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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Damien Azzopardi; Fozan Fareed; Mikkel Hermansen; Patrick Lenain; Douglas Sutherland |
| Abstract: | Job mobility is essential for a well-functioning market economy and for individual workers to boost their wages. This paper provides a re-assessment of job mobility in the United States during 2000-2018, based on a novel administrative data source covering almost all workers and job flows. First, aggregate job hire and job separation rates have declined over time, especially in the 2000s. This is mainly driven by flows into and out of nonemployment, while job-to-job hires during 2016-2018 had recovered to their peak levels prior to the global financial crisis. Examination of job mobility across different individual and firm-level characteristics shows comparatively higher job-to-job flows for youth, the less educated, non-whites and individuals working in young firms. In addition, observed job movers in these groups experience the largest earnings gain on average from job-to-job changes. Second, a spatial look at job mobility shows net job-to-job flows towards Western and Southern States. The aggregate rate of interstate job-to-job hires has been stable since 2000 and the observed job-to-job movers on average get a substantial boost to earnings by moving farther away and switching industries. Third, the paper briefly considers the influence of demographic changes on job mobility, one important driver identified in previous work. While ageing may explain around half of the downward trend in job hire and separation rates, other factors matter too. |
| Keywords: | ageing, geographic mobility, job-to-job flows, labour mobility |
| JEL: | E24 J11 J60 J61 O51 |
| Date: | 2020–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1644-en&r=all |
| By: | Arabzadeh, Hamzeh (RWTH Aachen University); Balleer, Almut (RWTH Aachen University); Gehrke, Britta (University of Rostock) |
| Abstract: | How do wages respond to financial recessions? Based on a dynamic macroeconomic model with frictions in the labor and the financial market, we address two prominent mechanism through which firms' financial constraints amplify unemployment and explore their effect on wages. First, the financial labor wedge reduces wages. Second, financial constraints may interact with aggregate labor market conditions in various ways putting upward or downward pressure on wages. We test partial-equilibrium implications of these theoretical mechanisms based on a large data set for Germany for 2006 to 2014 that combines administrative data on workers and wages with detailed information on the balance sheets of firms. Both mechanisms play a role empirically. Using our estimates as central calibration targets in our model, we document that financial recessions are associated with a substantial decline in both unemployment and wages. Financial constraints therefore weaken the direct link between wage rigidity and unemployment volatility. |
| Keywords: | financial frictions, wages, search and matching, unemployment, business cycles |
| JEL: | E32 E44 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13979&r=all |
| By: | Carillo, Maria Rosaria; Lombardo, Vincenzo; Venittelli, Tiziana |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the relationship between social identity and labor market outcomes of immigrants. Using survey data from Italy, we provide robust evidence that immigrants with stronger feelings of belonging to the societies of both the host and home country have higher employment rates, while those who exclusively identify with the host country culture do not have a net occupational advantage. Analysis of the potential mechanisms suggests that, although simultaneous identification with host and home country groups can be costly, the positive effect of multiple social identities is especially triggered by the enlarged information transmission and in-group favoritism that identification with, and membership of, extended communities ensure. |
| Keywords: | Migration,Integration,Ethnic identity,Acculturation,Culture,Labor market |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J61 Z1 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:749&r=all |
| By: | Cipriani, Giam Pietro (University of Verona); Fioroni, Tamara (University of Verona) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies retirement and child support policies in a small, open, overlapping-generations economy with PAYG social security and endogenous retirement and fertility decisions. It demonstrates that neither fertility nor retirement choices necessarily coincide with socially optimal allocation, because agents do not take into account the externalities of fertility and the elderly labor supply in the economy as a whole. It shows that governments can realize the first-best allocation by introducing a child allowance scheme and a subsidy to incentivize the labor supply of older workers. As an alternative to subsidizing the elderly labor supply, we show that the first-best allocation can also be achieved by controlling the retirement age. Finally, the model is simulated in order to study whether the policies devoted to realizing the social optimum in a market economy could be a Pareto improvement. |
| Keywords: | PAYG pensions, social security, endogenous fertility, endogenous retirement |
| JEL: | D10 H2 H55 J13 J18 J26 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14018&r=all |
