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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Desiere, Sam; Cockx, Bart |
| Abstract: | Hiring subsidies are widely used to create (stable) employment for the long-term unemployed. This paper exploits the abolition of a hiring subsidy targeted at long-term unemployed jobseekers over 45 years of age in Belgium to evaluate its effectiveness in the short and medium run. Based on a triple difference methodology the hiring subsidy is shown to increase the job finding rate by 13% without any evidence of spill-over effects. This effect is driven by a positive effect on individuals with at least a bachelor’s degree. However, the hiring subsidy mainly created temporary short-lived employment: eligible jobseekers were not more likely to find employment that lasted at least twelve consecutive months than ineligible jobseekers. |
| JEL: | H22 J08 J18 J23 J38 J64 J65 J68 |
| Date: | 2021–10–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2021005&r= |
| By: | Merkl, Christian; Stüber, Heiko |
| Abstract: | We document substantial cross-sectional heterogeneity of German establishments' real wage cyclicality over the business cycle. While wages of the median establishment are moderately procyclical, 36 percent of establishments have countercyclical wages. We estimate a negative connection between establishments' wage cyclicality and their employment cyclicality, thereby providing a benchmark for quantitative macroeconomic models. We propose and calibrate a labor market ow model to match various empirical facts and to perform counterfactual exercises. If all establishments behaved as the most procyclical ones, labor market amplification would drop by one-third. If all followed Nash bargaining, it would drop by more than two-thirds. |
| Keywords: | Wage Cyclicality,Employment Cyclicality,Labor Market Flow Model,Labor Market Dynamics,Establishments,Administrative Data |
| JEL: | E32 E24 J64 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwqwdp:062021&r= |
| By: | Jirjahn, Uwe |
| Abstract: | While there is a strong overlap between membership in employers' associations and collective bargaining coverage, the overlap is far from being perfect. Using unique firm-level data from Germany, this study estimates the determinants of the membership in employers' associations and the coverage by industry-level or firm-level agreements. The analysis particularly focuses on the various constellations of membership and collective bargaining status. The results show that firm-level worker representation, foreign ownership, work organization, firm size, age and East-West differences are important determinants. Altogether, the analysis demonstrates that a more differentiated picture of industrial relations can be obtained by considering both membership in employers' associations and collective bargaining coverage. |
| Keywords: | Employers’ associations,industry-level bargaining,firm-level bargaining,foreign ownership,works councils,union density |
| JEL: | F23 F66 J51 J52 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:954&r= |
| By: | Elmallakh, Nelly; Wodon, Quentin |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effects of shocks, predominantly climate shocks, on labor market outcomes in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). We focus on migration ows within the WAEMU countries to disentangle the differential effects of shocks on migrants and non-migrants. Our analysis combines survey data from Ivory Coast|as the main migrant receiving country|and from all the other 7 migrant sending countries of the WAEMU. Using an OLS fixed effects model, our results show that migration in the WAEMU is associated with a decline in female labor participation, as it is primarily motivated by marriage. However, we find an increase in female labor force participation and a narrowing of the gender gap in migrant households that are negatively affected by shocks. Our findings relate to the literature on the impact of shocks on the labor division between women and men and show that shocks may disrupt long-standing gender roles. The results are robust to accounting for the double selection into shocks and migration using a Propensity Score Matching technique that allows for a within comparison between treated and untreated units. |
| Keywords: | shocks,migration,climate,employment,labor market,women,West Africa |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J43 J61 Q54 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:950&r= |
| By: | Diogo Britto (Diogo Britto); Paolo Pinotti (Paolo Pinotti); Breno Sampaio (Breno Sampaio) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effect of job loss and unemployment benefits on crime, exploiting unique individual-level data on the universe of workers and criminal cases in Brazil over the 2009-2017 period. We find that the probability of criminal prosecution increases on average by 23% for workers displaced upon mass layoffs, and by slightly less for their cohabiting sons. Using causal forests, we show that the effect is driven entirely by young and low tenure workers, while there is no heterogeneity by education and income. Regression discontinuity estimates indicate that unemployment benefit eligibility completely offsets potential crime increases upon job loss, but this effect completely vanishes immediately after benefit expiration. Our findings point at liquidity constraints and psychological stress as main drivers of criminal behavior upon job loss, while substitution between time on the job and leisure does not seem to play an important role. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, crime, unemployment insurance, registry data |
| JEL: | K42 J63 J65 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2128&r= |
| By: | Sonia Bhalotra (Sonia Bhalotra); Diogo Britto (Diogo Britto); Paolo Pinotti (Paolo Pinotti); Breno Sampaio (Breno Sampaio) |
