|
on Labour Economics |
| By: | Qiwei He; Philipp Kircher |
| Abstract: | This study documents how job seekers update perceived job-finding prospects by unemployment duration and by learning about aggregate unemployment. We find that job seekers perceive an 18% decline in their job-finding probability for each additional month of unemployment, but perceive a higher job-finding probability when the aggregate unemployment rate is unexpectedly low. We develop a job search model with learning and updating to quantify the impact of perceived aggregate unemployment on subjective job-finding probabilities, revealing an overreaction to news about aggregate conditions. These beliefs can potentially offset a non-trivial part of the negative consequences of moral hazard in job search. |
| JEL: | D83 E24 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31940&r=lab |
| By: | Cecilia Machado; Valdemar Neto; Christiane Szerman |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates how firms and workers respond to a voluntary government-funded program increasing the duration of paid maternity leave from four to six months in Brazil. We show that larger, higher-paying, and more productive firms are more likely to provide extended leaves to workers. Exploiting the gradual implementation of extended leave across firms and the exact time of leave-taking, we present four key findings. First, we find an incomplete take-up of 35 percent among eligible workers, largely driven by those with high socioeconomic status. Second, firms and workers strategically defer job separations to extract rents from the government. Third, extended leave has no long-term impact on maternal labor market outcomes. Fourth, job security and information transmission about leave extensions boost take-up and reduce deferred job separations. The results illustrate that distributional concerns can justify the mandated provision of extensions in paid maternity leave. |
| Keywords: | maternity leave, labor market, social insurance |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10736&r=lab |
| By: | David C. Maré (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research); Richard Fabling (New Zealand Productivity Commission); Dean R. Hyslop (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | Past research finds evidence that workers’ labour market outcomes are enhanced if they live in areas with greater job opportunities and employment density. Using two alternative measures of the employment density and job opportunities faced by workers in the local labour market in which they were displaced, this paper analyses their effects on the subsequent migration decisions and labour market outcomes of workers who involuntarily lose their jobs as part of a firm closure or mass layoff event. Our analysis finds only limited support for the spatial mismatch hypothesis. The results imply that workers displaced from jobs in areas with greater employment density or job opportunities are more likely to emigrate, are less likely to be re-employed following layoff and have lower subsequent earnings, although earnings are higher conditional on being employed. However, if employed, workers displaced in areas with more opportunities are less likely to have moved area, but more likely to have changed industry, and have a more similar job to that from which they were displaced. |
| Keywords: | Displaced workers; unemployment duration; local labour markets |
| JEL: | J62 J64 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mtu:wpaper:23_12&r=lab |
| By: | Matthew S. Johnson; Kurt J. Lavetti; Michael Lipsitz |
| Abstract: | We analyze how the legal enforceability of noncompete agreements (NCAs) affects labor markets. Using newly-constructed panel data, we find that higher NCA enforceability diminishes workers’ earnings and job mobility, with larger effects among workers most likely to sign NCAs. These effects are far-reaching: changes in enforceability impose externalities on workers across state borders, suggesting that enforceability broadly affects labor market dynamism. We provide evidence that NCA enforceability primarily affects wages through its effect on workers' outside options; moreover, workers facing high enforceability are unable to leverage tight labor markets to increase earnings. We motivate these findings by embedding NCA enforceability in a search model with bargaining. Finally, higher NCA enforceability exacerbates gender and racial earnings gaps. |
| JEL: | J08 J31 J38 J61 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31929&r=lab |
| By: | Kaas, Leo; Lalé, Etienne; Siassi, Nawid |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a macroeconomic model that combines an incomplete-markets overlapping-generations economy with a job ladder featuring sequential wage bargaining, endogenous search effort of employed and non-employed workers, and differences in match quality. The calibrated model offers a good fit to the empirical age profiles of search activity, job-finding rates, wages and savings, so that we use the model to examine the role of age and wealth for worker flows and for the consequences of job loss. We further analyze the impact of unemployment insurance and progressive taxation for labor market dynamics and aggregate economic activity via capital, employment and labor efficiency channels. Lower unemployment benefits or a less progressive tax schedule bring about welfare losses for a newborn worker household. |
| Keywords: | Search and matching, ob-to-job transitions, Incomplete markets, Overlapping generations, Wealth accumulation |
| JEL: | E21 E24 H24 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:tuweco:280694&r=lab |
| By: | Matthew Gudgeon; Pablo Guzman-Pinto; Johannes Schmieder; Simon Trenkle; Han Ye |
| Abstract: | This paper shows empirically that the non-employment effects of unemployment insurance (UI) for older workers depend in a first-order way on the structure of retirement policies. Using German data, we first present reduced-form evidence of these interactions, documenting large bunching in UI inflows at the age that allows workers to claim their pension following UI expiration. We then estimate a dynamic life-cycle model and use it to directly quantify how the effects of UI vary with retirement policies. Accounting for interactions across UI and retirement institutions also helps explain otherwise difficult-to-explain trends in the unemployment rate of older German workers. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment insurance, moral hazard, retirement, older workers, interactions |
| JEL: | J26 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_481&r=lab |