| By: | Alexander Hijzen; Wouter Zwysen; Mats Erik Lillehagen |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the role of job mobility for job reallocation and aggregate wage growth in Norway and the United States using linked employer-employee data. It provides four main findings. First, despite lower overall job mobility in Norway, the speed of worker reallocation from low-wage to high-wage firms is similar to that in the United States. Second, job reallocation tends to be counter-cyclical in Norway, but pro-cyclical in the United States, due to the weaker tendency of high-wage firms in the United States to hoard workers during economic downturns. Third, the reallocation of workers from low to high wage firms through job-to-job mobility disproportionately benefits high-skilled workers in Norway and low-skilled workers in the United States. Fourth, the slowdown in aggregate wage growth primarily reflects a weakening of on-the-job wage growth in both countries rather than a reduced role of job reallocation between low and high-wage firms (although this does also play a role in the United States). |
| JEL: | J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2021–01–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaab:254-en&r=all |
| By: | Koning, Pierre (Leiden University); Muller, Paul (Free University Amsterdam); Prudon, Roger (Free University Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | While a large share of Disability Insurance recipients are expected to recover, outflow rates from temporary disability schemes are typically negligible. We estimate the disincentive effects of disability benefits on the response to a (mental) health improvement using administrative data on all Dutch disability benefit applicants. We compare those below the DI eligibility threshold with those above and find that disincentives significantly reduce work resumption after health improves. Approximately half of the response to recovery is offset by benefits. Structural labor supply model estimates suggest disincentive effects are substantially larger when the workers earnings capacity is fully restored. |
| Keywords: | disability insurance, mental health, labor supply, health shocks |
| JEL: | J08 I1 J22 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13971&r=all |
| By: | Lombardi, Stefano (VATT, Helsinki); van den Berg, Gerard J. (University of Bristol); Vikström, Johan (IFAU) |
| Abstract: | This paper builds on the Empirical Monte Carlo simulation approach developed by Huber et al. (2013) to study the estimation of Timing-of-Events (ToE) models. We exploit rich Swedish data of unemployed job-seekers with information on participation in a training program to simulate placebo treatment durations. We first use these simulations to examine which covariates are key confounders to be included in selection models. The joint inclusion of specific short-term employment history indicators (notably, the share of time spent in employment), together with baseline socio-economic characteristics, regional and inflow timing information, is important to deal with selection bias. Next, we omit subsets of explanatory variables and estimate ToE models with discrete distributions for the ensuing systematic unobserved heterogeneity. In many cases the ToE approach provides accurate effect estimates, especially if time-varying variation in the unemployment rate of the local labor market is taken into account. However, assuming too many or too few support points for unobserved heterogeneity may lead to large biases. Information criteria, in particular those penalizing parameter abundance, are useful to select the number of support points. |
| Keywords: | duration analysis, unemployment, propensity score, matching, training, employment |
| JEL: | C14 C15 C41 J64 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14015&r=all |
| By: | Balazs Egert; Jarmila Botev; David Turner |
| Abstract: | This paper studies empirically the effect of education policies on human capital and per capita income. The results suggest for European and OECD countries that higher attendance at pre-primary education, greater autonomy of schools and universities, a lower student-to-teacher ratio, higher age of first tracking in secondary education and lower barriers to funding to students in tertiary education all tend to boost human capital through amplifying the positive effects of greater public spending on education. Benefits from pre-primary education are particularly high for countries with an above-average share of disadvantaged students. School autonomy yields high benefits especially in countries where schools are subject to external accountability. From a policy perspective, improving the quality of the labour force and value-for-money of education policies are of utmost importance in the future, especially in European countries facing population ageing and ever increasing fiscal constraints. Prompt policy action is needed given the very long delay with which the full effect of reforms in education policy materialises on human capital and per capita income. |
| Keywords: | human capital, economic growth, per capita income, education policies, OECD |
| JEL: | E24 I20 I25 I26 I28 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8776&r=all |
