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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Caliendo, Marco (University of Potsdam); Mahlstedt, Robert (University of Copenhagen); Schmeißer, Aiko (University of Potsdam); Wagner, Sophie (University of Potsdam) |
| Abstract: | We study the accuracy of job seekers' wage expectations by comparing subjective beliefs to objective benchmarks using linked administrative and survey data. Our findings show that especially job seekers with low objective earnings potential and those predicted to face a penalty compared to their pre-unemployment wage display overly optimistic wage expectations. Moreover, wage optimism is amplified by increased job search incentives and job seekers with overoptimistic wage expectations tend to overestimate their reemployment chances. We discuss the labor market implications of wage optimism, as well as the role of information frictions and motivated beliefs as sources of overoptimism. |
| Keywords: | subjective expectations, objective benchmarks, job search, unemployment, reemployment wages |
| JEL: | D83 D84 J64 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17198 |
| By: | Adamecz, Anna (University College London); Lovász, Anna (University of Washington Tacoma); Vujic, Suncica (University of Antwerp) |
| Abstract: | This paper looks at the relationship between higher education and fertility, focusing on how intergenerational educational mobility shapes this dynamic. Using the 1970 British Cohort Study, we estimate gaps in completed fertility, distinguishing between those who are the first in their family to graduate from a university (FiF), graduates with a graduate parent, and non-graduates. Our findings reveal that while on average, graduate women have fewer children than non-graduates, this difference is driven by FiF graduates. FiF women tend to have fewer children than both non-FiF graduates and non-graduates, who exhibit similar fertility rates. The fertility gap between FiF and non-FiF graduates emerges after age 35, mainly on the extensive margin: FiF women are more likely to remain childless, but those who become mothers have an equal average number of children. Similar patterns are observed among men, although the gaps are smaller and not statistically significant. We identify child-related preferences, self-esteem, and maternal employment in childhood as potential explanations behind the FiF fertility gap, while labour market outcomes, financial constraints, partnerships, and health do not appear to play a role. These findings underscore important considerations for supporting inter-generational mobility and fertility. |
| Keywords: | first in family graduates, fertility, childlessness, inter-generational educational mobility, gender economics |
| JEL: | I26 J13 J16 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17216 |
| By: | Sreevidya Ayyar; Uta Bolt; Eric French; Cormac O'Dea |
| Abstract: | Using thousands of essays written by 11-year-olds in 1969, we construct an index measuring girls’ conformity to gender norms then prevalent in Britain. We link this index to outcomes over the life-cycle. Conditional on age-11 covariates, a one standard deviation increase in our index predicts a 3.5% decline in lifetime earnings, due to lower wages and fewer hours worked. Education, occupation and family formation mediate half of this decline. Holding skills constant, girls who conform less to gender norms live in regions with higher female employment and university attendance, highlighting the role of the environment in which girls grow up. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 Z13 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32789 |
| By: | Ahammer, Alexander (University of Linz); Packham, Analisa (Vanderbilt University) |
| Abstract: | Despite the fact that 30 percent of opioid overdoses also involve a benzodiazepine, there is little policy guidance on how to curb concurrent misuse and even less evidence on how changes to co-prescribing practices can affect patients' economic trajectories. In 2012, Austria restricted access to flunitrazepam, one of the most potent, and most heavily misused, benzodiazepines. We use linked individual-level data to identify opioid users and estimate the reform's impact on their health and labor market outcomes relative to a randomly selected comparison group of non-opioid users. Estimates indicate a 12.7 percent drop in employment, a 13.1 percent increase in unemployment insurance claims, and a 26.5 percent increase in overall healthcare expenditures. We provide suggestive evidence that these effects are due to incapacitating withdrawal symptoms, rather than substitution to other drugs, including heroin or alcohol. |
| Keywords: | opioids, substance use disorder treatment, benzodiazepines |
| JEL: | I38 I12 J18 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17192 |
| By: | Jonathan P. Cohen; Peter Ganong |
