|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Barry R. Chiswick (George Washington University); RaeAnn Halenda Robinson (George Washington) |
| Abstract: | Rates of labor force participation in the US in the second half of the nineteenth century among free women were exceedingly (and implausibly) low, about 11 percent. This is due, in part, to social perceptions of working women, cultural and societal expectations of female’s role, and lack of accurate or thorough enumeration by Census officials. This paper develops an augmented free female labor force participation rate for 1860. It is calculated by identifying free women (age 16 and older) who were likely providing informal and unenumerated labor for market production in support of a family business, that is, unreported family workers. These individuals are identified as not having a reported occupation, but are likely to be working on the basis of the self-employment occupation of other relatives in their households. Family workers are classified into three categories: farm, merchant, and craft. The inclusion of this category of workers more than triples the free female labor force participation rate in the 1860 Census, from 16 percent to 56 percent, which is comparable to today’s rate (57 percent in 2018). |
| Keywords: | Women, Labor Force Participation, Occupational Attainment, Unpaid Workers, Unreported Family Workers, 1860 Census |
| JEL: | N31 J16 J21 J82 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2020-11&r=all |
| By: | Wei Cheng; Patrick Carlin; Joanna Carroll; Sumedha Gupta; Felipe Lozano Rojas; Laura Montenovo; Thuy D. Nguyen; Ian M. Schmutte; Olga Scrivner; Kosali I. Simon; Coady Wing; Bruce Weinberg |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of state reopening policies on a large set of labor market indicators through May 2020 to: (1) understand the recent increase in employment using longitudinal as well as cross-sectional data, (2) assess the likely trajectory of reemployment going forward, and (3) investigate the strength of job matches that were disrupted by COVID-19. Estimates from event studies and difference-in-difference regressions suggest that some of the recent increases in employment activity, as measured by cellphone data on work-related mobility, internet searches related to employment, and new and continuing unemployment insurance claims, were likely related to state reopenings, often predating actual reopening dates somewhat. We provide suggestive evidence that increases in employment stem from people returning to their prior jobs: reopenings are only weakly related to job postings, and longitudinal CPS data show that large shares of the unemployed-on-layoff and employed-but-absent in April who transitioned to employment in May remain in the same industry or occupation. Longitudinal CPS estimates further show declines in reemployment probabilities with time away from work. Taken together, these estimates suggest that employment relationships are durable in the short run, but raise concerns that employment gains requiring new employment matches may not be as rapid. |
| JEL: | I0 J0 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27419&r=all |
| By: | Anna Aizer; Shari Eli; Adriana Lleras-Muney |
| Abstract: | All redistributive and social insurance programs trade off the potential benefits of transfers with the disincentives these programs generate. We investigate this trade-off using newly collected lifetime data for 16,000 women who applied to the Mothers’ Pension Program, the first cash transfer program in the US. In the short-run cash transfers reduced geographic mobility and delayed marriage of recipients but did not affect who they married or where they moved to. In the long run transfers had no effect on work, marriage or fertility behaviors. They also did not improve the economic conditions of recipients or their longevity. |
| JEL: | I12 I14 I18 I32 I38 J16 N32 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27523&r=all |
| By: | Misty Heggeness |
| Abstract: | I examine the impact of the COVID-19 shock on parents’ labor supply during the initial stages of the pandemic. Using difference-in-difference approaches and monthly panel data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), I compare labor market attachment, non-work activity, hours worked, and earnings and wages of those in areas with early school closures and stay-in-place orders with those in areas with delayed or no pandemic closures. While there was no immediate impact on detachment or unemployment, mothers with jobs in early closure states were 53.2 percent more likely than mothers in late closure states to have a job but not be working as a result of early shutdowns. There was no effect on working fathers or working women without school age children. Of mothers who continued working, those in early closure states worked more weekly hours than mothers in late closure states; fathers reduced their hours. Overall, the pandemic appears to have induced a unique immediate juggling act for working mothers of school age children. |
| Keywords: | Labor supply; Gender; Parenthood; Childcare |
| JEL: | D10 J10 J20 |