| Abstract: | We estimate impacts of male job loss, female job loss, and male unemployment benefits on domestic violence in Brazil. We merge employer-employee and social welfare registers with administrative data on domestic violence cases brought to criminal courts, use of public shelters by victims, and mandatory notifications of domestic violence by health providers. Leveraging mass layoffs for identification, we first show that both male and female job loss, independently, lead to large and pervasive increases in domestic violence. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design, we then show that unemployment benefits do not reduce domestic violence while benefits are being paid, and that they lead to higher domestic violence once benefits expire. These findings can be explained by the negative income shock brought by job loss and by increased exposure of victims to perpetrators, as partners tend to spend more time together after displacement. Although unemployment benefits partially offset the income drop following job loss, they reinforce the exposure shock as they increase unemployment duration. |
| Keywords: | : domestic violence, unemployment, mass layoffs, unemployment insurance, income shock, exposure, Brazil |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2127&r= |
| By: | Borghorst, Malte (Mercator School of Management, University of Duisburg-Essen); Mulalic, Ismir (Department of Economics, Copenhagen Business School); van Ommeren, Jos (Department of Spatial Economics, VU University) |
| Abstract: | It has been documented that the gender pay gap strongly increases after the birth of the first child. We focus on Denmark and show that gender differences regarding commuting play an important role in explaining this. We offer 3 pieces of evidence. First, the gender pay and commuting gaps come into existence at the same moment: when the first child is born. Second, wage compensation for commuting is lower for women after the birth compared to men: about 3 − 4 percentage points of the overall gender pay gap is due to gender differences related to compensation for commuting when having children. Third, women who get a child are much more likely to leave their job when they have a long commute, which is not true for men. <p>Using information on job moving through the lens of a dynamic search model, these results imply that the marginal cost of commuting increases substantially for women with a child. For female workers with a child, a one standard deviation increase in commuting distance induces costs equivalent to about 10% of their wage, whereas for all other workers these costs are equivalent to only 3-4% of their wages. |
| Keywords: | Commuting; Wages; Gender wage gap |
| JEL: | J31 J61 R23 R41 |
| Date: | 2021–10–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:cbsnow:2021_015&r= |
| By: | Mitra, Aruni |
| Abstract: | What explains the sudden vanishing of the procyclicality of productivity in the U.S. during the 1980s? Using cross-sectional evidence from states and industries, this paper argues that lower costs of hiring and firing workers due to rapid de-unionization can help explain the productivity puzzle. Lower cost of changing employment prompts firms to rely less on labour hoarding, thereby making productivity less procyclical. In a model with endogenous worker-effort and costly employment adjustment, allowing the hiring cost to decrease by the same amount as the decline in union density can match almost the entire drop in cyclical productivity correlations. |
| Keywords: | productivity, unions, hiring cost, factor utilization, DSGE |
| JEL: | E22 E23 E24 E32 J50 |
| Date: | 2021–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:110102&r= |
| By: | Sierminska, Eva; Oaxaca, Ronald L. |
| Abstract: | We model the process of field specialization choice among beginning economists within a multivariate logit framework that accommodates single and dual primary field specializations and incorporates correlations among field specialization choices. Conditioning on personal, economic, and institutional variables reveals that women graduate students are less likely to specialize in Labor/Health, Macro/Finance, Industrial Organization, Public Economics, and Development/Growth/International and are more likely to specialize in Agricultural/Resource/Environmental Economics. Field-specific gender faculty ratios and expected relative salaries as well as economics department rankings are significant factors for gender doctoral specialization dissimilarity. Preferences and characteristics contribute about equally to field specialization dissimilarity. |
| Keywords: | gender,economics,specialization,salaries |
| JEL: | J01 J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:953&r= |
| By: | Leonardo Fabio Morales; Carlos Ospino; Nicole Amaral |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses whether the expansion of online job vacancies leads to a more efficient labor market. We provide compelling evidence that the increase in online job vacancy penetration in Colombia has had an enhancing effect on the labor market's efficiency by making it easier for firms to find workers to fill their job openings. An estimation of the Beveridge Curve (unemployment to vacancies relationship), a well-established theoretical development from search models, concludes that policies that increase online vacancy posting enhance efficiency. We implement a differences in differences design to take advantage of a regulation, which mandates that all authorized online vacancy providers report any online vacancy to the Public Employment Service in Colombia. We find that sub-segments of the labor market with a relevant fraction of their vacancies posted online, presented on average nearly 15% lower vacancy rate for a given unemployment rate. Therefore, for these