| Abstract: | We systematically review studies of how unemployment benefits affect unemployment duration. Statistically significant findings are eleven times more likely to be published. Correcting for publication bias halves the average elasticity. Meta-analysis provides a principled way for sufficient statistics methods to aggregate estimates across policy contexts and speak to the optimality of large reforms. Although existing consumption drop-based approaches typically imply an optimal replacement rate near zero, our corrected estimates imply an optimal replacement rate of 28%. The "micro" elasticity is equal to the "macro" elasticity, suggesting that general equilibrium effects are unimportant or cancel out. |
| JEL: | C13 E24 E64 J64 J65 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32832 |
| By: | Shuo Zhang; Peter J. Kuhn |
| Abstract: | We audit the job recommender algorithms used by four Chinese job boards by creating fictitious applicant profiles that differ only in their gender. Jobs recommended uniquely to the male and female profiles in a pair differ modestly in their observed characteristics, with female jobs advertising lower wages, requesting less experience, and coming from smaller firms. Much larger differences are observed in these ads’ language, however, with women’s jobs containing 0.58 standard deviations more stereotypically female content than men’s. Using our experimental design, we can conclude that these gender gaps are generated primarily by content-based matching algorithms that use the worker’s declared gender as a direct input. Action-based processes like item-based collaborative filtering and recruiters’ reactions to workers’ resumes contribute little to these gaps. |
| JEL: | C99 J16 J71 M50 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32889 |
| By: | Albrecht, James (Georgetown University); Edin, Per-Anders (Uppsala University); Fernández, Raquel (New York University); Lee, Jiwon (New York University); Thoursie, Peter Skogman (Stockholm University); Vroman, Susan (Georgetown University) |
| Abstract: | The distribution of parental leave uptake and childcare activities continues to conform to traditional gender roles. In 2002, with the goal of increasing gender equality, Sweden added a second "daddy month, " i.e., an additional month of pay-related parental leave reserved exclusively for each parent. This policy increased men's parental leave uptake and decreased women's, thereby increasing men's share. To understand how various factors contributed to these outcomes, we develop and estimate a quantitative model of the household in which preferences towards parental leave respond to peer behavior. We distinguish households by the education of the parents and ask the model to match key features of the parental leave distribution before and after the reform by gender and household type (the parents' education). We find that changed incentives and, especially, changed social norms played an important role in generating these outcomes whereas changed wage parameters, including the future wage penalty associated with different lengths of parental leave uptake, were minor contributors. We then use our model to evaluate three counterfactual policies designed to increase men's share of parental leave and conclude that giving each parent a non-transferable endowment of parental leave or only paying for the length of time equally taken by each parent would both dramatically increase men's share whereas decreasing childcare costs has almost no effect. |
| Keywords: | parental leave, gender equality, childcare, culture |
| JEL: | D10 J16 Z10 Z18 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17210 |
| By: | Dimico, Arcangelo |
| Abstract: | I evaluate the impact of abortion policies in sub-Saharan Africa to understand possible consequences from a reduced international support for women's rights following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I find that decriminalizing abortion reduces fertility through two complementary channels. For households at the top of the wealth distribution, the effect manifests as a reduction in excess fertility, which is more pronounced among lower-educated women due to their lower likelihood of using contraception. For households at the bottom of the wealth distribution, the impact runs through a decline in the number of children with a low survival probability. This latter effect is more pronounced among highly educated women, who are more likely to control their own health-related decisions and view abortion as a viable option. I also find that while women's education levels rise after decriminalization, this does not lead to better labor market opportunities. However, children born afterward tend to achieve higher levels of education. |
| Keywords: | Abortion, fertility, child mortality, human capital |
| JEL: | O15 J13 J16 K38 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:qmsrps:202406 |
| By: | Fang, Tony (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Gunderson, Morley (University of Toronto); Ha, Viet Hoang (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Ming, Hui (Sichuan University) |