| By: | Uroš Herman (Aix-Marseille Univ., CNRS, AMSE, Marseille, France); Matija Lozej (Central Bank of Ireland, Macroeconomic Modelling) |
| Abstract: | This paper first provides empirical evidence that labour market outcomes for the less educated workers, who also tend to be poorer, are substantially more volatile than those for the well-educated, who tend to be richer. We estimate job finding rates and separation rates by educational attainment for several European countries and find that job finding rates are smaller and separation rates larger at lower educational attainment levels. At cyclical frequencies, fluctuations of the job finding rate explain up to 80% of unemployment fluctuations for the less educated. We then construct a stylised HANK model augmented with search and matching and ex-ante heterogeneity in terms of educational attainment. We show that monetary policy has stronger effects when the job market for the less educated and, hence, poorer workers is more volatile. The reason is that these workers have the most procyclical income coupled with the highest marginal propensity to consume. An expansionary monetary policy shock that increases labour demand disproportionally affects the labour market segment for the less educated, causing a strong increase in consumption. This further amplifies labour demand and increases the labour income of the poor even more, amplifying the initial effect. The same mechanism carries over to forward guidance. |
| Keywords: | heterogeneous agents, Search and matching, monetary policy, business cycles, Employment |
| JEL: | E40 E52 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aim:wpaimx:2334&r=lab |
| By: | Karpowitz, Christopher F. (Brigham Young University); O'Connell, Stephen D. (Emory University); Preece, Jessica (Brigham Young University); Stoddard, Olga B. (Brigham Young University) |
| Abstract: | Policies that increase women's representation often intend to provide women with influence over processes and decisions of the organization in which they are implemented. This paper studies the effect of gender composition and leadership on women's influence in two field experiments. Our first study finds that male-majority teams accord disproportionately less influence to women and are less likely to choose women to represent the team externally. We then replicate this finding in a new context and with a larger sample. To investigate the relationship between formal leadership and women's influence and authority, the second study also varied the gender of an assigned team leader. We find that a female leader substantially increases women's influence, even in male-majority teams. With a model of discriminatory voting, we show that either increasing the share of women or assigning a female leader reduces the rate at which individual teammates discriminate against women by more than 50%. These conditions both increase the influence of women and improve women's experience in work teams by creating an institutional environment that reduces the expression of discriminatory behavior at the individual level. |
| Keywords: | gender, field experiment |
| JEL: | J16 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16625&r=lab |
| By: | Tranberg Bodilsen, Simon (Aarhus University); Nielsen, Søren Albeck (Aarhus University); Rosholm, Michael (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | In an era characterized by population aging and economic challenges in welfare states across the world, sustaining these welfare systems requires a large workforce. Many individuals outside the labor market aspire to work but encounter a labyrinth of obstacles. While Public Employment Services employ Active Labor Market Policies, their effectiveness for this group remains uncertain. This study introduces the Employment Readiness Indicator Questionnaire (ERIQ), transcending traditional employment categories by assessing individuals' progress toward employment and measuring employment readiness for those labeled "hard-to-place". Integrating socially vulnerable clients into the labor market remains an unsolved challenge. ERIQ demonstrates impressive predictive abilities and points towards actionable recommendations by identifying malleable traits, such as social skills, coping strategies, goal orientation, and self-efficacy, that significantly impact employment readiness. ERIQ emerges as a valuable resource for policymakers and practitioners, advancing the goal of promoting labor market participation for socially vulnerable individuals. |
| Keywords: | employment readiness, social assistance, machine learning, predictive algorithms |
| JEL: | J60 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16626&r=lab |
| By: | Johan Klaesson; Özge Öner; Dieter Pennerstorfer |
| Abstract: | This article provides causal evidence of the significant role ethnic networks play in facilitating labor market integration by reducing information frictions. Using full population geocoded employer-employee matched Swedish register data, we investigate how co-ethnic commuters can influence the work location of immigrants for their initial employment. We argue that these ethnic peers transmit job specific information from their places of work to fellow ethnic peers within the same residential neighborhood who seek jobs. We find that a new immigrant’s likelihood of securing their first job at a certain location increases with the presence of co-ethnic commuters from their residential neighborhood: Each additional commuter of the same ethnic network increases the probability of finding employment in a specific neighborhood by 2.3%. This effect is more pronounced for women, co-ethnic commuters with similar education levels, and immigrants who land their first jobs in larger firms. |
| Keywords: | Co-ethnic commuters, information frictions, ethnic networks, labor market integration, ethnic enclaves |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J64 O18 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2023-16&r=lab |
| By: | Jeffrey Hicks (Department of Economics, University of Toronto); Gaëlle Simard-Duplain (Department of Economics, Carleton University); David A. Green (Vancouver School of Economics, University of British Columbia); William Warburton (Enterprise Economic Consulting) |
| Abstract: | Welfare caseloads in North America halved following reforms in the 1990s and 2000s. We study how this shift affected families by linking Canadian welfare records to tax returns, medical spending, educational attainment, and crime data. We find substantial and heterogenous employment responses that increased average income despite reduced transfers. We find zero effects on aggregate health expenditures, but mothers saw reduced preventative care and increased mental health treatment, consistent with the transition to employment elevating time pressure and stress. We find no effect on teenagers' education and criminal charges as young adults but do find evidence of intergenerational welfare transmission. |