| Date: | 2020–06–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedmoi:88340&r=all |
| By: | Andreas Gulyas |
| Abstract: | I develop a multi-worker firm model with search frictions, job-to-job transitions, firm dynamics and worker-firm complementarities to study the employment dynamics at the establishment level. Due to the complementarities in production, the ideal worker type changes after productivity shocks, which leads firms to adjust the skill composition of their workforce. Hence, the relationship between changes in workforce quality and firm growth rates in the data informs the strength of complementarities. Using German social security data, I document how firms reorganize the skill composition of their workforce. The estimated model matches many salient facts of establishment level employment dynamics by firm growth rates such as poaching rates, firm size distributions, and the characteristic hockey-stick patterns of the establishment level hire and separation rates by firm growth rates. I decompose the output costs of search frictions and show that the misallocation of jobs and workers across firms generate significant output losses. I conclude that assortative labor market matching is key to understand establishment level employment dynamics. |
| Keywords: | Firm Dynamics, Labor Market Sorting, Worker Flows |
| JEL: | J63 J64 J30 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2020_181&r=all |
| By: | Kyeongkuk Kim (Ministry of Economy and Finance, Republic of Korea); Sang-Hyop Lee (University of Hawai‘i); Timothy J. Halliday (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and IZA) |
| Abstract: | We consider the nexus of intra-familial transfers, the sex composition of the sibship, and parental retirement behavior in Korea. To investigate this, we employ the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging and a research design that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in the sex composition of the sibship. We provide evidence that it costs more to raise sons than daughters in Korea. Thus, in the absence of sufficient transfers from adult sons to parents, parents will fund their earlier investments in their sons by increasing their labor supply. Consistent with this, we show that parents with more adult sons than daughters are more likely to delay their retirement. In particular, an elderly parent with all sons has a probability of being retired that is 7–10 percentage points lower than a comparable parent with all daughters. Elderly parents also work between 1.8 and 2.7 hours more per week when their sibship consists of all sons. These effects are the most pronounced when the first born is a son, as well as for poorer households. |
| Keywords: | retirement; intra-familial transfers; gender; sex ratios |
| JEL: | J1 J13 J16 J26 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hai:wpaper:202013&r=all |
| By: | Piątkowski, Marcin J. |
| Abstract: | Technological revolution brings forth major changes in the labour market as well as the necessity to adapt to the shifting conditions on the part of both employees and entrepreneurs. This notion fits in with the European Policy of “Lifelong Learning” which presents the necessity to constantly improve skills and participate in the process of learning through the entire period of professional engagement. The aim of the article is to diagnose the current situation in the labour market and expectations towards employees as a result of the technological revolution and digitization, and to analyze whether there are groups of countries in the EU with similar features describing the labour market and to present the differences between these groups. The study uses research methods based on literature research, content analysis and comparative analysis, and the empirical part uses cluster analysis – the Ward method, using secondary statistical data from the Eurostat database. It was verified which groups of the Member States exhibited similarities to the extent of: forms of employment; work productivity; commitment of entrepreneurs and employees to the process of continuing vocational training (CVT) and lifelong learning; educating future employees of the economy at the level of higher education (HE) in STEM fields and development of digital skills as well as commitment of governments of each EU Member State to financing research and development in higher education institutions (HEIs). It may be ascertained that the average values of variables describing the pattern followed by “new” Member States which joined the EU in 2004 or later are, in majority, lower than the values of the same variables describing the pattern followed by the ”old” Member States. It cannot be unambiguously stated that the affiliation with the Eurozone in any way determined whether a given group of Member States is better or worse than the other. The resulting figures may become significant at the stage of developing the employment policy as well as the education policy and the professional career development policy in the respective Member States. Those results may be applied to both evaluation and planning of actions to be taken against the background of the development strategy in order to reduce clearly visible inequalities between the European Union Member States. |