| Abstract: | We employ a Gender-Based Plus (GBA+) and intersectionality lens to examine the triple whammy of the differential effect of Covid on the trifecta of being female, lower-skilled and facing a motherhood penalty from school-age children. We use a difference-in-difference framework with Canadian Labour Force Survey data to examine the differential effect of two waves of Covid on three outcomes: employment, hours worked, and hourly wages. We find that the trifecta of being female in a lower-skilled occupation and with school-age children is associated with lower employment, hours worked and wages in normal times compared to males in those same situations. As well, such females face the most severe adjustment consequence from major shocks like Covid, with that adjustment concentrated on the extensive margin of employment, and it is restricted to the immediate First Wave and not on a subsequent Omicron wave. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, Omicron, labour market impacts, difference-in-Difference, trifecta, woman, lower-skilled jobs, motherhood penalty |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J64 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17235 |
| By: | Roberto Asmat (Vienna University of Economics and Business); Karol J. Borowiecki (University of Southern Denmark); Marc T. Law (University of Vermont) |
| Abstract: | Are women helped or harmed by being evaluated by other women? The evidence remains inconclusive and varies by time and place. We address this debate from a global and historical perspective by analyzing confidential data on the universe of international piano competitions held between 1890 and 2023 across approximately 100 countries. Using multiple identification strategies that leverage the repeated nature of these events, we find robust evidence that female competitors are less successful when judged by juries with a higher proportion of women. We estimate that replacing an all-male jury with an all-female jury reduces the likelihood that a female pianist reaches the finals by over 20 percent, reaches the podium by over 30 percent, or wins by over 40 percent. Analysis of individual juror scoring records from a major competition reveals that female jurors are stricter than their male counterparts in their relative assessments of female versus male competitors. We also find that the bias against female competitors is driven by prime-age female jurors who were previous winners in less prestigious competitions. This suggests that the gender bias of female jurors may be related to the threat that emerging female talent poses in a segmented labor market. |
| Keywords: | gender bias, female jurors, competition outcomes, classical music |
| JEL: | J16 J71 Z11 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cue:wpaper:awp-03-2024 |
| By: | Maurin, Eric (Paris School of Economics); Oliveira, Florentine (University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, PSE) |
| Abstract: | In many countries, the Sixties marked a turning point in the history of women's emancipation. Using data with information on the birth order of large samples of individuals, we show that the first to be affected by this revolution were the first-born of the early 1960 s: they grew up much more often in "modern" families (two children max, working mother and significant likelihood of parental divorce) than children of higher birth orders born at the same time in other families. However, this change in family environment did not coincide with any decline in their educational or occupational achievement. |
| Keywords: | Sixties, family size, maternal employment, education |
| JEL: | J11 J12 J13 I24 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17236 |
| By: | Mattia Filomena (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University); Matteo Picchio (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Marche Polytechnic University); Alessia Lo Turco (Department of Economics and Social Sciences, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM)) |
| Abstract: | We study the effects of globalization on workplace accidents in the Italian manufacturing sector from 2008 to 2019. We focus on both the local intensity of import exposure to China and the share of foreign-born residents. To handle potential endogeneity concerns, we instrument the import exposure to China with that of other high-income countries and local immigration exposure with historical co-national local settlements. Our findings highlight a worsening of workplace safety following an increase in import competition, especially for male workers. An inspection of the channels suggests that the effect works through an increasing workload. |
| Keywords: | Workplace injuries, globalization, import competition, immigration, shift-share instruments. |
| JEL: | F16 I1 J28 J61 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anc:wpaper:488 |
| By: | Ramirez Lizardi, Eduardo (University of Oslo); Fevang, Elisabeth (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Røed, Knut (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Øien, Henning (Norwegian Institute of Public Health) |
