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on Labour Economics |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower (Dartmouth College. University of Glasgow. GLO. Bloomberg. NBER); Alex Bryson (UCL Social Research Institute. NIESR. IZA) |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between union membership and job satisfaction over the life-course using data from the National Child Development Study (NCDS) tracking all those born in Great Britain in a single week in March in 1958 through to age 55 (2013). Data from immigrants as well as non-respondents to the original 1958 Perinatal Mortality Study (PMS) are added in later years. Conditioning on one’s social class at birth, together with one’s education and employment status, we find there is a significant negative correlation between union membership and job satisfaction that is apparent across the life-course. Lagged union membership status going back many years is negatively correlated with current job satisfaction, though its effects become statistically non-significant when conditioning on current union membership status. These results provide a different perspective to longitudinal studies showing short-term positive responses to switches in membership status. They are consistent with earlier work showing that this cohort of workers, and others before them, have persistently lower job satisfaction as union members compared to their non-union counterparts. |
| Keywords: | Union membership; job satisfaction; life-course; birth cohort; National Child Development Survey (NCDS). |
| JEL: | J28 J50 J51 |
| Date: | 2020–12–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qss:dqsswp:2020&r=all |
| By: | Yusuf Mercan; Benjamin Schoefer; Petr Sedláček |
| Abstract: | In recessions, unemployment increases despite the—perhaps counterintuitive—fact that the number of unemployed workers finding jobs expands. On net, unemployment rises only because even more workers lose their jobs. We propose a theory of unemployment fluctuations resting on this countercyclicality of gross flows from unemployment into employment. In recessions, the abundance of new hires “congests” the jobs the unemployed fill, diminishes their marginal product and discourages further job creation. Countercyclical congestion alone explains about 30–40 percent of U.S. unemployment fluctuations. Besides generating realistic labor market volatility, it also provides a unified explanation for the cyclical labor wedge, the excess earnings losses from job displacement and from graduating during recessions, and the insensitivity of unemployment to labor market policies, such as unemployment insurance. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, business cycles, recessions |
| JEL: | E24 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8731&r=all |
| By: | Jiang Li; Benoit Dostie; Gäelle Simard-Duplain |
| Abstract: | Using data from the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamics Database between 2001 and 2015, we examine the impact of firms’ hiring and pay-setting policies on the gender earnings gap in Canada. Consistent with the existing literature and following Card, Cardoso, and Kline (2016), we find that firm-specific premiums explain nearly one quarter of the 26.8% average earnings gap between female and male workers. On average, firms’ hiring practices – due to difference in the relative proportion of women hired at high-wage firms, or sorting – and pay-setting policies – due to differences in pay by gender within similar firms – each explain about one half of this firm effect. The compositional difference between the two channels varies substantially over the life-cycle, by parental and marital status, and across provinces. |
| Keywords: | Gender Wage Gap,Firm Effects,Marital Status,Linked Employer-Employee Data,Pay-Setting,Sorting, |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J51 J71 |
| Date: | 2020–12–14 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2020s-67&r=all |
| By: | Julian Pedrazzi (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP); Leonardo Peñaloza-Pacheco (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | In this paper we analyze the impact of Venezuelan migration on the female labor supply in Colombia. Using a instrumental variable approach we found significant drops in the female labor supply, mainly on those women with lower qualifications. In contrast, we observe significant increases for high-skilled women with family responsibilities, such as childcare. These results are consistent with a redistribution of time use, where women spend fewer hours on household tasks and more time in the labor market. Our results provide novel evidence of the consequences of forced migration between developing countries on the female labor supply. |
| JEL: | F22 J22 J16 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0274&r=all |
| By: | Emmler, Julian; Fitzenberger, Bernd (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Estimating the returns to migration from East to West Germany, we focus on pre-migration employment dynamics, earnings uncertainty, and job change. Migrants are found to be negatively selected with respect to labor market outcomes, with a large drop in earnings and employment during the last few months before migration. We find sizeable positive earnings and employment gains of migration both in comparison to staying or job change. The gains vary considerably with pre-migration earnings and with the counterfactual considered. Future migrants haveworse expectations for their labor market prospects in the East and migrants show a greater openness to mobility." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information also released (possibly different) as: IZA discussion paper, 13740 |
| Keywords: | Einkommenseffekte, IAB-Biografiedaten, Arbeitsmarktrisiko, Entscheidungskriterium, Mobilitätsbereitschaft, Arbeitslosigkeit, Wanderung, Arbeitsplatzwechsel, Migrationstheorie, Arbeitsmarktchancen, Migrationsforschung, Erwartung, Binnenwanderung, Westdeutschland, Ostdeutschland, Bundesrepublik Deutschland |
| JEL: | J61 R23 O15 P25 |
| Date: | 2020–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202037&r=all |