| By: | Gimenez-Nadal, J. Ignacio (University of Zaragoza); Molina, José Alberto (University of Zaragoza); Velilla, Jorge (University of La Rioja) |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the mobility patterns of elder workers in the United States, with a focus on mobility to and from work (e.g., commuting) across metropolitan areas and metropolitan population sizes. Using detailed time diaries from the American Time Use Survey for the years 2003-2018, estimates reveal a positive correlation between the time spent commuting and residing in metropolitan areas, which is also driven by longer commutes in more populated metropolitan areas. Furthermore, elder workers in metropolitan areas of more than 2.5 million inhabitants use more public transports in their commuting trips than similar workers in less-populated or non-metropolitan areas. The analysis presented here may allow policy makers to identify which elder workers may be more affected by the negative consequences of commuting, and also which groups of elder workers have more limitations in their commuting behaviors. |
| Keywords: | commuting time, elder workers, metropolitan areas, population size, American Time Use Survey |
| JEL: | R40 J14 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13949&r=all |
| By: | Priscilla Fialho; Jens Høj |
| Abstract: | Population ageing will lead to a smaller and older workforce. Looking forward, this means that growth will increasingly depend on ensuring the best use of Slovenian workers. This implies keeping older and experience workers longer in employment and better support difficult-to-employ low-skilled job-seekers. In addition, better labour allocation will enable workers to realise their productivity and wage potential. This requires a greater role for social partners in securing individual wages that better reflect efforts. |
| Keywords: | Labour Allocation, Labour Participation, Population Ageing |
| JEL: | J08 J14 J21 J31 J60 |
| Date: | 2020–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1648-en&r=all |
| By: | Benoît Schmutz (Ecole Polytechnique and CREST); Modibo Sidibé (Duke University) |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a theory of cities based on a general equilibrium search and matching model where heterogeneous firms and workers continuously decide where to locate within a set of imperfectly connected local labor markets and engage in wage bargaining using both local and remote match opportunities as threat points. The model allows us to introduce the structural origins of workers’ sorting, firms’ selection and matching-based agglomeration economies into a unified framework and discuss their relationship with the city size distribution. Simulations show that power laws in city size do not require increasing returns to scale in matching or production, but may simply result from the combination of imperfect labor mobility, positive assortative matching between labor and capital, and agglomeration economies in the matching between workers and firms. By-products include sufficient statistics to identify sorting and agglomeration using city-level variation and a rationale for the geographic diversity of urban networks. |
| Keywords: | city size; local labor market; frictions; on-the-job search; migration |
| JEL: | R1 J2 J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2021–01–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crs:wpaper:2021-01&r=all |
| By: | Grund, Christian (RWTH Aachen University); Rubin, Maike (RWTH Aachen University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether job autonomy is associated with employees' sickness absence. We can make use of the representative German Study of Mental Health at Work data. In line with our theoretical considerations, we do find evidence for an inverse relation between employees' job autonomy and days of sickness absence. This relation is only weakly mediated by job satisfaction and particularly relevant for more senior employees. |
| Keywords: | job autonomy, sickness absence, age, job satisfaction |
| JEL: | J81 M12 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13945&r=all |
| By: | Fátima Cardoso; Manuel Coutinho Pereira; Nuno Alves |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact on consumption of the large changes in public wages in Portugal arising in the context of the economic and financial assistance program (2011-2014). We uncover the effects of exogenous public wage changes by exploiting the heterogeneous characteristics of public servants by municipality. The initial wage cuts triggered a marked reduction of private consumption, while the reinstatements in the later years gave rise to an increase, albeit of a smaller magnitude. The consumption response was larger for employees with relatively lower wages. Households smoothed the impact on consumption of negative income shocks by drawing down their deposits. Consumer credit did not play such a role, as households deleveraged as a response to those negative shocks. |
| JEL: | E21 E62 E65 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w202018&r=all |
| By: | Agarwal, Ruchir (International Monetary Fund); Ganguli, Ina (Stockholm School of Economics); Gaule, Patrick (University of Bath); Smith, Geoff (University of Bath) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of U.S. immigration barriers on global knowledge production. We present four key findings. First, among Nobel Prize winners and Fields Medalists, migrants to the U.S. play a central role in the global knowledge network— representing 20-33% of the frontier knowledge producers. Second, using novel survey data and hand-curated life-histories of International Math Olympiad (IMO) medalists, we show that migrants to the U.S. are up to six times more productive than migrants to other countries—even after accounting for talent during one's teenage years. Third, financing costs are a key factor preventing foreign talent from migrating abroad to pursue their dream careers, particularly talent from developing countries. Fourth, certain 'push' incentives that reduce immigration barriers – by addressing financing constraints for top foreign talent – could increase the global scientific output of future cohorts by 42% percent. We conclude by discussing policy options for the U.S. and the global scientific community. |