| JEL: | H23 H31 I14 I24 I38 J62 |
| Date: | 2023–10–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:car:carecp:23-05&r=lab |
| By: | Castro-Pires, Henrique (University of Surrey); Mello, Marco (University of Aberdeen); Moscelli, Giuseppe (University of Surrey) |
| Abstract: | We exploit the 2016 Brexit referendum as a migration shock to evaluate the impact of reduced labour supply on the provision of hospital care. After the referendum, a sharp drop in the number of early-career new joiners from Europe resulted in a considerable decrease in the share of EU nurses in the English NHS. Using an enclave instrumental variable empirical strategy, we find that emergency readmission rates increased, and more so in hospital organizations more exposed to the missing inflow of new joiners. A theoretical model shows that this is consistent with a decrease in the quality of new hires. |
| Keywords: | labour supply, workers' mobility, immigration, patient care, hospital quality, Brexit |
| JEL: | J45 J61 J68 I11 C26 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16616&r=lab |
| By: | Francesco Fasani (University of Milan); Tomamso Frattini (University of Milan); Maxime Pirot (University of Milan) |
| Abstract: | Is naturalization an effective tool to boost refugees’ labor market integration? We address this novel empirical question by exploring survey data from 21 European countries and leveraging variation in citizenship laws across countries, time, and migrant groups as a source of exogenous variation in the probability of naturalization. We find that obtaining citizen status allows refugees to close their gaps in labor market outcomes relative to non refugee migrants while having non-significant effects on the latter group. We then further explore the heterogeneity of returns to citizenship in a Marginal Treatment Effect framework, showing that migrants with the lowest propensity to naturalize would benefit the most if they did. This reverse selection on gains can be explained by policy features that make it harder for more vulnerable migrant groups to obtain citizenship, suggesting that a relaxation of eligibility constraints would yield benefits for both migrants and host societies. |
| Keywords: | Forced migration, citizenship, asylum policy |
| JEL: | J15 J61 F22 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2316&r=lab |
| By: | Chao Gu (University of Missouri); Janet Hua Jiang (Bank of Canada); Liang Wang (University of Hawaii) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of the firm's credit condition on labor market performance and the relationship between expected inflation and unemployment in a new monetarist model. Better credit condition improves labor market outcomes as fi rms save on their cash financing cost, improve pro tability, and create more vacancies. Inflation affects unemployment through two opposing channels. First, inflation increases the firm's fi nancing cost, which discourages job creation and increases unemployment. Second, inflation lowers wages through bargaining because unemployed workers more heavily rely on cash transactions and suffer more from inflation compared to employed workers. This encourages job creation. The overall effect of inflation on employment depends on the firm's credit condition. We calibrate the model to match U.S. data. The calibrated model suggests a downward-sloping Phillips curve with flexible wages. Finally, we fi nd that improvement in firm credit conditions is consistent with the flattening of the Phillips curve. |
| Keywords: | toxic assets, market freezes, negative returns, liquidity |
| JEL: | E24 E31 E44 E51 |
| Date: | 2023–12–16 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:2314&r=lab |
| By: | Kasey Buckles; Joseph Price; Zachary Ward; Haley E.B. Wilbert |
| Abstract: | Efforts to document long-term trends in socioeconomic mobility in the United States have been hindered by the lack of large, representative datasets that include information linking parents to their adult children. This problem has been especially acute for women, who are more difficult to link because their surnames often change between childhood and adulthood. In this paper, we use a new dataset, the Census Tree, that overcomes these issues by building on information from an online genealogy platform. Users of the platform have private information that allows them to create links among the 1850 to 1940 decennial censuses; the Census Tree combines these links with others obtained using machine learning and traditional linking methods to produce a dataset with hundreds of millions of census-to-census links, nearly half of which are for women. With these data, we produce estimates of the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status from fathers to their sons and daughters. We find that for married men and women, the patterns of mobility over this period are remarkably similar. Single women, however, are less mobile than their male counterparts. We also present new estimates that show that assortative mating was much stronger than previously estimated for the US. |
| JEL: | I30 J0 N0 N01 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31918&r=lab |
| By: | Valentina Melentyeva (University of Cologne and ECONtribute); Lukas Riedel (ZEW Mannheim and University of Heidelberg) |
| Abstract: | Motherhood continues to pose significant challenges to women’s careers, and a correct assessment of its effects is crucial for understanding the persistent gender inequality in the labor market. We show that the prevalent approach to estimate post-birth earnings losses – so called “child penalties” – is prone to yield substantially biased results. We demonstrate that the biases stem from conventional event studies pooling together first-time mothers of all ages, without considering their distinct characteristics and the varying impact of motherhood. To address the biases, we propose a novel approach that accounts for the heterogeneity by building upon recent advancements in the econometric literature on difference-in-differences models. Applying it to administrative data from Germany, we demonstrate that considering heterogeneity by maternal age at birth is crucial for both methodological correctness and a deeper understanding of gender inequality. Our approach yields substantially larger estimates of earnings losses after childbirth (by 20 percent), indicating that the costs of motherhood and related gender gaps in Germany are even larger than previously thought. Moreover, we demonstrate that effects and their interpretation differ significantly depending on maternal age at birth. We show that younger first-time mothers experience larger career costs of motherhood, as they miss out on the phase of the most rapid career progression. |
