|
on Labour Economics |
|
Issue of 2024‒05‒27
fifteen papers chosen by |
| By: | Hobbs, Duncan (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research); Strain, Michael R. (American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | In June 2020, Idaho announced the Return to Work Bonus program, which provided residents who returned to work with bonuses of up to $1, 500. Using multiple data sources, we present difference-in-differences, triple differences, and synthetic control estimates suggesting the program may have increased individual employment and accelerated flows into employment from unemployment and from nonparticipation in the labor force. We show the program likely increased state-level employment rates. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to study the effects of reemployment bonuses on the U.S. labor market outside an experimental setting. |
| Keywords: | reemployment bonus, unemployment insurance, employment |
| JEL: | J08 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16924&r=lab |
| By: | Teodora Boneva (University of Bonn); Marta Golin (University of Zurich); Katja Kaufmann (Bayreuth University); Christopher Rauh (University of Cambridge) |
| Abstract: | We provide representative evidence on the perceived returns to maternal labor supply. A mother's decision to work is perceived to have sizable impacts on child skills, family outcomes, and the mother's future labor market outcomes. Beliefs about the impact of additional household income can account for some, but not all, of the perceived positive effects. Perceived returns are predictive of labor supply intentions under different policy scenarios related to childcare availability and quality, two factors that are also perceived as important. An information experiment reveals that providing information about benefits of mothers working causally affects labor supply intentions. |
| Keywords: | Subjective expectations, maternal labor supply, childcare, child penalties |
| JEL: | J22 J13 I26 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:300&r=lab |
| By: | Diego Legal; Eric Young |
| Abstract: | We quantitatively evaluate the effects of UI on bankruptcy in an equilibrium model of labor market search and defaultable debt. First, we ask whether a standard unsecured credit model extended with labor market search and matching frictions can account for the negative correlation between UI caps and bankruptcy rates observed in the data. The model can account for this fact only if estimated with the employment rate among bankruptcy filers as a target. Not matching this employment rate underestimates the consumption smoothing benefits of UI cap increases, as the model assigns too much importance to unemployment shocks for driving default, and implies large welfare losses from increasing the cap rather than negligible gains. Second, with bankruptcy available, there are significant welfare gains from increasing the replacement rate above the calibrated value, but not in the absence of default. |
| Keywords: | consumer bankruptcy; unsecured credit; unemployment insurance |
| JEL: | J65 K35 E21 E24 J64 |
| Date: | 2024–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedcwq:98188&r=lab |
| By: | Steven J. Davis; Brenda Samaniego de la Parra |
| Abstract: | We build and analyze a new U.S. database that links 125 million applications to job vacancies and employer-side clients on Dice.com, an online platform for jobs and workers in software design, computer systems, engineering, financial analysis, management consulting, and other occupations that require technical skills. We find, first, that posting durations are quite short, often only two or three days, with a median of seven days. Second, labor market tightness has tiny effects on posting durations. Third, job seekers display a striking propensity to target new postings, with almost half of applications flowing to openings posted in the past 48 hours. Fourth, applications per posting are much too uneven to reflect random search, even within narrow market segments and job categories. Moreover, posted offer wages play no role in explaining the deviations from a random-search benchmark. Fifth, intermediaries play a huge role on both sides of the platform: Recruitment and staffing firms account for two-thirds of all postings and attract most of the applications. We relate these and other findings to theories of labor market search. |
| JEL: | J60 M50 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32320&r=lab |
| By: | Jennifer Hunt; Carolyn Moehling |
| Abstract: | We create a dataset of 14, 000 hand-coded help–wanted advertisements placed by employment agencies in three U.S. newspapers in 1950 and 1960, a time when help–wanted advertisements were divided into male and female sections, and collect information on agency ownership. We find that female-owned agencies specialized in vacancies for women, thereby expanding the access of female jobseekers to agency services, including for positions in majority-male occupations. Female-owned agencies advertised more skilled occupations to women than did male-owned agencies, leading to a 5.5% higher wage for women. On the other hand, female-owned agencies had a greater propensity to match male jobseekers to clerical jobs, contributing to 21% lower male wages than for male-owned agencies. The results are consistent with female proprietors having had a comparative advantage in female jobseekers and clerical occupations or with client firms having trusted female proprietors only with vacancies for women and homogeneous, lower-skill occupations. However, in choosing to establish an agency and to specialize in female jobseekers, female proprietors may have sought to mitigate employer discrimination against female jobseekers; their higher propensity to advertise majority-male occupations among professional, technical and managerial advertisements for women may also reflect discrimination mitigation. |
| JEL: | J16 J63 J71 N32 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32383&r=lab |
| By: | Alberto González Pandiella; Alessandro Maravalle |
| Abstract: | Continuing the recent fall in income inequality and poverty will necessitate stepping up efforts to both address pressing social issues and bolster economic growth. Redoubling efforts to improve education outcomes would help Mexicans gaining the skills needed to participate in an evolving job market and boost Mexico’s growth potential. Mexico has much to gain from closing gender participation gaps, as it would lead to stronger growth overall and to a more equitable distribution of income and opportunities. Reducing informality would not only ensure greater job security and social protection for workers but also stimulate economic growth. |