| Keywords: | immigration, science, talent, universities |
| JEL: | O33 O38 F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14016&r=all |
| By: | Francesco Bianchi; Giada Bianchi; Dongho Song |
| Abstract: | We adopt a time series approach to investigate the historical relation between unemployment, life expectancy, and mortality rates. We fit a Vector-autoregression (VAR) for the overall US population and for groups identified based on gender and race. We find that shocks to unemployment are followed by statistically significant increases in mortality rates and declines in life expectancy. We use our results to assess the long-run effects of the COVID-19 economic recession on mortality and life expectancy. We estimate the size of the COVID-19-related unemployment to be between 2 and 5 times larger than the typical unemployment shock, depending on race/gender, resulting in a 3.0% increase in mortality rate and a 0.5% drop in life expectancy over the next 15 years for the overall American population. We also predict that the shock will disproportionately affect African-Americans and women, over a short horizon, while white men might suffer large consequences over longer horizons. These figures translate in a staggering 0.89 million additional deaths over the next 15 years. |
| JEL: | C32 E32 I14 J11 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28304&r=all |
| By: | Aydemir, Abdurrahman (Sabanci University); Kirdar, Murat G. (Bogazici University); Torun, Huzeyfe (Central Bank of Turkey) |
| Abstract: | We take advantage of a major compulsory school reform in Turkey to provide novel evidence on the causal effect of education on both the incidence and timing of internal migration. In addition, for the first time in literature, we provide causal effects of education on migration by reason for migration. We find that while education substantially increases the incidence of migration among men, there is no evidence of an effect among women. Women, however, become more likely to migrate at earlier ages and their migration reasons change. Revealing the empowering role of education, women become more likely to move for human capital investments and for employment purposes and less likely to be tied-movers. |
| Keywords: | education, internal migration, incidence and timing of migration, reason for migration, 2SLS, regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | J61 I2 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14013&r=all |
| By: | Jessamyn Schaller; Chase S. Eck |
| Abstract: | We use an event-study approach to examine changes in intergenerational financial transfers and informal care within families following wealth loss, job exit, widowhood, and health shocks. We find sharp reductions in parental giving to adult children following negative shocks to parents' wealth and earned income, particularly in low-wealth households. Parental giving also decreases with some health shocks and increases following spousal death. Meanwhile, children of low-wealth households increase financial transfers to their parents following adverse shocks and children in both high- and low-wealth households increase their provision of informal care to parents following a wide range of adverse shocks. |
| JEL: | D10 D14 D15 D64 I10 J14 J26 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28295&r=all |
| By: | Parsons, Christopher (University of Western Australia); Reysenbach, Tyler (Productivity Commission); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton) |
| Abstract: | Immigrants' social networks exert considerable influence over their labor market opportunities and yet the pre-sorting of co-nationals by ability and across space, endures as a key challenge for empiricists attempting to establish causal network effects. To surmount this issue, we leverage the chaotic dispersal of Vietnamese refugees across the U.S. in 1975, which was demonstrably exogenous in both initial network size and quality, in tandem with an absence of pre-existing networks of co-nationals, to causally identify the effects of network size and network quality on refugees': occupational outcomes, skill intensity and skill upgrading. Our administrative data provide refugee's precise initial locations and pre-placement characteristics in Vietnam, which we uniquely employ as additional controls, as well as longitudinal information about their locations and occupations six years hence. We construct instruments from the initial quasi-random refugee allocations of network size and quality and leverage refugees' geo-locations to insulate our results from the Reflection Problem. Overall, network quality is a far more important determinant of refugees' labor market outcomes when compared to network size, one interpretation of which is that the type of referrals network members receive are more important than the overall number of referrals. Blue-collar networks: increase the probability of refugees' working in blue-collar jobs, draw additional workers into more manual and less complex intensive employment and serve to up-skill individuals along the manual skill dimension. Given the protracted circumstances under which the Viet Kieu entered the U.S., the composition of their networks played a pivotal role in their ultimate success. |