| Keywords: | labour market; labor market; employment; Industry 4.0; cluster analysis; lifelong learning; employee competences; enterprises; Continuing Vocational Training; CVT; STEM; digital skills; precarious employment; higher education; employment policy; inequalities; Poland; European Union |
| JEL: | C38 I23 J0 J01 J11 J24 J40 O52 O57 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:101889&r=all |
| By: | Laws, A. |
| Abstract: | This paper is the first to provide firm level estimates of the propagation rates of localised employment shocks through space and time. A spatial network of the universe of UK firms with near pinpoint location accuracy is used to estimate the firm-level employment adjustment to mass layoffs. Results show that firm level employment adjustment is highly localised and decays rapidly through space - the negative spillover effects halve approximately every kilometre further away from the event. Firm level adjustment is also highly persistent, with further localised employment losses continuing for at least five years after the event. The spillover effects are experienced by a wide range of local firms, but are strongest in non-tradeable sector firms, consistent with the presence of local product demand transmission mechanisms. The paper provides new supporting evidence to theories that sluggish firm level adjustment interacting with local agglomeration forces generate persistence in local labour market outcomes. Furthermore, the micro-level effects uncovered are extremely localised, and thus more standard analysis methods discretising space into regions will incur significant measurement costs. |
| Keywords: | local employment dynamics, spillover decay rates, agglomeration |
| JEL: | J23 J63 R12 |
| Date: | 2020–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cam:camdae:2067&r=all |
| By: | Meredith M. Paker |
| Abstract: | The brief recession from 1980–1981 in the UK led to a prolonged employment downturn, with the unemployment rate continuing to increase through 1984. A large literature has developed around the concept of jobless recoveries and their possible causes, focused primarily on the US from the 1990s. This paper argues that the employment recovery from the 1980–1981 recession in the UK can be considered an early example of a jobless recovery. Then, taking the US as a comparison case, possible causes of this jobless recovery are evaluated. Labor reallocation across industries, regional effects, and job polarization are considered in depth for the UK. Industry labor reallocation emerges as the major difference between the UK and the US during the early 1980s recession and recovery period, suggesting this was the key factor driving the UK’s jobless recovery. |
| Keywords: | jobless recovery; industry labor reallocation; structural change; job polarization |
| JEL: | N14 N34 J64 J21 E24 |
| Date: | 2020–08–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:esohwp:_182&r=all |
| By: | Yannay Spitzer; Gaspare Tortorici; Ariell Zimran |
| Abstract: | The Messina-Reggio Calabria Earthquake (1908) was the deadliest earthquake and arguably the most devastating natural disaster in modern European history. It occurred when overseas mass emigration from southern Italy was at its peak and international borders were open, making emigration a widespread phenomenon and a readily available option for disaster relief. We use this singular event and its unique and important context to study the effects of natural disasters on international migration. Using commune-level data on damage and annual emigration, we find that, despite massive destruction, there is no evidence that the earthquake had, on average, a large impact on emigration or its composition. There were, however, heterogeneous and offsetting responses to the shock, with a more positive effect on emigration in districts where agricultural day laborers comprised a larger share of the labor force, suggesting that attachment to the land was an impediment to reacting to the disaster through migration. Nonetheless, relative to the effects of ordinary shocks, such as a recession in the destination, this momentous event had a small impact on emigration rates. These findings contribute to literatures on climate- and disaster-driven migration and on the Age of Mass Migration. |
| JEL: | F22 J61 N33 N53 O13 O15 Q54 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27506&r=all |
| By: | Eva Moreno-Galbis (Aix-Marseille Univ, CNRS, EHESS, Ecole Centrale, IRD, AMSE, Marseille, France.) |