| Keywords: | Care, Early Childhood Education, Education, Female Labour Participation, Gender, Informality, Skills, Social protection |
| JEL: | I2 J16 E26 |
| Date: | 2024–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1800-en&r=lab |
| By: | Matija Kovacic (Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Cristina Elisa Orso (Department of Law, Economics and Cultures, University of Insubria) |
| Abstract: | Women continue to be underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), which represent an important and well-remunerated set of occupations that are expected to grow in significance in the future. In this paper, we show that this phenomenon is deeply rooted in historical processes that have contributed to the emergence and persistence of gender roles and stereotypes transmitted down to children by their parents or society at large. Using a sub-population of second-generation immigrants from the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that the pre-1500 ancestral factors related to stronger family ties and gender norms significantly reduce the probability of women sorting into STEM occupations. The causal link between norms and occupation is both direct and indirect, passing through contemporary cultural traits. Ancestral factors do not have any effect on men's occupational choices as well as on preferences for STEM professional careers. The results are robust to a rich set of potential confounding factors at the country of origin level and a battery of sensitivity checks. |
| Keywords: | family ties, gender roles, STEM occupations, women |
| JEL: | D03 J16 N30 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2024:08&r=lab |
| By: | Gerald J. Pruckner; Flora Stiftinger; Katrin Zocher (Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz) |
| Abstract: | The share of female physicians has risen in OECD countries in recent decades, but we know little about the effects of physician gender. We exploit quasi-random assignment of primary care providers (PCPs) to patients and estimate the causal effect of female PCPs on health care provision. Using Austrian register data and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find that female PCPs generate 14% less revenue than male PCPs. This gap is driven by a 6% reduction in the number of patients and a 6.5% decrease in services per patient. Our findings are not consistent with discrimination; instead, female PCPs work fewer hours. |
| Keywords: | physician gender, primary care, gender medicine |
| JEL: | I11 I12 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2024-04&r=lab |
| By: | E. Jason Baron; Richard Lombardo; Joseph P. Ryan; Jeongsoo Suh; Quitze Valenzuela-Stookey |
| Abstract: | In many market-design applications, a new mechanism is introduced to reform an existing institution. Compared to the design of a mechanism in isolation, the presence of a status-quo system introduces both challenges and opportunities for the designer. We study this problem in the context of reforming the mechanism used to assign Child Protective Services (CPS) investigators to reported cases of child maltreatment in the U.S. CPS investigators make the consequential decision of whether to place a child in foster care when their safety at home is in question. We develop a design framework built on two sets of results: (i) an identification strategy that leverages the status-quo random assignment of investigators—along with administrative data on previous assignments and outcomes—to estimate investigator performance; and (ii) mechanism-design results allowing us to elicit investigators’ preferences and efficiently allocate cases. This alternative mechanism can be implemented by setting personalized non-linear rates at which each investigator can exchange various types of cases. In a policy simulation, we show that this mechanism reduces the number of investigators’ false positives (children placed in foster care who would have been safe in their homes) by 10% while also decreasing false negatives (children left at home who are subsequently maltreated) and overall foster care placements. Importantly, the mechanism is designed so that no investigator is made worse-off relative to the status quo. We show that a naive approach which ignores investigator preference heterogeneity would generate substantial welfare losses for investigators, with potential adverse effects on investigator recruitment and turnover. |
| JEL: | D82 H75 J13 J45 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32369&r=lab |
| By: | Michael A. Clemens (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | Legal and illegal markets often coexist. In theory, marginal legalization can either substitute for the remaining parallel market, or complement it via scale effects. I study migrants crossing without prior authorization at the US southwest border, where large-scale unlawful crossing coexists with substantial, varying, and policy-constrained lawful crossing. I test whether lawful and unlawful crossing are gross substitutes or complements, using lag-augmented local projections to analyze a monthly time-series on the full universe of 10, 658, 497 inadmissible migrants encountered from October 2011 through July 2023. Expanded lawful crossings cause reduced unlawful crossings, an effect that grows over time and reaches elasticity -0.3 after approximately 10 months. That is, in this case, expanded activity on the lawful market substitutes for the parallel market, even net of scale effects. This deterrent effect explains approximately 9 percent of the overall variance in unlawful crossings. In an ancillary finding, I fail to reject a null effect of depenalizing unlawful crossings on future attempted unlawful crossings. |
| Keywords: | Labor Mobility, Immigrant Workers, International Migration, Illegal Behavior, Enforcement of Law |
| JEL: | F22 J61 K42 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:wpaper:wp24-10&r=lab |
| By: | Alessandro Caiumi; Giovanni Peri |