| Keywords: | networks, refugees, migration, labor markets |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13952&r=all |
| By: | Oreffice, Sonia; Quintana-Domeque, Climent |
| Abstract: | We investigate gender differences across multiple dimensions after three months of the first UK lockdown of March 2020, using an online sample of approximately 1,500 Prolific respondents residents in the UK. We find that women's mental health was worse than men's along the four metrics we collected data on, that women were more concerned about getting and spreading the virus, and that women perceived the virus as more prevalent and lethal than men did. Women were also more likely to expect a new lockdown or virus outbreak by the end of 2020, and were more pessimistic about the contemporaneous and future state of the UK economy, as measured by their forecasted contemporaneous and future unemployment rates. We also show that, between earlier in 2020 before the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic and June 2020, women had increased childcare and housework more than men. Neither the gender gaps in COVID-19-related health and economic concerns nor the gender gaps in the increase in hours of childcare and housework can be accounted for by a rich set of control variables. Instead, we find that the gender gap in mental health can be partially accounted for by the difference in COVID-19-related health concerns between men and women. |
| Keywords: | Coronavirus,sex,inequity,wellbeing,mental health,anxiety,employment,concerns,perceptions,donations,time allocation,childcare,housework |
| JEL: | H1 J1 J16 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:738&r=all |
| By: | Hansjörg Blöchliger; Roland Tusz |
| Abstract: | Regional differences in GDP per capita, productivity, employment and poverty in Lithuania are among the largest in the OECD, and they have increased over the last decade. The country still recovers from the legacy of the Soviet planning system which aimed at balanced geographical distribution of industrial activity and left many unviable firms and jobs particularly in rural areas. Unemployment is high in many regions, while mobility of excess labour towards economically stronger areas remains insufficient. Some regions feature "surplus infrastructure", while others lack investment. This paper looks at potential reasons for persisting disparities and assesses recent policy initiatives to reduce them. Stark gaps in education outcomes between rural and urban areas should be addressed, mainly by reorganising the municipal school network and by fostering firm-based learning, i.e. apprenticeships. The digital infrastructure is weak in rural regions and should be strengthened to allow access to high-quality jobs in all parts of the country, including through teleworking. Housing supply in economically strong areas should be increased, while urban sprawl should be avoided. Finally, municipal governments should be given more fiscal power, while the planned functional regions should help foster inter-municipal coordination. |
| Keywords: | education, fiscal decentralisation, labour mobility, Lithuania, regional development, regional infrastructure, regional productivity |
| JEL: | D24 H70 I24 J24 J61 O31 J65 |
| Date: | 2020–12–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1650-en&r=all |
| By: | Ingwersen, Kai (Leibniz University of Hannover); Thomsen, Stephan L. (Leibniz University of Hannover) |
| Abstract: | Workload and its physical and mental burden can have detrimental effects on individual health. As different jobs are associated with specific patterns of health development, occupational selection of socioeconomic groups can be attributed to health differences in society. Despite a long economic literature that has established native-migrant differences in occupational choice and health behaviour, surprisingly little research so far has been devoted to workload differences and the influence on individual health in this context. We consider differences in workload and related health status for migrants and native Germans through a detailed characterisation of occupational conditions. Based on labour force survey data for the years 2006, 2012 and 2018, our analysis takes a comprehensive set of work-related aspects into account, e.g., work tasks, job requirements, and working conditions. The empirical results show an enhanced perception of workload and related health problems among migrants. Working at the capacity limit has a particularly strong effect on emotional exhaustion, which is countered by a good working atmosphere being beneficial to health. Native Germans are more heavily burdened by high job requirements than migrants, both physically and mentally. However, as job-related factors show similar effects on the health status of males, the poorer health status of migrants could therefore be attributed to a lower utilization of health services. |
| Keywords: | workload, working conditions, migrants, self-reported health, BIBB/BAuA |
| JEL: | I14 J15 J81 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13962&r=all |
| By: | Fasani, Francesco (Queen Mary, University of London); Mazza, Jacopo (European Commission, Joint Research Centre) |
