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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Davide Alonzo (Université de Montréal); Giovanni Gallipoli (Vancouver School of Economics, UBC) |
| Abstract: | We characterize the employment value of different worker-occupation matches and estimate the substitutability of match-specific inputs in production. In an equilibrium model of the U.S. labor market, we examine the responses of employment and wages to shifts in technology and match values. Earnings are mainly driven by technology while match value heterogeneity influences the distribution of workers across occupations. The model delivers measures of rents and compensating differentials. After 1980, employment rents increased for educated workers but stagnated for others. Compensating differentials have risen on average, particularly in occupations where worker mobility has grown. |
| Keywords: | employment, wages, equilibrium, technological change, heterogeneity, occupations |
| JEL: | D51 D58 J20 J30 J62 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2023-009&r=lab |
| By: | Alexey Gorn; Antonella Trigari |
| Abstract: | We study the stabilizing role of benefit extensions. We develop a tractable quantitative model with heterogeneous agents, search frictions, and nominal rigidities. The model allows for a stabilizing aggregate demand channel and a destabilizing labor market channel. We characterize each channel analytically and find that aggregate demand effects quantitatively prevail in the US. When feeding-in estimated shocks, the model tracks unemployment in the two most recent downturns. We find that extensions lowered unemployment by a maximum of 0.35 pp in the Great Recession, while the joint stabilizing effect of extensions and benefit compensation peaked at 1.08 pp in the pandemic. Keywords: cyclical unemployment insurance; heterogeneous agents; search frictions; nominal rigidities; Great Recession; Covid-19 recession. JEL codes: E24, E32, E52, J63, J64, J65. |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:igi:igierp:694&r=lab |
| By: | Priyaranjan Jha; Karan Talathi |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of the Indian trade liberalization of 1991 on development at the district level using satellite nighttime lights per capita as a proxy for development. We find that on average trade liberalization increased nighttime lights per capita but there was considerable heterogeneity in the effect. In particular, districts in states with flexible labor laws, districts with better road networks, proximity to the coast, or higher female labor force participation rate seem to have benefited more than other districts. |
| Keywords: | trade liberalization, nighttime lights, per capita income, tariffs, labor laws |
| JEL: | F13 F14 O11 O24 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10294&r=lab |
| By: | Katrin Huber (University of Potsdam, CEPA, BSE); Geske Rolvering (University of Passau) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of public child care on mothers’ career trajectories. To this end, we combine county-level data on child care coverage with detailed individual-level information from the German social security records and exploit a set of German reforms leading to a substantial temporal and spatial variation in child care coverage for children under the age of three. We conduct an event study approach that investigates the labor market outcomes of mothers in the years around the birth of their first child. We thereby explore career trajectories, both in terms of quantity and quality of employment. We find that public child care improves maternal labor supply in the years immediately following childbirth. However, the results on quality-related outcomes suggest that the effect of child care provision does not reach far beyond pure employment effects. These results do not change for mothers with different ‘career costs of children’. |
| Keywords: | child care, maternal employment, career costs of children, women’s careers |
| JEL: | J08 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2023–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:64&r=lab |
| By: | Michael Landesmann (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw); Sandra M. Leitner (The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw) |
| Abstract: | This paper estimates conditional demand models to examine the impact of offshoring, technological change, and migration on the labour demand of native workers differentiated by four different types of occupational groups managers/professionals, clerical workers, craft (skilled) workers and manual workers. The analysis is conducted for an unbalanced panel of five economies Austria, Belgium, France, Spain, and Switzerland covering the period 2005-2018. Our results point to important and occupation-specific effects offshoring seems to have beneficial employment effects for native craft workers in this set of economies, while negative effects for native manual workers across a wide set of industries (including manufacturing and services industries) and managers/professionals in manufacturing. Furthermore, there are important distinctions whether offshoring occurs in other advanced economies, in the EU13 or in developing countries. The analysis of the impact of technological change shows the strong positive impact which the additional IT equipment has on most occupational groups of native workers (with the exception of manual workers), while robotisation in manufacturing showed strongly negative impacts on the employment of all groups of workers and especially of craft workers. Increasing immigrant shares in the work forces showed strongly negative impacts on native workers – however, considering only the partial substitution effects and not including the potential for productivity and demand effects – and this is mostly accounted for by immigration from low- to medium-income source countries. |
| Keywords: | Employment, occupational groups, offshoring, technological change, immigration |
| JEL: | F16 F22 F66 O33 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wii:wpaper:226&r=lab |
| By: | Cseres-Gergely, Zsombor (European Commission); Kecht, Valentin (University of Bonn); Le Blanc, Julia (European Commission); Onorante, Luca (European Commission) |