| Abstract: | In this article we revive, extend and improve the approach used in a series of influential papers written in the 2000s to estimate how changes in the supply of immigrant workers affected natives' wages in the US. We begin by extending the analysis to include the more recent years 2000-2022. Additionally, we introduce three important improvements. First, we introduce an IV that uses a new skill-based shift-share for immigrants and the demographic evolution for natives, which we show passes validity tests and has reasonably strong power. Second, we provide estimates of the impact of immigration on the employment-population ratio of natives to test for crowding out at the national level. Third, we analyze occupational upgrading of natives in response to immigrants. Using these estimates, we calculate that immigration, thanks to native-immigrant complementarity and college skill content of immigrants, had a positive and significant effect between +1.7 to +2.6\% on wages of less educated native workers, over the period 2000-2019 and no significant wage effect on college educated natives. We also calculate a positive employment rate effect for most native workers. Even simulations for the most recent 2019-2022 period suggest small positive effects on wages of non-college natives and no significant crowding out effects on employment. |
| JEL: | F22 J21 J69 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32389&r=lab |
| By: | Steven N. Durlauf; Gueyon Kim; Dohyeon Lee; Xi Song |
| Abstract: | This paper studies long-run differences in intergenerational occupational mobility between Black and White Americans. Combining data from linked historical censuses and contemporary large-scale surveys, we provide a comprehensive set of mobility measures based on Markov chains that trace the short- and long-run dynamics of occupational differences. Our findings highlight the unique importance of changes in mobility experienced by the 1940–1950 birth cohort in shaping the current occupational distribution and reducing the racial occupational gap. We further explore the properties of continuing occupational inequalities and argue that these disparities are better understood by a lack of exchange mobility rather than structural mobility. Thus, contemporary occupational disparities cannot be expected to disappear based on the occupational dynamics seen historically. |
| JEL: | J15 J62 N31 N32 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32370&r=lab |
| By: | Orsetta Causa; Emilia Soldani; Maxime Nguyen; Tomomi Tanaka |
| Abstract: | Climate change mitigation policies affect the allocation of workers on the labor market: jobs in high-polluting industries will contract, while jobs in the “green” sector will grow. A just transition in the labour market requires policies to improve the allocation of workers and their deployability, for instance towards performing green tasks; as well as to manage and minimise scarring effects associated with job losses in polluting industries. Using an econometric analysis, this paper investigates the role of structural and policy factors in shaping a number of relevant labour market transitions, uncovering heterogeneity across different groups of workers. Education is the most important individual-level driver of transitions from non-employment to green jobs, with a particularly strong effect from graduating in scientific fields for young people entering the labour market. Women are significantly less likely than men to move into green jobs out of non-employment. Workers employed in high-polluting occupations face higher displacement risks than other workers, but this does not translate into higher long-term unemployment risks. In terms of policies, the paper finds that the labour market implications of the greening economy can be addressed by general structural policies favouring labour market efficiency in terms of workers’ reallocation, labour market inclusiveness in terms of promoting equality of opportunities and minimising long-term scars. Results also suggest that place-based policies are needed to mitigate scarring effects for displaced workers. |
| Keywords: | green transition, labour markets, policy analysis |
| JEL: | J08 J21 Q52 Q48 |
| Date: | 2024–05–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1803-en&r=lab |
| By: | Alberto Bucci (ICEA & DEMM, University of Milan); Lorenzo Carbonari (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Giovanni Trovato (DEF, University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Pedro Trivin (DEMM, University of Milan) |
| Abstract: | Building on Lucas (1988), we develop a model in which the impact of population dynamics on per capita GDP and human capital depends on the balance of intertemporal altruism effects towards future generations and class-size effects on an individual’s education investment. We show that there is a critical level of the class-size effect that determines whether a decline in population growth will lead to a decrease or an increase in a country’s long-run growth rate of real per capita income. We take the model to OECD data, using a semi-parametric technique. This allows us to classify countries into groups based on their long-term growth trajectories, revealing patterns not captured by previous studies on the topic. |
| Keywords: | Long-run economic growth; Depopulation; Class-size effects; Human capital investment. |
| JEL: | J11 O11 O41 |
| Date: | 2024–04–30 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:575&r=lab |
| By: | Douglas Kiarelly Godoy de Araujo |
| Abstract: | Synthetic control methods are a data-driven way to calculate counterfactuals from control individuals for the estimation of treatment effects in many settings of empirical importance. In canonical implementations, this weighting is linear and the key methodological steps of donor pool selection and covariate comparison between the treated entity and its synthetic control depend on some degree of subjective judgment. Thus current methods may not perform best in settings with large datasets or when the best synthetic control is obtained by a nonlinear combination of donor pool individuals. This paper proposes "machine controls", synthetic controls based on automated donor pool selection through clustering algorithms, supervised learning for flexible non-linear weighting of control entities and manifold learning to confirm numerically whether the synthetic control indeed resembles the target unit. The machine controls method is demonstrated with the effect of the 2017 labour deregulation on worker productivity in Brazil. Contrary to policymaker expectations at the time of enactment of the reform, there is no discernible effect on worker productivity. This result points to the deep challenges in increasing the level of productivity, and with it, economic welfare. |
| Keywords: | causal inference, synthetic controls, machine learning, labour reforms, productivity |
| JEL: | B41 C32 C54 E24 J50 J83 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1181&r=lab |