| Keywords: | Child penalty, maternal labor supply, heterogeneous treatment effects, event studies |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J31 C23 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:266&r=lab |
| By: | Bayly, Nicholas (Australian National University); Breunig, Robert (Australian National University); Wokker, Chris (Australian National University) |
| Abstract: | Despite a conventional wisdom that female board members positively impact firm performance, a thorough examination of the research to date reveals no consensus that female board members have either a positive or negative effect on firm performance. We build the largest dataset of Australian board appointments assembled to date. We use our data to demonstrate how difficult it is to replicate existing research, with one example from Australia and one from the US. Using event studies and regression analyses we demonstrate that there is little evidence that female board representation affects firm financial performance. |
| Keywords: | firm performance, board of directors, gender representation, female directors |
| JEL: | J16 N20 G32 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16617&r=lab |
| By: | Belot, Michèle (Cornell University); Kurmangaliyeva, Madina (Université Libre de Bruxelles); Reuter, Johanna (Johannes Kepler University Linz) |
| Abstract: | Diversity in employee representation is often advocated for its potential to promote the diversity of ideas, and thereby innovation. In this study, we shed light on the phenomenon of 'idea homophily', which is a tendency to be more interested in ideas closer to one's own. We first document recent trends in the Economics Academic junior hiring showing that women specializing in traditionally male-dominated fields are faring significantly better than their counterparts in female-dominated fields and even outperform their male peers. We then examine the demand for ideas in a college educated population with an Online experiment involving 500 participants. We find substantial gender differences in which ideas people are choosing to engage with. Also, when decision-makers are predominantly male, incentives encouraging engagement with female ideas increase substantially their demand, but disproportionately in male-dominated fields. In contrast, incentives encouraging ideas in female-fields in general increase exposure to female ideas but do not lead to an over-representation of either gender conditional on field. |
| Keywords: | gender diversity, innovation, homophily, hiring, academia |
| JEL: | J16 O30 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16631&r=lab |
| By: | Margarita Machelett (Banco de España) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes a large-scale field experiment conducted in the US auto repair industry to study the existence and structure of gender-based price discrimination in service markets. Women receive price quotes that are 2% (over 10 dollars) higher than those received by men. These differences disappear when women signal low search costs, suggesting statistical rather than taste-based discrimination. Price requests that appear to come from high-income households raise quotes for men but not women, eliminating the gender gap. The price gap also falls with the number of nearby repair shops, suggesting that market competition alleviates gender-based price discrimination. |
| Keywords: | competition, discrimination, field experiment, gender |
| JEL: | C93 D4 J16 J18 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:wpaper:2333&r=lab |
| By: | Pyka, Vinzenz (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Schnabel, Claus (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | We shed light on an understudied group: retirees in unions. Using representative individual-level data of 19 European countries, we find that the share of retirees in unions and the union density of retirees increased between 2008 and 2020. Econometric analyses indicate that on average retired workers' probability of union membership is 17 percentage points lower than that of active workers. This finding is consistent with social custom models and cost-benefit considerations. We further find that some determinants of union membership differ between active and retired workers and that standard membership models better explain the unionization of active than retired workers. |
| Keywords: | trade union, retirement, union membership, Europe |
| JEL: | J26 J51 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16604&r=lab |
| By: | Yulia Evsyukova; Felix Rusche; Wladislaw Mill |
| Abstract: | We assess the impact of discrimination on Black individuals’ job networks in the U.S. using a two-stage field experiment with 400+ fictitious LinkedIn profiles. Varying race via A.I.-generated images only, we find that Black profiles’ connection requests are accepted at significantly lower rates (Stage I) and their networks provide less information (Stage II). Leveraging our experimental design to eliminate first-stage endogeneity, we identify gatekeeping as the key driver of Black-White disparities. Examining users’ CVs reveals widespread discrimination across different social groups and – contrary to expert predictions – less discrimination among men and older users. |
| Keywords: | Discrimination, Job Networks, Labor Markets, Field Experiment |
| JEL: | J71 J15 C93 J46 D85 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2023_482&r=lab |
| By: | Skoglund, William (Department of Economic History, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I use a new plant-level dataset to investigate the relationship between wages and the regional strength of unions. Using a shift-share or ’Bartik’ instrumental variables approach, I disentangle the causal effect of union strength on wage levels. I find statistically and economically significant, heterogeneous union wage effects for men with the bottom of the distribution being impacted by union density and the top two-thirds being unaffected. I find a negative effect around the median for women and argue that unions, in general, were uninterested in the issues for women and were organizations mostly for men, by men. The paper contributes to the literature by providing the only evidence of a union wage effect in Sweden and, the earliest identified union wage effect anywhere—highlighting the importance of unions in shaping labor market outcomes in the early 20th century and showing that union wage effects have to be understood in their historical context. |
