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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Merkl, Christian (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Sauerbier, Timo (FAU, Erlangen Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the market share of the Federal Employment Agency as job intermediary declined after the Hartz-reforms. We propose a macroeconomic model of the labor market with a private and a public search channel and fit the model to various dimensions of the data. We show that direct intermediation activities of the Federal Employment Agency did not contribute to the decline of unemployment in Germany. By contrast, improved activation of unemployed workers reduced unemployed by 0.8 percentage points. Through the lens of an aggregate matching function, more activation is associated with a larger matching efficiency. |
| Keywords: | Hartz reforms, search and matching, reform of employment agency |
| JEL: | E24 E00 E60 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15714&r=lab |
| By: | Nicolò Gatti (Università della Svizzera Italiana); Fabrizio Mazzonna (Università della Svizzera Italiana); Raphaël Parchet (Università della Svizzera Italiana); Giovanni Pica (Università della Svizzera Italiana (USI) and CSEF.) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the impact of opening the labor market to qualified immigrants who hold fully equivalent diplomas as natives and share the same mother tongue. Leveraging the 2002 opening of the Swiss labor market to qualified workers from the European Union, we show that the policy led to a large inflow of young immigrants with highly heterogeneous effects on the wages and employment status of qualified natives. While incumbent natives experienced a wage gain and a decrease in the likelihood of becoming inactive, the opposite happened for young natives entering the labor market after the policy change. |
| Keywords: | qualified immigration, wage effects, worker substitutability, experience. |
| JEL: | F22 J08 J31 J61 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:656&r=lab |
| By: | Peter Arcidiacono; Attila Gyetvai; Arnaud Maurel; Ekaterina S. Jardim |
| Abstract: | This paper applies some of the key insights of dynamic discrete choice models to continuous-time job search models. We propose a novel framework that incorporates preference shocks into search models, resulting in a tight connection between value functions and conditional choice probabilities. Including preference shocks allows us to establish constructive identification of all the model parameters. Our method also makes it possible to estimate rich nonstationary job search models in a simple and tractable way, without having to solve any differential equations. We apply our framework to rich longitudinal data from Hungarian administrative records, allowing for nonstationarities in offer arrival rates, wage offers, and in the flow payoff of unemployment. Longer unemployment durations are associated with substantially worse wage offers and lower offer arrival rates, which results in accepted wages falling over time. |
| JEL: | C59 J62 J64 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30655&r=lab |
| By: | García-Suaza, Andrés; Gallego, Juan Miguel; Mayorga, Juan D.; Mondragón-Mayo, Angie; Sepúlveda, Carlos; Sarango Iturralde, Alexander |
| Abstract: | The increase in global immigration phenomena has impacted local labor markets. The process of social and economic assimilation is crucial to ensure the well-being of both natives and immigrants. This article analyzes the impacts of immigration from Venezuela to Colombia, differentiating the effects of recent and long-term immigration on natives and immigrants. We find that immigration has decreased employment and hourly wages; and increased informality, while the impact on unemployment is null. These effects are higher among immigrants in comparison with the native population. Our results show that even when adverse effects on labor market outcomes are estimated, there is evidence of adaptability to the immigration shock and that an assimilation process is taking place. |
| Keywords: | Migration; labor market; Assimilation; Colombia |
| JEL: | F22 O15 R23 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rie:riecdt:99&r=lab |
| By: | Petra E. Todd; Weilong Zhang |
| Abstract: | This paper develops and estimates a spatial general equilibrium job search model to study the effects of local and universal (federal) minimum wage policies on employment, wages, job postings, vacancies, migration/commuting, and welfare. In the model, workers, who differ in terms of location and education levels, search for jobs locally and in a neighboring area. If they receive remote offers, they decide whether to migrate or commute. Firms post vacancies in multiple locations and make offers subject to minimum wage constraints. The model is estimated using multiple databases, including the American Community Survey (ACS) and Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI), and exploiting minimum wage variation across state borders as well as time series variation (2005-2015). Results show that local minimum wage increases lead firms to post fewer wage offers in both local and neighboring areas and lead lower education workers to reduce interstate commuting. An out-of-sample validation finds that model forecasts of commuting responses to city minimum wage hikes are similar to patterns in the data. A welfare analysis shows how minimum wage effects vary by worker type and with the minimum wage level. Low skill workers benefit from local wage increases up to $10.75/hour and high skill workers up to $12.25/hour. The greatest per capital welfare gain (including both workers and firms) is achieved by a universal minimum wage increase of $12.75/hour. |
| JEL: | D04 D5 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30668&r=lab |