| Abstract: | This study examines how minimum wage laws affect the share of immigrants receiving welfare benefits. Minimum wage increases might have larger effects among low-skilled immigrants than among low-skilled natives because, on average, immigrants are less productive. We develop an analytical framework in which a government legislated minimum wage increase promotes a decrease in labor demand and an increase in the earned wage. The net impact on the expected wage is then ambiguous and so is the impact on search effort of unemployed. However, we expect the reduction in labor demand to be more important for immigrants due to their lower productivity. Immigrants remain unemployed and eventually become welfare recipients. Using the French Labor Force Surveys 2003-2016 we exploit the 2006 and 2012 government legislated minimum wage increases and find consistent evidence that a discretionary increase in the minimum wage induces a rise in the share of immigrants receiving welfare benefits which is more important than the rise estimated for natives. This result is driven by low-skilled immigrants and no significant effect arises for high-skilled. Endogeneity issues are addressed through an IV approach. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, welfare benefits, immigrants |
| JEL: | J15 J38 H53 J23 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2020&r=all |
| By: | Ken-ichi Hashimoto (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University); Ryonghun Im (Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University); Takuma Kunieda (School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University); Akihisa Shibata (Institute of Economic Research, Kyoto University) |
| Abstract: | A tractable model with infinitely lived agents is constructed for the exam- ination of bubbles and unemployment. It is demonstrated that the presence of bubbles stimulates capital accumulation and reduces unemployment. The presence of bubbles also changes the e ects of government policies that target unemployment and welfare conditions in the labor market. The main findings are as follows: (i) the presence of bubbles is more beneficial to an economy with severe credit constraints; (ii) the presence of bubbles mitigates the negative effects of taxation and unemployment benefits on unemployment and welfare; and (iii) these mitigation effects decrease as credit constraints are relaxed. |
| Keywords: | Asset bubbles, Unemployment, Labor-market matching frictions, Financial frictions. |
| JEL: | J64 O41 O42 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kgu:wpaper:218&r=all |
| By: | Chuard, Patrick; Grassi, Veronica |
| Abstract: | This paper documents intergenerational income mobility in Switzerland. We use a unique administrative data set which links the universe of labor incomes since 1982 over generations and is matched to census and survey data. We find that relative income mobility in terms of rank-rank slope (0.15) is substantially higher than in the US and even higher than in Sweden. At the same time, we find that (academic) educational mobility is low. This shows that high income mobility can be achieved even without high educational mobility. However, to reach the top from the bottom («American Dream»), academic education is still key: Children from the bottom quintile who went to gymnasium or got a master's degree are more likely to reach the top quintile compared to their peers in the vocational education track. Looking at regional variation in mobility, we find lower absolute, but higher relative mobility in French- and Italiancompared to German-speaking areas. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility, intergenerational income mobility, inequality |
| JEL: | H31 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2020:11&r=all |
| By: | Clémence Berson (Banque de France); Marta De Philippis (Banca d'Italia); Eliana Viviano (Banca d'Italia) |
| Abstract: | Some recent literature about the U.S. shows that wage dynamics are more influenced by job-to-job flows than by flows into or out of employment. In this paper, we evaluate whether this result holds also for France and Italy, characterized by a different labor market structure. Using comparable administrative data we find that, as in the U.S., in both France and Italy realized job-to-job transitions contribute positively to wage growth. However, since these flows are smaller and display much lower cyclicality than in the U.S., their contribution to aggregate wage dynamics is low, while the contribution of flows into and out of employment remains sizeable. We then look closely at the heterogeneity in the probability of changing job and in the associated wage premium by types of workers and firms. We find that job-to-job flows and the associated gain tend to be larger in high-skilled occupations and for permanent workers. Moreover, as in the U.S., individuals are more likely to move to younger firms, which intensively poach workers from other firms. |
| Keywords: | wage dynamics, job-to-job flows, transition probabilities, Phillips curve |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_563_20&r=all |
| By: | Borrs, Linda; Eppelsheimer, Johann (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | We use linked employer-employee data to estimate the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on workers' job stability. We are the first to consider firm-internal job transitions. Specifically, we examine the impact of FDI on the individual likelihood to up- or downgrade to occupations with more or less analytical and interactive tasks. To do so, we propose an iterative matching procedure that generates a homogeneous sample of firms with equal probabilities of investing. Based on this sample, we use proportional hazard models to retrieve dynamic effects on workers. We find that FDI increases the likelihood of up- and downgrades by 25 and 37 percent, respectively. These effects increase with the share of non-routine and interactive tasks and become measurable two years after the investment. FDI does not increase the hazard of the separation of workers and firms. Instead, there is a temporal lock-in effect after the investment. Our results highlight the importance of firm-internal restructuring as a channel for adjusting to altered labor demand in response to FDI. |