| Abstract: | In response to the two waves of Covid-19 in 2020, the Italian government implemented a general lockdown in March, but geographically targeted policies during fall. We exploit this natural experiment to compare the effects of the two policies in a difference-in-differences design, leveraging a unique database combining traditional, municipality-level and big data at weekly frequency. We find that the general lockdown of the first wave strongly reduced mobility at a high price in terms of employment, while the targeted policies during the second wave induced a lower decrease in mobility and little additional economic cost. We also study the role of pre-existing municipality characteristics and labour market policies in shaping these responses. Our results suggest that working from home and short-term work schemes buffered the adverse consequences of the drop in economic activity on the labour market. Both mechanisms, however, acted more strongly in high-income areas and among white collar workers, exacerbating existing inequalities. |
| Keywords: | Covid-19, human mobility, lockdowns, big data, differences-in-differences |
| JEL: | I12 I18 H12 D04 C33 H51 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrs:wpaper:202301&r=lab |
| By: | Lorenti, Angelo; Jessica, Nisen; Mencarini, Letizia; Myrskylä, Mikko |
| Abstract: | Women’s labor force participation has increased remarkably in western countries, but important gender gaps still remain, especially among parents. This paper uses a novel comparative perspective assessing women’s and men’s mid-life employment trajectories by parity and education. We provide new insight into the gendered parenthood penalty by analyzing the long-term implications, beyond the core childbearing ages by decomposing years lived between ages 40 to 74 into years in employment, inactivity, and retirement. We compare three countries with very different institutional settings and cultural norms: Finland, Italy, and the U.S. Our empirical approach uses the multistate incidence-based life table method. Our results document large cross-national variation, and the key role that education plays. In Finland years employed increase with parity for women and men and the gender gap is small; in the U.S. the relation between parity and years is relatively flat, whereas among those with two or more children a gender gap emerges; and in Italy, years employed decreases sharply with parity for women, and increases for men. Education elevates years employed similarly for all groups in Finland; but in the U.S and Italy, highly educated mothers experience only half of the gender gap compared to low-educated mothers. The employment trajectories of childless women and men differ greatly across countries. |
| Date: | 2023–03–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:gmqd9&r=lab |
| By: | Davide M. Coluccia; Gaia Dossi; Sebastian Ottinger |
| Abstract: | How can racial discrimination harm innovation? We study this question using data on US inventors linked to population censuses in 1895-1925. Our novel identification strategy leverages plausibly exogenous variation in the timing of lynchings and the name of the victims. We find an immediate and persistent decrease in patents granted to inventors who share their names with the victims of lynchings, but only when victims are Black. We hypothesize that lynchings accentuate the racial content of the victim’s name to patent examiners, who do not observe inventor race from patent applications. We interpret these findings as evidence of discrimination by patent examiners and provide evidence against alternative mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination; Innovation; Lynchings; |
| JEL: | J15 N31 N32 O11 O31 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp749&r=lab |
| By: | Brehm, Johannes,; Doku, Angela,; Escudero, Verónica, |
| Abstract: | This paper examines these elements in the context of South Africa and Indonesia– two middle-income countries with similar development levels yet different labour market characteristics. We employ a comparative cross-country methodology using long-term panel data. |
| Keywords: | informal employment, economic sector, rural employment, youth employment, occupational qualification |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ilo:ilowps:995225290102676&r=lab |
| By: | Chiswick, Barry R.; Robinson, RaeAnn H. |
| Abstract: | This paper is concerned with analyzing the occupational status of American Jewish men compared to other free men in the mid-19th century to help fill a gap in the literature. It does this by using the 1/100 microdata sample from the 1850 Census of Population, the first census to ask occupation. Two independent lists of surnames are used to identify men with a higher probability of being Jewish. The men identified as Jews had a higher probability of being professionals, managers, and craft workers, and were less likely to be in farm occupations or in operative jobs. Using the Duncan Socioeconomic Index (SEI), the Jewish men have a higher SEI overall. In the multiple regression analysis, it is found that among Jewish and other free men occupational status increases with age (up to about age 44 for all men), literacy, being married, being native born, living in the South, and living in an urban area. Controlling for a set of these variables, Jews have a significantly higher SEI, which is the equivalent of about half the size of the effect of being literate. This higher occupational status is consistent with patterns found elsewhere for American Jews throughout the 20th century. |
| Keywords: | Jews, Occupational Status, Duncan Socioeconomic Index, 1850 Census of Population, Antebellum America, Labor Market Analysis, Human Capital |
| JEL: | N31 J62 J15 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1256&r=lab |
| By: | Pascal Michaillat |
| Abstract: | Immigrants are always accused of stealing people's jobs. Yet, in a neoclassical model of the labor market, there are jobs for everybody and no jobs to steal. (There is no unemployment, so anybody who wants to work can work.) In standard matching models, there is some unemployment, but labor demand is perfectly elastic so new entrants into the labor force are absorbed without affecting jobseekers' prospects. Once again, no jobs are stolen when immigrants arrive. This paper shows that in a matching model with job rationing, in contrast, the entry of immigrants reduces the employment rate of native workers. Moreover, the reduction in employment rate is sharper when the labor market is depressed -- because jobs are more scarce then. Because immigration reduces labor-market tightness, it makes it easier for firms to recruit and improves firm profits. The overall effect of immigration on native welfare depends on the state of the labor market. It is always negative when the labor market is inefficiently slack, but some immigration improves welfare when the labor market is inefficiently tight. |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2303.13319&r=lab |