| By: | Roozbeh Hosseini (University of Georgia); Karen A. Kopecky (Emory University); Kai Zhao (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | Using a dynamic panel approach, we provide empirical evidence that negative health shocks reduce earnings. The effect is primarily driven by the participation margin and is concentrated in less educated and poor health individuals. We build a dynamic, gen-eral equilibrium, lifecycle model that is consistent with these findings. In the model, individuals, whose health is risky and heterogeneous, choose to either work, or not work and apply for social security disability insurance (SSDI). Health impacts individuals’ productivity, SSDI access, disutility from work, mortality, and medical expenses. Cali-brating the model to the United States, we find that health inequality is an important source of lifetime earnings inequality: nearly 29 percent of the variation in lifetime earnings at age 65 is due to the fact that Americans face risky and heterogeneous life-cycle health profiles. A decomposition exercise reveals that the primary reason why individuals in the United States in poor health have low lifetime earnings is because they have a high probability of obtaining SSDI benefits. In other words, the SSDI program is an important contributor to lifetime earnings inequality. Despite this, we show that it is ex ante welfare improving and, if anything, should be expanded. |
| Keywords: | earnings, health, frailty, inequality, disability, dynamic panel estimation, life-cycle models |
| JEL: | D52 D91 E21 H53 I13 I18 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2020-20&r=all |
| By: | John C. Haltiwanger; Mark J. Kutzbach; Giordano E. Palloni; Henry Pollakowski; Matthew Staiger; Daniel Weinberg |
| Abstract: | We combine national administrative data on earnings and participation in subsidized housing to study how the demolition of 160 public housing projects—funded by the HOPE VI program—affected the adult labor market outcomes for 18,500 children. Our empirical strategy compares children exposed to the program to children drawn from thousands of non-demolished projects, adjusting for observable differences using a flexible estimator that combines features of matching and regression. We find that children who resided in HOPE VI projects earn 14% more at age 26 relative to children in comparable non-HOPE VI projects. These earnings gains are strongest for demolitions in large cities, particularly in neighborhoods with higher pre-demolition poverty rates and lower pre-demolition job accessibility. There is no evidence that the labor market gains are driven by improvements in household or neighborhood environments that promote human capital development in children. Rather, subsequent improvements in job accessibility represent a likely pathway for the results. |
| JEL: | I38 J13 J31 J62 R23 |
| Date: | 2020–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28157&r=all |
| By: | Gerhard Toews (New Economic School); Pierre-Louis Vézina (King’s College London) |
| Abstract: | Enemies of the people were the millions of artists, engineers, professors, and affluent peasants that were thought a threat to the Soviet regime for being the educated elite, and were forcedly resettled to the Gulag, i.e. the system of forced labor camps across the Soviet Union. In this paper we look at the long-run consequences of this dark re-location episode. We show that areas around camps with a larger share of enemies among camp prisoners are more prosperous today, as captured by firms’ wages and profits, as well as night lights per capita. We also show that the descendants of enemies are more likely to be tertiary educated today. Our results point in the direction of a long-run persistence of education and a resulting positive effect on local economic outcomes. A 28 percentage point increase in the share of enemies increases night lights per capita by 58%, profits per employee by 65%, and average wages by 22%. |
| Keywords: | Soviet Union, forced migration, education, persistence, natural experiment |
| JEL: | O15 O47 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0279&r=all |
| By: | Serdar Birinci; Fatih Karahan; Yusuf Mercan; Kurt See |
| Abstract: | We study the positive and normative implications of labor market policies that counteract the economic fallout from containment measures during an epidemic. We incorporate a standard epidemiological model into an equilibrium search model of the labor market to compare unemployment insurance (UI) expansions and payroll subsidies. In isolation, payroll subsidies that preserve match capital and enable a swift economic recovery are preferred over a cost-equivalent UI expansion. When considered jointly, however, a cost-equivalent optimal mix allocates 20 percent of the budget to payroll subsidies and 80 percent to UI. The two policies are complementary, catering to different rungs of the productivity ladder. The relatively small proportion allocated to payroll subsidies is sufficient to preserve high-productivity jobs but this also leaves room for social assistance to workers who face inevitable job losses. |
| Keywords: | Coronavirus disease (COVID-19); Business fluctuations and cycles; Fiscal policy; Labour markets |
| JEL: | E24 E62 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:20-54&r=all |
| By: | Debora Di Gioacchino, Emanuela Ghignoni and Alina Verashchagina; Emanuela Ghignoni; Alina Verashchagina |
| Abstract: | More time spent in childcare can be seen as investment in higher quality children, but there may be other reasons why women following childbirth stay out longer or leave the labour market. We aim to understand which are factors that affect this decision. The theoretical model proposed describes trade-offs about career, fertility and time dedicated to children. Model predictions are tested empirically using data from Isfol Plus 2014 survey for Italy. We show that women with higher earnings potential are as prone to have kids as their low-earning counterparts, but the duration of career break due to maternity for them is shorter. Both the probability to become a mother and the duration of career break are positively affected by the “taste for children†, defined using the number of actual and desired children. Other factors influencing women’s decisions on the matter are existing social norms, availability of childcare, and presence of a collaborative partner. |
| Keywords: | Fertility; Career break; Female labour force participation; Italy |
| JEL: | D10 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp193&r=all |
| By: | Lea Heursen; Eva Ranehill; Roberto A. Weber |