| By: | Anna Maria Mayda; Gianluca Orefice; Gianluca Santoni |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses the impact of skilled migrants on the innovation (patenting) activity of French firms between 1995 and 2010, and investigates the underlying mechanism. We present district-level and firm-level estimates and address endogeneity using a modified version of the shift-share instrument. Skilled migrants increase the number of patents at both the district and firm level. Large, high-productivity and capital-intensive firms benefit the most, in terms of innovation activity, from skilled immigrant workers. Importantly, we provide evidence that one channel through which the effect works is task specialization (as in Peri and Sparber, 2009). The arrival of skilled immigrants drives French skilled workers towards language-intensive, managerial tasks while foreign skilled workers specialize in technical, research-oriented tasks. This mechanism manifests itself in the estimated increase in the share of foreign inventors in patenting teams as a consequence of skilled migration. Through this channel, greater innovation is the result of productivity gains from specialization. |
| Keywords: | Skilled Immigration;Innovation;Patents |
| JEL: | F22 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cii:cepidt:2022-11&r=lab |
| By: | Diego Daruich (University of Southern California (Marshall), United States of America); Sabrina Di Addario (Bank of Italy); Raffaele Saggio (University of British Columbia, Canada) |
| Abstract: | We combine matched employer-employee data with firms’ financial records to study a 2001 Italian reform that lifted constraints on the employment of temporary contract workers while maintaining rigid employment protection regulations for employees hired under permanent contracts. Exploiting the staggered implementation of the reform across different collective bargaining agreements, we find that this policy change led to an increase in the share of temporary contracts but failed to raise employment. The reform had both winners and losers. Firms are the main winners as the reform was successful in decreasing labor costs, leading to higher profits. By contrast, young workers are the main losers since their earnings were substantially depressed following the policy change. Rent-sharing estimates show that temporary workers receive only two-thirds of the rents shared by firms with permanent workers, helping explain most of the labor costs and earnings reductions caused by the reform. |
| Keywords: | reform evaluation, contracts, employment, wages, profits |
| JEL: | D22 J08 K41 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_1390_22&r=lab |
| By: | Palffy, Patricia (University of Zurich); Lehnert, Patrick (University of Zurich); Backes-Gellner, Uschi (University of Zurich) |
| Abstract: | We analyze the relationship between social gender norms and adolescents' occupational choices by combining regional votes on constitutional amendments on gender equality with job application data from a large job board for apprenticeships. Results show that adolescent males in regions with stronger traditional social gender norms are more likely to apply for typically male occupations. This finding does not hold for females, suggesting that incentivizing men to break the norms and choose gender-atypical occupations (e.g., in healthcare) can be even more effective in accelerating advancement toward gender equality in the labor market than incentivizing women to choose STEM occupations. |
| Keywords: | occupational gender segregation, social norms, occupational choice |
| JEL: | J24 J16 I24 M59 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15704&r=lab |
| By: | Mark Duggan; Andrew C. Johnston; Audrey Guo |
| Abstract: | Unemployment insurance taxes are experience-rated to penalize firms that dismiss workers. We examine whether experience rating acts as an automatic stabilizer in the labor market. We exploit the fact that penalties for layoffs vary by state using detailed data on state tax schedules, and we measure whether firms react less to labor-demand shocks in the presence of greater layoff penalties. The average penalty for layoffs reduces firm adjustment to negative shocks by 11 percent. The results imply experience rating has a stabilizing influence on labor markets. Experience rating saved, for instance, nearly a million jobs in the Great Recession. |
| JEL: | H25 H71 J23 J65 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30651&r=lab |
| By: | Alonso Alfaro-Urena; Benjamin Faber; Cecile Gaubert; Isabela Manelici; Jose P. Vasquez |
| Abstract: | Multinational enterprises (MNEs) increasingly impose “Responsible Sourcing” (RS) standards on their suppliers worldwide, including requirements on worker compensation, benefits and working conditions. Are these policies just “hot air” or do they impact exposed suppliers and their workers? What is the welfare incidence of RS in sourcing countries? To answer these questions, we develop a quantitative general equilibrium (GE) model of RS and combine it with a unique new database. In the theory, we show that the welfare implications of RS are ambiguous, depending on an interplay between what is akin to an export tax (+) and a labor market distortion (–). Empirically, we combine the near-universe of RS rollouts by MNE subsidiaries in Costa Rica since 2009 with firm-to-firm transactions and matched employer-employee microdata. We find that RS rollouts lead to significant reductions in firm sales and employment at exposed suppliers, an increase in their salaries to initially low-wage workers and a reduction in their low-wage employment share. We then use the estimated effects and the microdata to calibrate the model and quantify GE counterfactuals. We find that while MNE RS policies have led to significant gains among the roughly one third of low-wage workers employed at exposed suppliers ex ante, the majority of low-wage workers lose due to adverse indirect effects on their wages and the domestic price index. |
| JEL: | F15 F63 O24 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30683&r=lab |