| JEL: | F16 F23 F66 J23 J62 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202024&r=all |
| By: | Wang, Feicheng; Kis-Katos, Krisztina; Zhou, Minghai |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of import liberalization induced labor demand shocks on male and female employment in China. Combining data from population and firm census waves over the period of 1990 to 2005, we relate prefecture-level employment by gender to the exposure to tariff reductions on locally imported products. Our empirical results show that increasing import competition has kept more females in the workforce, reducing an otherwise growing gender employment gap. These dynamics were present both in the local economies as a whole and among formal private industrial firms. Examining channels through which tariff reductions differentially affected males and females, we find that trade induced competitive pressures contributed to a general expansion of female intensive industries, shifts in sectoral gender segregation, reductions in gender discrimination in the labor market, technological upgrading through computerization and general income growth. |
| Keywords: | Trade liberalization,Import competition,Gender employment gap,China |
| JEL: | F13 F14 F16 F66 J16 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:399&r=all |
| By: | Adriana Lleras-Muney; Joseph Price; Dahai Yue |
| Abstract: | We combine newly released individual data from the 1940 full-count census with death records and other information available in family trees to create the largest individual data to date to study the association between years of schooling and age at death. Conditional on surviving to age 35, one additional year of education is associated with roughly 0.4 more years of life for both men and women for cohorts born 1906-1915. This association is close to linear but exhibits strong credentialing effects, particularly for men, and is substantially smaller for cohorts born earlier. This association varies substantially by state of birth, but it is not smaller in states with higher levels of education or longevity. For men the association is stronger in places with greater incomes, higher quality of school, and larger investments in public health. Women also exhibit great heterogeneity in the association, but our measures of the childhood environment do not explain it. |
| JEL: | I10 I20 J10 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27514&r=all |
| By: | Tomaz Cajner; Andrew Figura; Brendan M. Price; David Ratner; Alison E. Weingarden |
| Abstract: | In the spring of 2020, many observers relied heavily on weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits (UI) to estimate contemporaneous reductions in US employment induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Though UI claims provided a timely, high-frequency window into mounting layoffs, the cumulative volume of initial claims filed through the May reference week substantially exceeded realized reductions in payroll employment and likely contributed to the historically large discrepancy between consensus expectations of further April-to-May job losses and the strong job gains reflected in the May employment report. Analyzing the relationship between UI claims and underlying employment, we argue that insured unemployment--an alternative high-frequency indicator that responds to gross job gains as well as gross job losses--offers important advantages as a barometer of labor market conditions. Adjusting for reporting artifacts and for time lags between employment flows and associated claims, we show that insured unemployment comoved strongly with payroll employment throughout the first months of the pandemic, as it did during the Great Recession. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment insurance; Unemployment; Emergency unemployment benefits; Employment; Business cycle; Economic indicators; COVID-19 |
| JEL: | E24 J65 |
| Date: | 2020–07–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2020-55&r=all |
| By: | Burkhard Heer; Mark Trede |
| Abstract: | We present new empirical evidence on the distribution of earnings, income and wealth among entrepreneurs in Germany. We document that both earnings and income are more concentrated among entrepreneurs than among workers and describe a large-scale overlapping-generations model that can replicate these findings. As an application, we compute the equilibrium effects of a reform of the German pay-as-you-go pension system in which entrepreneurs must also contribute and receive a pension. We show that in the presence of mobility between workers and entrepreneurs, the expected lifetime utility of all newborn households unanimously declines due to the general equilibrium effects of lower aggregate savings, and welfare losses amount to approximately 5% of total consumption. In addition, the integration of self-employed workers into the social security system in Germany does not help to improve its fiscal sustainability, and only an increase in the retirement age to 70 years will help to finance pensions at the present level beyond the year 2050. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, aging, income distribution, overlapping generations, social security, fiscal sustainability |