| Abstract: | We study whether one reason behind female underrepresentation in leadership is that female leaders are less effective at coordinating action by followers. Two experiments using coordination games investigate whether female leaders are less successful than males in persuading followers to coordinate on efficient equilibria. Group performance hinges on higher-order beliefs about the leader’s capacity to convince followers to pursue desired actions, making beliefs that women are less effective leaders potentially self-confirming. We find no evidence that such bias impacts actual leadership performance, identifying a precisely-estimated null effect. We show that this absence of an effect is surprising given experts’ priors. |
| Keywords: | gender, coordination games, leadership, experiment |
| JEL: | D23 C72 C92 J10 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8713&r=all |
| By: | Javier D. Donna; Gregory F. Veramendi |
| Abstract: | We document gender differences in the price paid for work-related air travel among similar workers within a firm. We show that women pay consistently less per ticket than men, after accounting for a large set of covariates that include the characteristics of the trips, the employers, and the employees. A large proportion of the lower fares paid by women is explained by women booking flights earlier than men. We investigate potential mechanisms that could explain the observed gender differences. We find that gender differences increase with age, but we find no deviation from this trend during the childbearing years. We also find significant variation in gender differences across the regions of the world. Using country-level data on preference differences, we report that positive and negative reciprocity are factors associated with the documented gender differences, although this result is only suggestive. The documented gender differences have important monetary implications for firms and suggest a potentially important role for workers’ morale within a firm. |
| Keywords: | gender differences, worker gender differences, airline industry |
| JEL: | D91 J16 F00 L93 M50 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8725&r=all |
| By: | Gianni De Fraja (University of Nottingham); Jesse Matheson (University of Sheffield); James Rockey (University of Birmingham) |
| Abstract: | The increase in the extent of working-from-home determined by the Covid-19 health crisis has led to a substantial shift of economic activity across geographical areas; which we refer to as a Zoomshock. When a person works from home rather than at the office, their work-related consumption of goods and services provided by the locally consumed service industries will take place where they live, not where they work. Much of the client`ele of restaurants, coffee bars, pubs, hair stylists, health clubs, taxi providers and the like located near workplaces is transferred to establishment located near where people live. In this paper we measure the Zoomshock at a very granular level by estimating the change in the number of people working in UK neighbourhoods due to home-working. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, lockdown, work-from-home, local labour markets |
| JEL: | R12 J01 H12 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bir:birmec:20-31&r=all |
| By: | Joan Monràs; Javier Vázquez-Grenno; Ferran Elias |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the legalization of 600,000 non-EU immigrants by the unexpectedly elected Spanish government following the terrorist attacks of 2004. By comparing non-EU to EU immigrants we first estimate that the policy did not lead to magnet effects. We then show that the policy change increased labor market opportunities for immigrants by allowing them to enter sectors of the economy with fewer informal employment. We rely on cross-province comparisons to document that payroll-tax revenues increased by around 4,000 euros per legalized immigrant, and the heterogeneous effect of the policy on various groups of workers. We provide a theoretical framework based on monopsonistic competition to guide our empirical work and interpret our findings. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, undocumented immigrants, public policy evaluation |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J42 J J61 R11 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1762&r=all |
| By: | D'Exelle, Ben; Gutekunst, Christine (School of Business and Economics); Riedl, Arno (RS: GSBE Theme Human Decisions and Policy Design, Microeconomics & Public Economics) |
| Abstract: | Men and women negotiate differently, which might create gender inequality in access to resources as well as efficiency losses due to disagreement. We study the role of gender and gender pairing in bilateral bargaining, using a lab-in-the-filed experiment in which pairs of participants bargain over the division of a fixed amount of resources. We vary the gender composition of the bargaining pairs as well as the disclosure of the participants’ identities. We find gender differences in earnings, agreement and demands, but only when the identities are disclosed. Women in same-gender pairs obtain higher earnings than men and women in mixed-gender pairs. This is the result of the lower likelihood of disagreement among women-only pairs. Women leave more on the bargaining table, conditional on their beliefs, which contributes to the lower disagreement and higher earnings among women-only pairs. |
| JEL: | C90 J16 O12 |
| Date: | 2020–12–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2020034&r=all |
| By: | Thomas J. Miceli (University of Connecticut) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines contractual arrangements that once governed employment relationships in two prominent entertainment industries: professional baseball and Hollywood filmmaking. The arrangements were, respectively, the player reserve system and the star system. Both were defended as necessary by the governing powers of each industry, but both were also criticized as exploitive of employees because they prevented them from negotiating as free agents with other possible employers. The argument in this paper is that these systems can be interpreted as having served a rational economic purpose; namely, to promote efficient investment in the development of would-be performers in professions where the probability of success is very low. The persistence of a limited reserve period in baseball in the presence of a strong players’ union is evidence for this claim. By contrast, the demise of the star system reflects the diminished importance of talent development by studios. JEL Classification: J30, J41, J42, J53, L14, L82 Key words: Reserve system, star system, training, incentive contracts |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2020-22&r=all |