| Keywords: | Labor Market; Union Effect; Wages |
| JEL: | J01 J31 J51 |
| Date: | 2023–12–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:uuehwp:2023_009&r=lab |
| By: | Michael Fritsch; Alina Sorgner; Michael Wyrwich |
| Abstract: | We propose an extension of the standard occupational choice model to analyze the life satisfaction of senior entrepreneurs as compared to paid employees and particularly retirees in Germany. The analysis identifies income and health status as main factors that shape the relationship between occupational status and life satisfaction. Senior entrepreneurs enjoy higher levels of life satisfaction than retirees and senior paid employees. This higher life satisfaction is mainly due to their higher income. Physical and mental health play a crucial role in determining both an individual’s occupational status and their overall life satisfaction. We find that senior self-employed report to be healthier compared to other groups of elderly individuals. However, when controlling for health, retirees exhibit an even higher level of life satisfaction compared to their self-employed counterparts. Heterogeneity analysis of various types of senior entrepreneurs and senior paid employees confirms this general pattern. In addition, we find some evidence indicating that senior entrepreneurs may compromise their leisure time, a main asset of retired individuals. Implications for research, policy, and practitioners are discussed. |
| Keywords: | Senior entrepreneurship, health conditions, well‐being, life satisfaction, age |
| JEL: | L26 I31 J10 D91 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1196&r=lab |
| By: | Emanuele Colonnelli; Timothy McQuade; Gabriel Ramos; Thomas Rauter; Olivia Xiong |
| Abstract: | We conduct a field experiment in partnership with the largest job platform in Brazil to study how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices of firms affect talent allocation. We find both an average job-seeker's preference for ESG and a large degree of heterogeneity across socioeconomic groups, with the strongest preference displayed by highly educated, white, and politically liberal individuals. We combine our experimental estimates with administrative matched employer-employee microdata and estimate an equilibrium model of the labor market. Counterfactual analyses suggest ESG practices increase total economic output and worker welfare, while increasing the wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers. |
| JEL: | D2 G0 G3 G4 J0 O10 P0 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31913&r=lab |
| By: | Tim Bulman |
| Abstract: | Croatia’s labour market has made important progress over the past decade. Employment rates are rising, reducing the gap with OECD countries, and poverty has fallen. While important weaknesses remain, many dimensions of equity and working conditions are similar to OECD countries. Continuing this progress is essential for Croatia’s incomes and well-being to converge with OECD countries, to counter accelerating population ageing and to make the most of emerging opportunities, including from digitalisation and the green economy transition. For employers, filling increasingly advanced skill needs is a growing obstacle. Relatively few of the young and older adults are in work – contributing to weakening skills, lower incomes and higher poverty risks. Addressing these challenges will require dramatically expanding participation in re-skilling and adult education programmes, and raising the workforce’s flexibility, for example by strengthening active labour market policies, improving the housing market’s dynamism and making the most of immigrants’ and returned emigrants’ skills. This Working Paper relates to the 2023 OECD Economic Survey of Croatia. |
| Keywords: | access to housing, active labour market policies, adult, demographics, education and training, pension policies, skills, social protection, wage setting |
| JEL: | H24 H5 I2 I3 J11 J2 J3 J61 J65 R23 R31 |
| Date: | 2023–12–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1784-en&r=lab |
| By: | Gay, Victor |
| Abstract: | In this article, I perform a verification and a reproduction of the main results in Fernández and Fogli (2009), which estimates the role of culture in explaining the labor and fertility decisions of second generation immigrant women to the United States in 1970. While I am able to verify Fernández and Fogli's (2009) main results as well as their robustness relative to both labor and fertility decisions, I am unable to reproduce them relative to labor decisions in alternative samples drawn from the same underlying population. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Female Labor Force Participation, Fertility, Replication |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J24 Z13 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:i4rdps:91&r=lab |
| By: | Barry Chiswick (George Washington University) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a review of the literature in economics up to the early 1980s on the issue of estimating the earnings return to schooling and labor market experience. It begins with a presentation of Adam Smith's (1776) analysis of wage determination, with the second of his five points on compensating wage differentials being "the easiness or cheapness, or the difficulty and expense" of acquiring skills. It then proceeds to the analysis by Walsh (1935) estimating the net present value of investments at various levels of educational attainment. Friedman and Kuznets (1945) also used the net present value method to study the earnings in five independent professional practices. Based on the net present value technique, Becker (1964) estimates internal rates of return from high school and college/university schooling, primarily for native-born white men, but also for other demographic groups. The first regression-based approach is the development of the schooling-earnings function by Becker and Chiswick (1966), which relates the logarithm of earnings, as a linear function of years invested in human capital, with the application to years of schooling. This was expanded by Mincer (1974) to the "human capital earnings function" (HCEF), which added years of post-school labor market experience. Attractive features of the HCEF are discussed. Extensions of the HCEF in the 1970s and early 1980s account for interrupted labor marker experience, geographic mobility, and self-employment and unpaid family workers. |
