Inequality; occupational gender segregation; Sexual harassment; workplace amenities |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J81 |
| Date: | 2020–05–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sofiwp:2020_004&r=all |
| By: | Bond, Timothy N. (Purdue University); Giuntella, Osea (University of Pittsburgh); Lonsky, Jakub (University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | We develop a theoretical framework to analyze the effects of immigration on native job amenities, focusing on work schedules. Immigrants have a comparative advantage in production at, and lower disamenity cost for nighttime work, which leads them to disproportionately choose nighttime employment. Because day and night tasks are imperfect substitutes, the relative price of day tasks increases as their supply becomes relatively more scarce. We provide empirical support for our theory. Native workers in local labor markets that experienced higher rates of immigration are more likely to work day shifts and receive a lower compensating differential for nighttime work. |
| Keywords: | night shifts, working conditions, immigration |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J31 R13 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13236&r=all |
| By: | Stern, Charlotta (The Ratio Institute); Weidenstedt, Linda (The Ratio Institute) |
| Abstract: | Like most developed countries, Sweden has institutionalized employment protection legislation, called LAS. LAS is interesting theoretically because parts of it are semi-coercive. The semi-coerciveness makes it possible for firms and unions under collective agreements to negotiate departures from the law, for instance regarding seniority rules and terminations due to employees' fit and/or misconduct. In this sense, the law is more flexible than the legal text suggests. The present study explores how the semi-coercive institution of employment protection is perceived and implemented by managers of smaller manufacturing companies. The results suggest that managers support the idea of employment protection rules in principle but face a difficult balancing act in dealing with LAS. Thus, the institutional legitimacy of the law is low. LAS ends up producing local cultures of hypocrisy and pretense. The paper gives insights into how institutions aimed at producing good moral behavior sometimes end up producing the opposite. |
| Keywords: | un-intended consequences; institutional semi-coerciveness; employment protection; local knowledge |
| JEL: | D02 J50 Z13 |
| Date: | 2020–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0333&r=all |
| By: | Jost, Ramona (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Based on the geo-referenced data, I analyse the commuting behaviour of employees in Germany. With the help of a behavioural economic approach, which is based on the investigation of Simonsohn (2006) for the US, I can show that it is not only the wage and the individual heterogeneity that shape commuting decisions. Instead, the commuting behaviour depends on the context individuals observe in the past. In particular, I demonstrate that the commuting behaviour is influenced by past-observed commutes: Worker choose longer commuting times in a region they just moved to, the longer the average commute was in the region they moved away. This effect applies especially for older employees, but is the same for men and women. Moreover, my robustness checks indicate that individual heterogeneity, selectivity or endogeneity issues do not drive this effect. In addition, I show if individuals stay in the new region, the effect of the previous region disappears, as workers adapt the commuting behaviour of the new region and move again within the new region. This is consistent with the prediction of behavioural economic theory, but refuses the assumption of stable taste differences." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J60 R10 R19 R23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202014&r=all |
| By: | Mark Partridge; Alexandra Tsvetkova |
| Abstract: | The paper examines the effects of three groups of factors (county economic structure, social/demographic attributes and geography) on employment growth and poverty change in US counties before and after the Great Recession. It finds that the industrial structure that facilitates inter-industry employee flows (“rewiring”) is of increasing importance post-Recession. In particular, this measure is associated with employment growth in under-performing counties suggesting that removing barriers to the flow of resources within lagging economies and increasing their adaptability potential might be a viable policy option. |
| Keywords: | employment growth, Great Recession, inter-industry employee flows, local economic rewiring, poverty change, US |
| JEL: | J62 O18 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–05–26 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:cfeaaa:2020/04-en&r=all |
| By: | Askenazy, Philippe (CNRS); Breda, Thomas (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We show that an institutional change designed expressly to heighten competition for the provision of union services can have a substantial effect on unionization and employment relations. We study a French reform of 2008 that introduced mandatory elections for representation of workers at firm, industry and national levels, putting an end to the oligopoly held until then by five historically established unions. Exploiting random variation in the reform's date of application in different private sector workplaces, we find that the reform increased union membership by around 8 percentage points and employers' trust in unions by 45 percent of a standard deviation. The reform also increased workers' trust in unions and the frequency of labor conflicts in manufacturing. Taken together, the results suggest that regular free elections can be an effective way to foster participation in unions and workers' ability to voice concerns, while at the same time making unions more legitimate bargaining partners for employers. |
| Keywords: | union representativeness, democracy, unionization, social capital |
| JEL: | J51 J52 J58 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13226&r=all |
| By: | Andrew Glover; Jonathan Heathcote; Dirk Krueger; Jose-Victor Rios-Rull |
| Abstract: | To slow the spread of COVID-19, many countries are shutting down nonessential sectors of the economy. Older individuals have the most to gain from slowing virus diffusion. Younger workers in sectors that are shuttered have the most to lose. In this paper, we build a model in which economic activity and disease progression are jointly determined. Individuals differ by age (young and retired), by sector (basic and luxury), and by health status. Disease transmission occurs in the workplace, in consumption activities, at home, and in hospitals. We study the optimal economic mitigation policy of a utilitarian government that can redistribute across individuals, but where such redistribution is costly. We show that optimal redistribution and mitigation policies interact, and reflect a compromise between the strongly diverging preferred policy paths of different subgroups of the population. We find that the shutdown in place on April 12 is too extensive, but that a partial shutdown should remain in place through July. People prefer deeper and longer shutdowns if a vaccine is imminent, especially the elderly. |