| By: | Mathias Fjaellegaard Jensen; Alan Manning |
| Abstract: | On average, children born in Denmark with immigrant parents (first-generation locals) have lower earnings, higher unemployment, less education, more welfare transfers, and more criminal convictions than children with local-born parents. This is different from the US where first-generation locals often have better unconditional outcomes. However, like the US, when we condition on parental socio-economic characteristics, first-generation locals generally perform as well or better than the children of locals. There is little distinctive about being a child of immigrants, other than the fact that they are more likely to come from deprived backgrounds. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Denmark, first-generation, deprived background |
| Date: | 2022–10–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1880&r=lab |
| By: | Ebba Mark; Ryan Rafaty; Moritz Schwarz |
| Abstract: | The United States, much like other countries around the world, faces significant obstacles to achieving a rapid decarbonization of its economy. Crucially, decarbonization disproportionately affects the communities that have been historically, politically, and socially embedded in the nation's fossil fuel production. However, this effect has rarely been quantified in the literature. Using econometric estimation methods that control for unobserved heterogeneity via two-way fixed effects, spatial effects, heterogeneous time trends, and grouped fixed effects, we demonstrate that mine closures induce a significant and consistent contemporaneous rise in the unemployment rate across US counties. A single mine closure can raise a county's unemployment rate by 0.056 percentage points in a given year; this effect is amplified by a factor of four when spatial econometric dynamics are considered. Although this response in the unemployment rate fades within 2-3 years, it has far-reaching effects in its immediate vicinity. Furthermore, we use cluster analysis to build a novel typology of coal counties based on qualities that are thought to facilitate a successful recovery in the face of local industrial decline. The combined findings of the econometric analysis and typology point to the importance of investing in alternative sectors in places with promising levels of economic diversity, retraining job seekers in places with lower levels of educational attainment, providing relocation (or telecommuting) support in rural areas, and subsidizing childcare and after school programs in places with low female labor force participation due to the gendered division of domestic work. |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2211.12619&r=lab |
| By: | Stefania Albanesi; Claudia Olivetti; Barbara Petrongolo |
| Abstract: | Using comparable data for 24 countries since the 1970s, we document gender convergence in schooling, employment and earnings, marriage delay and the accompanying decline in fertility, and the large remaining gaps in labor market outcomes, especially among parents. A model of time allocation illustrates how the specialization of spouses in home or market production responds to preferences, comparative advantages and public policies. We draw lessons from existing evidence on the impacts of family policies on women's careers and children's wellbeing. There is to date little or no evidence of beneficial effects of longer parental leave (or fathers' quotas) on maternal participation and earnings. In most cases longer leave delays mothers' return to work, without long-lasting consequences on their careers. More generous childcare funding instead encourages female participation whenever subsidized childcare replaces maternal childcare. Impacts on child development depend on counterfactual childcare arrangements and tend to be more beneficial for disadvantaged households. In-work benefits targeted to low-earners have clear positive impacts on lone mothers' employment and negligible impacts on other groups. While most of this literature takes policy as exogenous, political economy aspects of policy adoption help understand the interplay between societal changes, family policies and gender equality. |
| Keywords: | gender gaps, spousal specialisation, family policies |
| Date: | 2022–11–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1887&r=lab |
| By: | Kimberly Seung Goulart (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Jorge Rodríguez-Menés (Universitat Pompeu Fabra); Josep Maria Caroz Armayones (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) |
| Abstract: | The shift from an industrial economy to a knowledge and service economy over the last four decades has ignited a debate about what skills are now the most critical. The European Commission has placed skills development at the heart of its economic policies, as it believes that skill mismatches can lead to high unemployment rates, increased inequalities, and hindered innovation and corporate investment. However, little is known about the process in defining these new skills and workers' core competences, and how firms communicate their needs to jobseekers. This article takes a qualitative approach and adds insights into this process from the firm perspective. Through 14 interviews with human resource professionals, we observed that the processes for identifying, defining, and evaluating skills and competences differ greatly by job profile and seniority, as well as firm size. We also found that within our sample, soft and transversal skills were equally regarded and relied on heavily during the selection phase of the recruitment process. The practice of firms to define new and specialised competences by the tools and methods used to carry out the job was also widespread. These findings are a first step in improving our understanding of the firm’s recruitment process and talent acquisition. |
| Keywords: | Human resources, skills and competences, job analysis |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipt:laedte:202206&r=lab |