| Keywords: | Human Capital, Schooling Earnings Function, Human Capital Earnings Function, Schooling, Labor Market Experience, Women, Immigrants, Less Developed Countries, Self-Employed, Unpaid Workers |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J3 J46 J61 O15 B29 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2023-12&r=lab |
| By: | Delaney, Judith M. (University of Bath); Devereux, Paul J. (University College Dublin) |
| Abstract: | Much research shows that students take account of their perceived comparative advantage in mathematics relative to verbal skills when choosing college majors and career tracks. There is also evidence for an important role for comparative advantage in explaining the gender gap in college STEM major choice. For these reasons, it is important to understand why student perceptions of comparative advantage may differ from true comparative advantage as determined by actual abilities. One plausible pathway is through teachers. We study gender differences in teacher evaluations of student comparative advantage relative to comparative advantage as measured by test scores. We show that findings are very sensitive to the methods used; commonly used methods are not equivalent and can give different results as they target different estimands. Using two recent UK cohort surveys, we show that these conceptual issues matter in practice when we evaluate whether teachers are likely to over-estimate female comparative advantage in English relative to mathematics. Our preferred estimates provide no evidence that teachers exaggerate the female advantage in English relative to mathematics and generally suggest the opposite. We conclude that differences in teacher judgement by gender do not provide another reason for the gender gap in STEM. |
| Keywords: | teacher bias, gender gaps, STEM, comparative advantage, math and English skills |
| JEL: | J16 I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16635&r=lab |
| By: | Emile Cammeraat (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Brinn Hekkelman (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Pim Kastelein (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Suzanne Vissers (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis) |
| Abstract: | Setbacks such as dismissal or illness can turn the lives of people upside down. This study shows that such adverse events can be anticipated in advance and that their occurrence is strongly interrelated. These insights suggest that social security policy should consider the fact that vulnerable groups are likely to face multiple difficulties at the same time. Using machine learning techniques and anonymous data on millions of Dutch people, this study maps out the entire probability distribution of a wide range of labor market and health shocks. The degree of inequality in risk exposure across the population is striking. Most people have a low probability of becoming seriously ill or dependent on social benefits, while one percent of people bears up to thirty times more risk compared to the population average. People with a flexible employment contract, low income, little wealth and migration background are overrepresented within this high-risk group. |
| JEL: | C53 H55 I10 J01 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpb:discus:453&r=lab |
| By: | Anupam Jena; David Slusky; Lilly Springer |
| Abstract: | Training to become a physician involves long work hours that can be physically demanding, particularly for surgeons. Are birth outcomes of physician mothers affected as a result? Using Texas birth data from 2007-2014, we compared birth outcomes between physicians and another highly educated group, lawyers, and between surgeons and non-surgeon physicians. Further, using a difference-in-differences framework, we examine whether the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education 2011 duty hour reform, which lowered trainee work hours, impacted the birth outcomes of babies born to physicians compared with lawyers. We find that physicians have lower birth weights and shorter pregnancies than lawyers with the results driven by physicians in surgical specialties. However, the duty hour reform appears to not have impacted birth outcomes. Thus, we find that physicians tend to have worse birth outcomes than lawyers and, in this case, the work reform did little to address the difference. |
| JEL: | I12 J13 J44 K32 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31955&r=lab |
| By: | OECD |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the link between gender diversity in senior management and firm-level productivity. For this purpose, it constructs a novel cross-country dataset with information on firms’ senior management group and other firm characteristics, covering both publicly listed and unlisted firms in manufacturing and non-financial market services across nine OECD countries. The main result from the analysis is that productivity gains from increasing gender diversity in senior management are highest among firms with low initial diversity. Increasing the female share to the sample average of 20% in firms with initially lower shares would increase aggregate productivity by around 0.6%. This suggests that improving women’s access to senior management positions matters not only for equity but could yield significant productivity gains. |
| Keywords: | gender siversity, senior management, total factor productivity |
| JEL: | M14 O47 J16 |
| Date: | 2023–12–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaac:34-en&r=lab |
| By: | Bonsang, Eric (Université Paris-Dauphine); Costa-Font, Joan (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | We revisit the universality of the "caregiving daughter effect", which holds that daughters tend to provide more care to their older parents than sons. Based on rich European data, we document evidence of such an effect in countries with large gender disparities in employment rates, where having daughters also depresses the demand for formal care. In contrast, we find evidence consistent with the "demise of the caregiving daughter" when exposed to narrower gender gaps, where there is no more daughters' effect on formal care. These results point to a reconsideration of caregiving system design amidst the rise of female employment. |
| Keywords: | informal care, formal care, daughters, caregiving daughter effect, gender employment gap, Europe, care substitution, social norms |
| JEL: | I18 J14 J3 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16615&r=lab |
| By: | Edwards, Ashley (College Board); Ortagus, Justin (University of Florida); Smith, Jonathan (Georgia State University); Smythe, Andria (Howard University) |