sub-segments, the Beveridge curve shifted inwards due to efficiency enhancements. These findings support active search policies to reduce information barriers, which reduce the odds of firms and workers finding one other in the labor market. Policies as those implemented by the Public Employment Service in Colombia seem to be beneficial. **** RESUMEN: Este documento presenta evidencia de que el aumento de vacantes publicadas a través de internet en Colombia ha incrementado la eficiencia del mercado laboral, esto al facilitar que las empresas encuentren trabajadores para cubrir sus posiciones laborales abiertas. En este estudio estimamos curvas de Beveridge, la relación entre desempleo y vacantes; a través de este desarrollo teórico establecido desde los modelos de búsqueda, se concluye que las políticas que aumentan la publicación de vacantes en línea mejoran la eficiencia del mercado. Implementamos un diseño de diferencias en diferencias para aprovechar una regulación, que exige que todos los proveedores de vacantes en línea autorizados reporten cualquier vacante en línea al Servicio Público de Empleo en Colombia. Encontramos que los sub-segmentos del mercado laboral con una fracción significativa de sus vacantes publicadas a través de internet presentaban en promedio una tasa de vacantes casi un 15% menor, para una tasa de desempleo determinada. En el contexto de los modelos de búsqueda, lo anterior implica que en los subsegmentos afectados por la política, la curva de Beveridge se desplazó hacia adentro. Lo anterior implica una mejora en la eficiencia, dado que para una tasa de desempleo fija, las vacantes se llenaron con más facilidad. Nuestros hallazgos respaldan las políticas de búsqueda activa para reducir las barreras de información, las cuales reducen las probabilidades de que las empresas y los trabajadores se encuentren en el mercado laboral. |
| Keywords: | Online vacancies, Labor demand, Beveridge Curve, vacantes online, Demanda laboral, Curva de Beveridge |
| JEL: | J23 J63 J60 |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:1174&r= |
| By: | Élisabeth Tovar; Matthieu Bunel |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we provide evidence on attitudes on past-in-present educational discrimination, i.e. educational discrimination that occurred in the past but has present-time negative effects on the probability of success in fair-in-form employment selection processes. To do so, we use an original factorial survey experiment, and collect data from a representative sample of the US population. We find that a significant majority of respondents support the costly compensation of past-in-present educational discrimination. Moreover, we find that respondents are as sensitive to past-in-present educational discrimination than to present-time employment discrimination. We find that causal effects on attitudes are stronger for the intentionality of the discrimination than for its financial consequences on the discriminated group. Last, attitudes appear to be more driven by the respondents’ political perspective than by their own real-world identity. |
| Keywords: | attitudes, educational discrimination, factorial survey, past-in-present discrimination |
| JEL: | I24 J15 J71 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2021-28&r= |
| By: | Gustavo Leyva; Israel Mora |
| Abstract: | We estimate that about 10.6 percent of jobs could be done from home in Mexico, using 468 4-digit SINCO occupations and employment data in 2019. This is roughly half the estimate reported by Dingel and Neiman (2020) using teleworking criteria devised for the U.S. labor market. Owing to the peculiarities of the Mexican labor market, we report results by type of contract (formal and informal), geographical area, and gender. We validate our teleworking measure by exploiting the cross-state variation of real GDP per worker, the share of services in employment, and internet and computer access within the household. We find that the gap in teleworking possibilities favorable to females has its root in the disparate occupation structures across gender. During the pandemic, the decline in the share of non-telework jobs in females has been thrice as much as that in males. |
| JEL: | J16 J46 J81 |
| Date: | 2021–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdm:wpaper:2021-15&r= |
| By: | Gunadi, Christian |
| Abstract: | Recent years have seen a rise in mass shooting incidents in the United States. While direct victims and their families undoubtedly suffer the most serious consequence of mass shootings, little is known on whether mass shootings have negative impacts beyond those immediately exposed to the incidents. In this paper, I examine the crime consequences of mass shootings. I hypothesize that mass shootings can increase crimes through its adverse effects on local labor market conditions. Utilizing difference-in-differences strategy that exploits geographic and temporal variation in mass shooting incidents across U.S. counties, the results of the analysis suggest that mass shooting incident is associated with a rise in crimes, especially those carried out for monetary gains. The most conservative estimate indicates that mass shooting incident increases the overall property crime rate by about 4%. |
| Keywords: | Mass Shootings,Violence,Crime,Economic Outlooks |
| JEL: | K42 H23 D84 J18 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:951&r= |