| JEL: | H55 D31 D91 J11 L26 C68 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8439&r=all |
| By: | Domenico Moramarco (Université Libre de Bruxelles); Flaviana Palmisano (Sapienza University of Rome); Vito Peragine (University of Bari) |
| Abstract: | We propose an axiomatic approach to characterize normative criteria for the evaluation of lifetime income distributions according to the opportunity egalitarian perspective (Roemer, 1998). In a setting in which both individual incomes and predetermined circumstances are variable over time, we adopt a norm-based approach to the measurement of inequality, and propose two different benchmark distributions, referring respectively to the ex ante and the ex post versions of equality of opportunity. We first aggregate over time, thereby characterizing measures of intertemporal individual inequalityof opportunity, and then aggregate the individual measures into a societal measure. Our individual measure results to be a weighted average of individuals' opportunity gap experienced in each period. Our aggregate measure is an average of a concave transformation of the individual intertemporal opportunity gap and can be interpreted as an intertemporal inequality of opportunity index. We apply our framework to evaluate the Korean distribution of income from an intertemporal and opportunity egalitarian perspective. |
| Keywords: | lifetime income inequality, intertemporal distributions, equality of opportunity, opportunity gap, Korea. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 I32 J62 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2020-554&r=all |
| By: | Carl T. Kitchens; Luke P. Rodgers |
| Abstract: | Using variation in crop prices induced by large swings in demand World War I, we examine the fertility response to increases in crop revenues during the period 1910-1930. Our estimates from samples utilizing both complete count decennial census microdata and newly collected county-level data from state health reports indicate that a doubling of the agricultural price index reduced fertility by around 8 percent both immediately and in the years following the boom. We further document that this effect was more pronounced in more agrarian areas and where the labor intensity of agriculture was more intense. Extensive robustness checks and analysis of potential mechanisms indicate that the decrease in fertility was driven by increased female opportunity costs which dominated any household income effects resulting from the price boom. |
| JEL: | J12 J13 N12 N5 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27530&r=all |
| By: | Shigeru Fujita; Giuseppe Moscarini; Fabien Postel-Vinay |
| Abstract: | We revisit measurement of Employer-to-Employer (EE) transitions, the main engine of labor market competition and employment reallocation, in the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS). We follow Fallick and Fleischman (2004) and exploit a key survey question introduced with the 1994 CPS redesign. We detect a sudden and sharp increase in the incidence of missing answers to this question starting in 2007, when the U.S. Census Bureau introduced a change in survey methodology, the Respondent Identification Policy (RIP). We show evidence of selection into answering the EE question by both observable and unobservable worker characteristics that correlate with EE mobility. We propose a selection model and a procedure to impute missing answers to the key survey question, thus EE transitions, after the introduction of the RIP. Our imputed aggregate EE series restores a close congruence with the business cycle, especially with the onset of the Great Recession, exhibits a much less dramatic drop in 2008-2009 and a full recovery by 2016, and eliminates the spurious appearance of declining EE dynamism in the US labor market after 2000. We also offer the first evidence of the (large and negative) impact of the COVID-19 crisis on EE reallocation. |
| JEL: | E2 E24 E32 J62 J63 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27525&r=all |
| By: | Caroline Hall; Kaisa Kotakorpi; Linus Liljeberg; Jukka Pirttilä |
| Abstract: | We study the dual role of active labor market policies: First, ALMP may perform a screening role by increasing job-search incentives, especially among individuals with good labor market prospects, already before program participation. Second, actual program participation may help individuals with poor labor market prospects. We examine whether this type of pattern can be found in individual responses to a nationwide youth activation program in Sweden using an RD-design. We find that individuals with a high predicted probability of finding work respond to the threat of activation, whereas there is no effect for individuals with weak labor market prospects. |