| Abstract: | Using data from nearly 1.2 million Black SAT takers, we estimate the impacts of initially enrolling in an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) on educational, economic, and financial outcomes. We control for the college application portfolio and compare students with similar portfolios and levels of interest in HBCUs and non-HBCUs who ultimately make divergent enrollment decisions - often enrolling in a four-year HBCU in lieu of a two-year college or no college. We find that students initially enrolling in HBCUs are 14.6 percentage points more likely to earn a BA degree and have 5 percent higher household income around age 30 than those who do not enroll in an HBCU. Initially enrolling in an HBCU also leads to $12, 000 more in outstanding student loans around age 30. We find that some of these results are driven by an increased likelihood of completing a degree from relatively broad-access HBCUs and also relatively high-earning majors (e.g., STEM). We also explore new outcomes, such as credit scores, mortgages, bankruptcy, and neighborhood characteristics around age 30. |
| Keywords: | returns to college, college choice, HBCUs |
| JEL: | I2 J1 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16632&r=lab |
| By: | Luisa Gagliardi; Enrico Moretti; Michel Serafinelli |
| Abstract: | We investigate the employment consequences of deindustrialization for 1, 993 cities in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and the United States. In all six countries we find a strong negative relationship between a city's share of manufacturing employment in the year of its country’s manufacturing peak and the subsequent change in total employment, reflecting the fact that cities where manufacturing was initially more important experienced larger negative labor demand shocks. But in a significant number of cases, total employment fully recovered and even exceeded initial levels, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs. Overall, 34% of former manufacturing hubs--defined as cities with an initial manufacturing employment share in the top tercile--experienced employment growth faster than their country's mean, suggesting that a surprisingly large number of cities was able to adapt to the negative shock caused by deindustrialization. The U.S. has the lowest share, indicating that the U.S. Rust Belt communities have fared relatively worse compared to their peers in the other countries. We then seek to understand why some former manufacturing hubs recovered while others didn't. We find that deindustrialization had different effects on local employment depending on the initial share of college-educated workers in the labor force. While in the two decades before the manufacturing peak, cities with a high college share experienced a rate of employment growth similar to those with a low college share, in the decades after the manufacturing peak, the employment trends diverged: cities with a high college share experienced significantly faster employment growth. The divergence grows over time at an accelerating rate. Using an instrumental variable based on the driving distance to historical colleges and universities, we estimate that a one standard deviation increase in local college share results in a rate of employment growth per decade that is 9.1 percentage points higher. This effect is in part explained by faster growth in human capital-intensive services, which more than offsets the loss of manufacturing jobs. |
| JEL: | J0 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31948&r=lab |
| By: | Masa Soric (University Hospital Dubrava.); Petar Soric (University of Zagreb, Faculty of Economics and Business.); Oscar Claveria (AQR-IREA, University of Barcelona.) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the relationship between different dimensions of economic uncertainty and suicide rates in England from 1985 to 2020, both in the short and long term. The study employs a non-linear autoregressive distributed lag framework for cointegration estimation. This approach allows testing for the existence of possible asymmetries in the response of suicide mortality to increased economic uncertainty. Uncertainty is gauged by different proxies that allow computing financial uncertainty and labour market uncertainty indicators. The analysis is replicated by gender and across regions, controlling for unemployment and economic growth. Overall, the analysis suggests that uncertainty intensified during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is in line with the stylized facts of economic uncertainty and its pronounced role in recessions. When replicating the experiment by gender, we find that women seem to be more sensitive to changes in uncertainty. Regarding the existence of asymmetries, we found that decreases in economic uncertainty have a greater impact on suicide mortality than increases. |
| Keywords: | Mental health; Suicide; Economic Uncertainty; Prevention; Time series analysis. JEL classification: C12; C32; I15; J17; Z18. |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ira:wpaper:202320&r=lab |
| By: | Lazuka, Volha (Lund University); Elwert, Annika (Lund University) |
| Abstract: | Sex education can impact pupils' sexual activity and convey the social norms regarding family formation and responsibility, which can have significant consequences to their future. To investigate the life-cycle effects of social norm transmission, this study draws on the introduction of comprehensive sex education in the curriculum of Swedish primary schools during the 1940s to the 1950s. Inspired by social-democratic values, sex education during this period taught students about abstinence, rational family planning choices, and the importance of taking social responsibility for their personal decisions. The study applies a state-of-the-art estimator of the difference-in-differences method to various outcomes of men and women throughout the life cycle. The results show that the reform affected most intended outcomes for men and women, ultimately decreasing gender inequality in earnings. The effects of the reform also extended to the succeeding generation of girls, encouraging them to choose a profession with prosocial responsibilities and engage in entrepreneurship. The findings suggest that social norms, internalized through school-based sex education, shape lifetime outcomes of individuals and their children in significant ways. |
| Keywords: | social norms, sex education, natural experiment, gender inequality, economic wellbeing, prosociality |
| JEL: | I25 J13 Z13 N34 P46 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16622&r=lab |