| Keywords: | Redistribution; COVID-19; Economic policy; Pandemic; Shutdowns |
| JEL: | J08 J23 J63 J78 |
| Date: | 2020–05–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedkrw:88056&r=all |
| By: | Mariani, Rama Dasi (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Pasquini, Alessandra (University of Rome Tor Vergata); Rosati, Furio C. (University of Rome Tor Vergata) |
| Abstract: | In the recent past, in Italy, immigration has been at the centre of academic and policy debates. Nonetheless, the still growing literature has focused mainly on the experience of old settlement countries and has mainly looked at single aspects of the phenomenon. In order to guide effective policy intervention, we offer an exhaustive view of immigration in Italy. We combine the presentation of stylized facts from available data, based on descriptive analyses, with a review of existing studies. Our conclusions tell that evidence available for Italy does not match the policy relevance of an issue that has been dominating the public debate in the last years and also identify areas where solid evidence or analysis is needed. |
| Keywords: | regional labour market, education, integration, mobility, immigration |
| JEL: | F22 I24 J15 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13181&r=all |
| By: | Miriam Gensowski (CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen and IZA); Mette Goertz (CEBI, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen and IZA); Stefanie Schurer (University of Sydney, School of Economics and IZA) |
| Abstract: | This paper comprehensively describes how lifecycle dynamics of personality differ by sex and socio-economic background. We use survey-based measures of the Big-Five inventory on a large Danish population (age 18-75) and link it with registry data. Our most interesting findings are: (1) Women score significantly higher on each personality trait than men; (2) The sex-gap remains constant over the lifecycle for Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness, while the sex gradient in Openness to Experience emerges and widens from age 40 and the sex gap in Neuroticism, which is sizeable in young adulthood, narrows from mid age onward; (3) Education or income gaps in personality are already wide in late adolescence, but remain constant over the lifecycle. (4) We find no socioeconomic gradient in Conscientiousness, a trait associated with organization, productivity and responsibility; (5) Divergent patterns emerge for some of the facet-level traits. The benefits of our study are that we describe heterogeneity in the lifecycle profiles of personality over almost 60 years, measure socioeconomic status with high-precision data, estimate lifecycle profiles non-parametrically, and adjust for cohort and sample selection biases. The economic implications of our findings are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Personality traits, Big-Five facets, life cycle dynamics, heterogeneity by sex, education, and income; intergenerational transmission |
| JEL: | J24 I24 J62 I31 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–05–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2016&r=all |
| By: | Ahmed, Ali (Division of Economics, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University); Granberg, Mark (Division of Economics, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University); Troster, Victor (Universitat de les Illes Balears); Uddin, Gazi Salah (Division of Economics, Department of Management and Engineering, Linköping University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how different uncertainty measures affect the unemployment level, inflow, and outflow in the U.S. across all states of the business cycle. We employ linear and nonlinear causality-in-quantile tests to capture a complete picture of the effect of uncertainty on U.S. unemployment. To verify whether there are any common effects across different uncertainty measures, we use monthly data on four uncertainty measures and on U.S. unemployment from January 1997 to August 2018. Our results corroborate the general predictions from a search and matching framework of how uncertainty affects unemployment and its flows. Fluctuations in uncertainty generate increases (upper-quantile changes) in the unemployment level and in the inflow. Conversely, shocks to uncertainty have a negative impact on U.S. unemployment outflow. Therefore, the effect of uncertainty is asymmetric depending on the states (quantiles) of U.S. unemployment and on the adopted unemployment measure. Our findings suggest state-contingent policies to stabilize the unemployment level when large uncertainty shocks occur. |
| Keywords: | Uncertainty; Unemployment; Nonlinear dynamics; Granger-causality; Quantile regression; U.S. labor market. |
| JEL: | C22 D80 E24 E32 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–05–29 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:liuewp:0007&r=all |
| By: | Surajeet Chakravarty (University of Exeter); Todd R. Kaplan (University of Exeter); Luke Lindsay (University of Exeter) |
| Abstract: | CSkills and ability affect the likelihood of a worker getting hired. We ask if keeping these attributes fixed, can we increase employment by changing the information employers receive about potential workers. We use labora- tory experiments with subjects as employers and agencies to test how differ- ent market designs can result in different information being released about workers which in turn affects the number hired. We find that full informa- tion about workers leads to high employer profits. Revealing coarser and not necessarily verifiable information about workers increases employment albeit at the expense of the employersÕ profits and average skill of workers employed. |
| Keywords: | Weather, Job placements, lab experiments, institutions, information design, unemployment |
| JEL: | C9 D82 J6 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:exe:wpaper:2001&r=all |
| By: | Maho Hatayama (The World Bank); Mariana Viollaz (CEDLAS-FCE-UNLP); Hernan Winkler (The World Bank) |
| Abstract: | The spread of COVID-19 and implementation of “social distancing” policies around the world have raised the question of how many jobs can be done at home. This paper uses skills surveys from 53 countries at varying levels of economic development to estimate jobs’ amenability to working from home. The paper considers jobs’ characteristics and uses internet access at home as an important determinant of working from home. The findings indicate that the amenability of jobs to working from home increases with the level of economic development of the country. This is driven by jobs in poor countries being more intensive in physical/manual tasks, using less information and communications technology, and having poorer internet connectivity at home. Women, college graduates, and salaried and formal workers have jobs that are more amenable to working from home than the average worker. The opposite holds for workers in hotels and restaurants, construction, agriculture, and commerce. The paper finds that the crisis may exacerbate inequities between and within countries. It also finds that occupations explain less than half of the variability in the working-from-home indexes within countries, which highlights the importance of using individual-level data to assess jobs’ amenability to working from home. |
| JEL: | J22 J61 O30 |
| Date: | 2020–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0263&r=all |