| Abstract: | We provide a first timely assessment of the pandemic crisis impact on the labour market prospects of immigrant workers in Europe by proposing a novel measure of their exposure to employment risk. We characterize migrants' occupations along four dimensions related to the role of workers' occupations in the response to the pandemic, the contractual protection they enjoy, the possibility of performing their job from home and the resilience of the industry in which they are employed. We show that our measure of employment risk closely predicts actual employment losses observed in European countries after the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We estimate that, within industries and occupations, Extra-EU migrants and women are exposed to higher risk of unemployment than native men and that women are losing jobs at higher rates than equally exposed men. According to our estimates, more than 9 million immigrants in the EU14+UK area are exposed to a high risk of becoming unemployed due to the pandemic crisis, 1.3 million of which are facing a very high risk. |
| Keywords: | employment risk, COVID-19, key occupations |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J20 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13963&r=all |
| By: | Balazs Egert |
| Abstract: | This paper summarises earlier OECD work aimed at quantifying the impact of structural reforms on economic outcomes. It overviews i.) insights obtained for the linear relationships linking policies and economic outcomes (including multi-factor productivity, capital deepening and employment) for an almost complete set of OECD countries, ii.) non-linear results on how policies interact with each other in OECD countries, and iii.) results extended for emerging-market economies looking at whether policy effects vary across countries depending on the level of economic development and whether institutions have an influence on economic outcomes. The paper lists of policies and institutions that could be used to quantify the effect of reforms. It also gives some guidance on how to quantify reforms in OECD and non-OECD countries. It provides mid-point estimates of the long-run effects on per capita income levels through the three supply-side channels. Finally, it raises the issue of estimation and model uncertainty. |
| Keywords: | structural reform, product and labour market regulation, institutions, productivity, investment, employment, OECD, emerging market |
| JEL: | D24 E17 E22 E24 J08 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8778&r=all |
| By: | Geraldes, Diogo (Utrecht University); Riedl, Arno (Maastricht University); Strobel, Martin (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | The gender gap in income and leadership positions in many domains of our society is an undisputed pervasive phenomenon. One explanation for the disadvantaged position of women put forward in the economic and psychology literature is the weaker response of women to competitive incentives. Despite the large amount of literature trying to explain this fact, the precise mechanisms behind the gender difference in competitive responsiveness are still not fully uncovered. In this paper, we use laboratory experiments to study the potential role of stereotype threat on the response of men and women to competitive incentives in mixed-gender competition. We use a real effort math task to induce an implicit stereotype threat against women in one treatment. In additional treatments we, respectively, reinforce this stereotype threat and induce a stereotype threat against men. In contrast to much of the literature we do not observe that women are less competitive than men, neither when there is an implicit nor when there is an explicit stereotype threat against women. We attribute this to two factors which differentiates our experiment from previous ones. We control, first, for inter-individual performance differences using a within-subject design, and, second, for risk differences between non-competitive and competitive environments by making the former risky. We do find an adverse stereotype threat effect on the performance of men when there is an explicit stereotype threat against them. In that case any positive performance effect of competition is nullified by the stereotype threat. Overall, our results indicate that a stereotype threat has negative competitive performance effects only if there is information contradicting an existing stereotype. This suggests that the appropriate intervention to prevent the adverse effect of stereotype threat in performance is to avoid any information referring to the stereotype. |
| Keywords: | competitiveness, gender gaps, stereotype threat, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D01 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13991&r=all |
| By: | Anthony Edo; Jacques Melitz |
| Abstract: | The scale of the rise in personal wealth following the Black Death calls the life-cycle hypothesis of consumption into consideration. This paper shows for the first time that the wealth effect of the Black Death on the price level continued in England for generations, up to 1450. Indeed, in absence of consideration of the wealth effect, other influences on the price level do not even appear in the econometric analysis. The separate roles of coinage, population, trade, wages and annual number of days worked for wages all also receive attention and new results follow for adjustment in the labor market. |