| By: | Giuseppe Rose (Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance 'Giovanni Anania', University of Calabria, Rende (Italy)); Francesco Mazzulla (Department of Economics, Statistics and Finance 'Giovanni Anania', University of Calabria, Rende (Italy)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effects of a policy implemented in Italy in 2012, deregulating the market of pharmacies, in order to reduce barriers to entry and improve competition. Drawing municipal-level data from Aida for the following years 2011-2019, we assess the impact of the reform on revenues and net profits of pharmacies located in municipalities where there have been new openings. In order to properly examine the policy that adopts a staggered implementation we propose an evaluation method that include three different estimation steps, using some recently developed methods to deal with staggered adoption, and an event study to compare our final results. Our findings show that relaxing occupational licensing decreased both revenues and net profits for treated pharmacies across all different specifications of the dependent variables. |
| Keywords: | occupational licensing, deregulation, staggered difference-in-differences, event-study, csdid, did_imputation, generalized difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | J01 L43 D45 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:clb:wpaper:202302&r=lab |
| By: | Catherine Laffineur (Université Côte d'Azur; GREDEG CNRS); Maria Minniti (Syracuse University, New-York); Benjamin Montmartin (SKEMA Business School) |
| Abstract: | Most individuals accumulate work experience before starting a venture. Does the knowledge gained from the worker’s occupation influential of the decision to become self-employed? Does it make a difference for the business? Data on the career history of individuals are used to identify whether being employed in an occupation requiring high managerial knowledge matter for the processes by which individuals move into and perform in all kinds of self-employment. We find that higher knowledge in management increases the likelihood to start a business and improves business performance. We also find that workers with higher knowledge in management perform better when they start an incorporated business. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Self-Employment, Occupational Choice, Firm Performance |
| JEL: | J62 L25 L26 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gre:wpaper:2023-19&r=lab |
| By: | Vassil Kirov; Lucia Kováčová; Martin Guzi; Jan Czarzasty; Dragoș Adăscăliței; Martin Kahanec |
| Abstract: | Eleven Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries joined the European Union in 2004, 2007 and 2013. During the COVID-19 pandemic, social partners in CEE have been active in efforts to mitigate the negative consequences of the economic downturn; however, evidence on the scope, scale, and effects of their roles in shaping policy responses to the pandemic remains scant. This paper provides early evidence on the role of social partners in shaping job preservation policies, focusing on three main types: short-time working arrangements; wage subsidies; and flexible work arrangements. It presents the main characteristics of the industrial relations systems and main social partners are five CEE countries: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, social partners in Bulgaria have engaged in an intensive social dialogue leading to national-level agreements and have actively taken part in the formulation of job preservation measures. |
| JEL: | J08 J38 J5 |
| Date: | 2023–12–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cel:dpaper:66&r=lab |
| By: | Farhan Majid; Jere R. Behrman; Hanna Wang |
| Abstract: | Most minimum wage (MW) research focuses on wage and employment impacts in high-income countries. Little is known about broader impacts, including on parental and child health in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) where most people affected by MWs live. This study studies MW effects on employment, earnings, parental health and child health in Indonesia, the third most-populous LMIC. Results include: MWs improve men’s earnings, parental hemoglobin, and child height-for- age and reduce pregnancy complications. This study highlights nuanced but positive roles MWs may play in improving parental and child health, despite not directly affecting women’s earnings and labor supplies. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, intergenerational health, Indonesia |
| JEL: | I14 I15 I18 J13 J38 J8 O1 |
| Date: | 2023–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1416&r=lab |
| By: | Gabriele Beccari; Matilde Giaccherini; Joanna Kopinska; Gabriele Rovigatti |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the factors that contributed to the proliferation of online COVID skepticism on Twitter across Italian municipalities. We demonstrate that socio-demographic factors are likely to mitigate the emergence of skepticism, while populist political leanings were more likely to foster it. Furthermore, we find that the presence of pre-COVID anti-vax sentiment, represented by old "truthers" on Twitter, amplifies online COVID skepticism in local communities. Additionally, exploiting the spatial variation in economic restrictive policies with severe implications for suspended workers belonging to non-essential economic sectors, we find that COVID skepticism spreads more in municipalities significantly affected by this economic lockdown. Finally, the diffusion of COVID skepticism is positively associated with COVID vaccine hesitancy. |
| Keywords: | Twitter, scepticism, public health, media, vaccines, Covid-19 |
| JEL: | I12 I18 J28 J60 C80 L82 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10803&r=lab |
| By: | Bradley T. Heim; Elena Patel; Shanthi Ramnath |
| Abstract: | We study the effect of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion on coverage dynamics following the sudden loss of coverage from an employer plan. This analysis leverages novel administrative data capturing monthly health insurance coverage for the U.S. population. Using these data, we develop several stylized facts describing the post-separation coverage dynamics. In addition, we use a difference-in-differences model to estimate the causal effect of Medicaid expansion on the duration of uninsurance following a separation from an employer plan. We find that Medicaid expansion increases the likelihood of finding coverage by 16% and reduces the duration of uninsurance by 12%. |
| Keywords: | Health insurance; Unemployment; Medicaid expansion |
| JEL: | J65 I13 I18 I38 |
| Date: | 2023–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedhwp:97421&r=lab |