| By: | Roxana Gutierrez-Romero (School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London.) |
| Abstract: | This article estimates the impact of violence on emigration crossings from Guatemala to Mexico as final destination during 2009-2017. To identify causal effects, we use as instruments the variation in deforestation in Guatemala, and the seizing of cocaine in Colombia. We argue that criminal organizations deforest land in Guatemala, fueling violence and leading to emigration, particularly during exogenous supply shocks to cocaine. A one-point increase in the homicide rate differential between Guatemalan municipalities and Mexico, leads to 211 additional emigration crossings made by male adults. This rise in violence, also leads to 20 extra emigration crossings made by children. |
| Keywords: | violence, emigration, unaccompanied children, Central America, deforestation. |
| JEL: | C26 D74 F22 J15 K37 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cgs:wpaper:107&r=lab |
| By: | Alex Hollingsworth; Krzysztof Karbownik; Melissa A. Thomasson; Anthony Wray |
| Abstract: | The past century witnessed a dramatic improvement in public health, the rise of modern medicine, and the transformation of the hospital from a fringe institution to one essential to the practice of medicine. In this paper, we explore how access to the hospital and modern medicine affects mortality. We do so by leveraging a combination of novel data and a unique quasi-experiment: a large-scale hospital modernization program introduced by The Duke Endowment in the early twentieth century. The Endowment helped communities build and expand hospitals, obtain state-of-the-art medical technology, attract qualified medical personnel, and refine management practices. We find that access to a Duke-supported hospital reduced infant mortality by 10%, saving one life for every $20,000 (2017 dollars) spent. Effects were larger for Black infants (16%) than for White infants (7%), implying a reduction in the Black-White infant mortality gap by one-third. We show that the effect of Duke support persisted into later life with a 9% reduction in mortality between the ages of 56 and 65. We further provide evidence on the mechanisms that enabled these effects, finding that Endowment-supported hospitals attracted higher-quality physicians and were better able to take advantage of new medical innovations. |
| JEL: | I14 J13 N32 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30663&r=lab |
| By: | Utku U. Acikalin; Tolga Caskurlu; Gerard Hoberg; Gordon M. Phillips |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of lost intellectual property protection on innovation, competition, acquisitions, lawsuits and employment agreements. We consider firms whose ability to protect intellectual property (IP) using patents is weakened following the Alice Corp. vs. CLS Bank International Supreme Court decision. This decision has impacted patents in multiple areas including business methods, software, and bioinformatics. We use state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to identify firms’ existing patent portfolios’ potential exposure to the Alice decision. While all affected firms decrease patenting post-Alice, we find an unequal impact of decreased patent protection. Large affected firms benefit as their sales and market valuations increase, and their exposure to lawsuits decreases. They also acquire fewer firms post-Alice. Small affected firms lose as they face increased competition, product-market encroachment, and lower profits and valuations. They increase R&D and have their employees sign more nondisclosure agreements. |
| JEL: | D43 G34 O31 O33 O34 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30671&r=lab |
| By: | Li, Lingfang (Ivy); Wu, Yuting; Zhu, Xun; Chu, Rongwei; Hung, Iris |
| Abstract: | Migrant workers form a very important part of the labor force in the economic development of many countries. Their turnover decisions may affect the stability of the performance of manufacturing industries. It is important to understand what kind of individual behavioral preferences may affect their job changing frequency. This study conducts a lab-in-the-field experiment through a large online-to-offline job-matching platform to elicit manufacturing migrant workers’ preferences, such as uncertainty attitudes, intertemporal choices and social preferences, especially difference aversion. The study also surveyed their demographic characteristics and other factors related to their job choices. We find that subjects who are more risk seeking change jobs more frequently. We also use the job record data from the platform and conduct empirical analysis to investigate one explanation of this result: risk-seeking subjects possess more optimistic expectations of potential job opportunities and they are more likely to sample different jobs and thus generate higher job changing frequency. Our findings may help policy-makers and employers design policies or mechanisms to prevent exorbitant job-changing behavior. |
| Keywords: | migrant worker, preference, job turnover, job search, experiment |
| JEL: | C91 J01 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:115472&r=lab |
| By: | Gordon H. Hanson; Pia Orrenius; Madeline Zavodny |
| Abstract: | The share of US residents who were born in Latin America and the Caribbean plateaued recently, after a half century of rapid growth. Our review of the evidence on the US immigration wave from the region suggests that it bears many similarities to the major immigration waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries, that the demographic and economic forces behind Latin American migrant inflows appear to have weakened across most sending countries, and that a continued slowdown of immigration from Latin America post-pandemic has the potential to disrupt labor-intensive sectors in many US regional labor markets. |
| JEL: | F20 J6 O15 |
| Date: | 2022–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30666&r=lab |