| By: | Catalina Anampa Castro; Katherine Curtis; Jack DeWaard; Elizabeth Fussell; Kathryn McConnell; Kobie Price; Michael Soto; Stephan Whitaker |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we infuse consideration of migration into research on economic losses from extreme weather disasters. Taking a comparative case study approach and using data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel, we document the size of economic losses via migration from 23 disaster-affected areas in the United States after the most damaging hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires on record. We then employ demographic standardization and decomposition to determine if these losses primarily reflect changes in out-migration or changes in the economic resources that migrants take with them (greater economic losses per migrant). Finally, we consider the implications of these losses for changing spatial inequality in the United States. While disaster-affected areas and those living in them differ in their experiences of and responses to extreme weather disasters, we generally find that, relative to the year before an extreme weather disaster, economic losses via migration from disaster-affected areas increase the year of and after the disaster, that these changes primarily reflect changes in out-migration (vs. the economic resources that migrants take with them), and that these losses briefly disrupt the status quo by temporarily reducing spatial inequality. |
| Keywords: | Natural Disaster; Migration; Consumer Credit; Decomposition; Spatial Inequality |
| JEL: | R23 Q54 D12 J60 |
| Date: | 2021–10–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwq:93161&r= |
| By: | Yvan Guillemette; David Turner |
| Abstract: | This paper updates the long-term scenarios to 2060 last published in July 2018, with a special focus on fiscal sustainability and risks. In a baseline economic and fiscal scenario, trend real GDP growth for the OECD + G20 area declines from around 3% post-COVID to 1½ per cent in 2060, mainly due to a deceleration of large emerging-market economies. Meanwhile, secular trends such as population ageing and the rising relative price of services will keep adding pressure on government budgets. Without policy changes, maintaining current public service standards and benefits while keeping public debt ratios stable at current levels would increase fiscal pressure in the median OECD country by nearly 8 percentage points of GDP between 2021 and 2060, and much more in some countries. Policy scenarios show that reforms to labour market and retirement policies could help boost living standards and alleviate future fiscal pressures. An ambitious reform package combining labour market reforms to raise employment rates with reforms to eliminate early retirement pathways and keep effective retirement ages rising by two thirds of future gains in life expectancy could halve the projected increase in fiscal pressure in the median country, even after taking into account future spending pressures associated with ageing. |
| Keywords: | fiscal pressure, fiscal sustainability, labour market reform, long-term projection, long-term scenario, retirement age |
| JEL: | O4 H68 J11 E6 |
| Date: | 2021–10–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaab:29-en&r= |
| By: | Consolo, Agostino; Foroni, Claudia; Hernández, Catalina Martínez |
| Abstract: | We introduce a Bayesian Mixed-Frequency VAR model for the aggregate euro area labour market that features a structural identification via sign restrictions. The purpose of this paper is twofold: we aim at (i) providing reliable and timely forecasts of key labour market variables and (ii) enhancing the economic interpretation of the main movements in the labour market. We find satisfactory results in terms of forecasting, especially when looking at quarterly variables, such as employment growth and the job finding rate. Furthermore, we look into the shocks that drove the labour market and macroeconomic dynamics from 2002 to early 2020, with a first insight also on the COVID-19 recession. While domestic and foreign demand shocks were the main drivers during the Global Financial Crisis, aggregate supply conditions and labour supply factors reflecting the degree of lockdown-related restrictions have been important drivers of key labour market variables during the pandemic. JEL Classification: J6, C53, C32, C11 |
| Keywords: | Bayesian VAR, labour market, mixed frequency data |
| Date: | 2021–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20212601&r= |
| By: | Garance Genicot (Department of Economics, Georgetown University); Cait Brown (Department of Economics, University of Manchester); Nishtha Kochhar (Department of Economics, Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | While political reservations aim to ensure a more equal representation for women and disadvantaged groups, they also impose effective term limits on many incumbent politicians who would otherwise have had a chance to contest elections again. By decreasing the future electoral prospects of politicians, next-period reservations may affect politicians’ present resource allocations and worsen elite capture. We first illustrate this issue using a theoretical model in which the allocation of public resources is a trade-off between the incentive of the incumbent to increase their future electoral prospects and their incentive to cater to elites. Using detailed data from India, we then estimate the differences in public resource allocations between term- and non-term-limited village presidents. We find that term-limited presidents provide relatively fewer public goods to heavily populated streets (with many potential votes), and instead allocate more public goods to the streets of the landed elite. We also find that term-limited presidents provide more private benefits to landed households. These findings appear to be driven predominately by term-limited lower-caste presidents. Our findings have important implications for the interpretation of the effects of political reservations and understanding elite capture in rural India. |
| Keywords: | Term-limits, political reservations, elite capture, public goods, India |
| JEL: | D72 H41 I38 J18 O18 P16 |
| Date: | 2021–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:geo:guwopa:gueconwpa~21-21-19&r= |