| JEL: | J64 J68 I10 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tam:wpaper:2030&r=all |
| By: | Christina Boll; Simone Schüller |
| Abstract: | Drawing on data from the Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) for 2018, we use a sample of 2,145 heterosexual couples with children below age 13 to investigate the paternal involvement in domestic childcare and the relation of the underlying mechanisms to the two job-related “Covid-19 factors” systemic relevance (SR) and capacity to work from home (WfH). Based on bi- and trivariate analyses of the intra-couple distribution of time, income and gender roles before the crisis and their likely change during the pandemic depending on parents’ job characteristics SR and WfH, we nominate three couple constellations which are most likely to manifest an increase in the proportion of paternal childcare in the post-pandemic period. Depending on the specification of access to emergency care, we quantify a share of 7-8% of couples as ’sources of hope‘. We further expect positive impulses for gender equality not only in the private but also in the corporate sphere, especially through multiplier effects, which are likely to emanate from fathers in managerial positions. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, intra-couple division of unpaid work, systemic relevance, work from home, childcare, SOEP |
| JEL: | D13 J13 J16 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1098&r=all |
| By: | Edward L. Glaeser; Caitlin S. Gorback; Stephen J. Redding |
| Abstract: | How effective are restrictions on geographic mobility in limiting the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic? Using zip code data for Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York (NYC), and Philadelphia, we estimate that total COVID-19 cases per capita decrease on average by approximately 20 percent for every ten percentage point fall in mobility between February and May 2020. To address endogeneity concerns, we instrument for travel by the share of workers in remote work friendly occupations, and find a somewhat larger average decline of COVID-19 cases per capita of 27 percent. Using weekly data by zip code for NYC and a panel data specification including week and zip code fixed effects, we estimate a similar average decline of around 17 percent, which becomes larger when we measure mobility using NYC turnstile data rather than cellphone data. We find substantial heterogeneity across both space and over time, with stronger effects for NYC, Boston and Philadelphia than for Atlanta and Chicago, and the largest estimated coefficients for NYC in the early stages of the pandemic. |
| JEL: | H12 I12 J17 R41 |
| Date: | 2020–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27519&r=all |
| By: | Raj Chetty; John N. Friedman; Nathaniel Hendren; Michael Stepner; The Opportunity Insights Team |
| Abstract: | We build a publicly available platform that tracks economic activity at a granular level in real time using anonymized data from private companies. We report daily statistics on consumer spending, business revenues, employment rates, and other key indicators disaggregated by county, industry, and income group. Using these data, we study the mechanisms through which COVID-19 affected the economy by analyzing heterogeneity in its impacts across geographic areas and income groups. We first show that high-income individuals reduced spending sharply in mid-March 2020, particularly in areas with high rates of COVID-19 infection and in sectors that require physical interaction. This reduction in spending greatly reduced the revenues of businesses that cater to high-income households in person, notably small businesses in affluent ZIP codes. These businesses laid o↵ most of their low-income employees, leading to a surge in unemployment claims in affluent areas. Building on this diagnostic analysis, we use event study designs to estimate the causal effects of policies aimed at mitigating the adverse impacts of COVID. State-ordered reopenings of economies have little impact on local employment. Stimulus payments to low-income households increased consumer spending sharply, but had modest impacts on employment in the short run, perhaps because very little of the increased spending flowed to businesses most affected by the COVID-19 shock. Paycheck Protection Program loans have also had little impact on employment at small businesses. These results suggest that traditional macroeconomic tools – stimulating aggregate demand or providing liquidity to businesses – may have diminished capacity to restore employment when consumer spending is constrained by health concerns. During a pandemic, it may be more fruitful to mitigate economic hardship through social insurance. More broadly, this analysis illustrates how real-time economic tracking using private sector data can help rapidly identify the origins of economic crises and facilitate ongoing evaluation of policy impacts. |
| JEL: | E0 H0 J0 |
| Date: | 2020–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27431&r=all |