| Keywords: | Black Death;Fourteenth-century England;Price Level;Great Famine |
| JEL: | N13 J11 F33 J46 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2020-14&r=all |
| By: | Mariani, R. D.; Rosati, F. C. |
| Abstract: | The availability of child-care services has often been advocated as one of the instruments to counter the fertility decline observed in many high-income countries. In the recent past large inflows of lowskilled migrants have substantially increased the supply of child-care services. In this paper we examine if the flow of immigrants as actually affected fertility exploiting the natural experiment occurred in Italy in 2007, when a large inflow of migrants - many of them specialized in the supply of child care - arrived unexpectedly. With a difference-in-differences method, we show that newly arrived immigrant female workers have increased the number of native births by roughly 2 per cent. We validate our result by the implementation of an instrumental variable approach and several robustness tests, all concluding that the increase in the supply of child-care services by immigrants has positively affected native fertility choice. |
| Keywords: | Household Economics,Fertility,Immigrant Labour,International Migration |
| JEL: | D12 F22 J13 J61 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:745&r=all |
| By: | Marika Cabral; Bokyung Kim; Maya Rossin-Slater; Molly Schnell; Hannes Schwandt |
| Abstract: | A growing number of American children are exposed to gun violence at their schools, but little is known about the impacts of this exposure on their human capital attainment and economic well-being. This paper studies the causal effects of exposure to shootings at schools on children’s educational and economic outcomes, using individual-level longitudinal administrative data from Texas. We analyze the universe of shootings at Texas public schools that occurred between 1995 and 2016, and match schools that experienced shootings with observationally similar control schools in other districts. We use difference-in-differences models that leverage within-individual and across-cohort variation in shooting exposure within matched school groups to estimate the short- and long-run impacts of shootings on students attending these schools at the time of the shooting. We find that shooting-exposed students have an increased absence rate and are more likely to be chronically absent and repeat a grade in the two years following the event. We also find adverse long-term impacts on the likelihood of high school graduation, college enrollment and graduation, as well as employment and earnings at ages 24-26. Heterogeneity analyses by student and school characteristics indicate that the detrimental impacts of shootings are universal, with most sub-groups being affected. |
| JEL: | I24 I31 J13 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28311&r=all |
| By: | Ahammer, Alexander (University of Linz); Grübl, Dominik (University of Linz); Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf (University of Linz) |
| Abstract: | We show that downsizing has substantial externalities on the health of workers who remain in the firm. To this end, we study mass layoff (ML) survivors in Austria, using workers who survive a ML themselves, but a few years in the future, as a control group. Based on high-quality administrative data, we find evidence that downsizing has persistent effects on mental and physical health, and that these effects can be explained by workers fearing for their own jobs. We also show that health externalities due to downsizing imply non-negligible cost for firms, and that wage cuts may have similar effects. |
| Keywords: | downsizing, mass layoffs, health, job insecurity |
| JEL: | J63 I12 J23 |
| Date: | 2020–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13984&r=all |
| By: | Anna Lovasz (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Toth Kalman u. 4. Budapest, 1097 Hungary and University of Washington Tacoma, 1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma, WA 98402-3100, USA); Boldmaa Bat-Erdene (Eotvos Lorand University, Pazmany Peter setany 1/a, Budapest, 1117 Hungary); Ewa Cukrowska-Torzewska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, D³uga 44/50, 00-241 Warsaw, Poland); Mariann Rigo (University of Düsseldorf, Institute of Medical Sociology, Moorenstr. 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany); Agnes Szabo-Morvai (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Toth Kalman u. 4. Budapest, 1097 Hungary and University of Debrecen, Economics Department, Böszörményi út 132, Debrecen, 4032 Hungary) |
| Abstract: | We study gender differences in the impacts of competition and subjective feedback, using an online game with pop-up texts and graphics as treatments. We define 8 groups: players see a Top 10 leaderboard or not (competitiveness), and within these, they receive no feedback, supportive feedback, rewarding feedback, or "trash talk" (feedback type). Based on 5191 participants, we find that competition only increases the performance of males. However, when it is combined with supportive feedback, the performance of females also increases. This points to individualized feedback as a potential tool for decreasing gender gaps in competitive settings such as STEM fields. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gaps, Competition, Supervisory Feedback |
| JEL: | I20 J16 J24 M54 |
| Date: | 2021–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:has:discpr:2101&r=all |