| Abstract: | Using Norwegian administrative register data, we assess the impact of health shocks hitting lone parents, specifically stroke and hip fractures, on labor market outcomes and the well-being of adult offspring. We identify small, but statistically significant immediate responses in terms of an increase in physician-certified sickness absences and a higher risk of diagnosed mental disorders. However, these effects tend to fade out quickly, and the negative impacts on subsequent employment and earnings are small and only borderline statistically significant. In general, our results suggest that the responses to the deteriorating health of a parent tend to be short-lived and mostly manifest as temporary absences from work rather than complete detachment from the labor market. |
| Keywords: | health shocks, labor supply, mental health, informal care, parental health, event-studies |
| JEL: | I12 I31 J14 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17232 |
| By: | Hoang, Trang (Oregon State University); Mitra, Devashish (Syracuse University); Pham, Hoang (Oregon State University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of an export market expansion created by the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) on competition among manufacturing firms in Vietnam's local labor markets. Using a nonparametric production function approach, we measure distortionary wedges between equilibrium marginal revenue products of labor (MRPL) and wages. We find that the median manufacturing firm pays workers 59% of their MRPL. Following the BTA, which significantly reduced US import tariffs for Vietnamese products, firms in industries exposed more to the tariff reductions saw faster employment growth and faster declines in their MRPL-wage wedge. We find that the BTA permanently decreases labor market distortion in manufacturing by 3.4%, and the effect concentrates on domestic private firms with a magnitude of 4.9%. We exploit information on the gender composition to estimate the MRPL-wage wedges separately for men and women. We find that the median distortion is 26% higher for women relative to men, and the decline in distortion for women, amounting to more than 12%, is the driver of the overall reduction in labor market distortion attributable to the BTA. Our theory and empirics suggest that the entry of FDI firms combined with differential aggregate labor supply elasticities explains these results. |
| Keywords: | international trade, export market access, labor market distortion, misallocation, income distribution, labor share, gender inequality, monopsony, oligopsony |
| JEL: | F16 F63 O15 O24 J42 J16 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17196 |
| By: | Alan Finkelstein Shapiro; Victoria Nuguer |
| Abstract: | We study the labour market and macroeconomic effects of a carbon tax in the energy sector in emerging economies. We build a search and matching macro model with pollution externalities from energy production, endogenous green-technology adoption, and salaried-firm entry that incorporates two key elements of the employment and firm structure of these economies: salaried labor and firm informality and self-employment. Calibrating the model to emerging-economy data, we show that a carbon tax increases green-technology adoption and the share of green energy, but also leads to higher energy prices. As a result, the tax reduces salaried firm creation, the number of formal firms, and formal employment, and leads to an increase in self-employment, labor participation, and unemployment - a response that generates long run output and welfare losses. Green-technology adoption limits while self-employment exacerbates the quantitative magnitude of these losses. A joint policy that combines a carbon tax with a reduction in the cost of firm formality can offset the adverse effects of the tax and generate a transition to a lower-carbon economy with minimal economic costs. |
| Keywords: | environmental and fiscal policy, carbon tax, endogenous firm creation, green technology adoption, search frictions, unemployment and labour force participation, informality and self-employment, emerging economies |
| JEL: | E20 E24 E61 H23 J46 J64 O44 Q52 Q55 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:1204 |
| By: | Adrianto, Adrianto (University of Minnesota); Ben-Ner, Avner (University of Minnesota); Sockin, Jason (IZA); Urtasun, Ainhoa (Universidad Pública de Navarra) |
| Abstract: | Do employees fare better in firms they partly own? Examining workers' reviews of their employers on Glassdoor, we compare employee satisfaction between firms in which workers own company shares through an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and conventional firms in which they do not. Focusing on workers in U.S. manufacturing, we find employees report greater satisfaction in employee-owned firms overall and with specific aspects of jobs such as firm culture. This satisfaction premium is greater when the ESOP is the product of collective bargaining or employees own a larger stake of firm equity. Employee well-being can thus differ by ownership arrangement. |
| Keywords: | ESOP, job satisfaction, collective bargaining, culture |
| JEL: | J52 J28 M14 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17233 |
| By: | Caroline Krafft; Ragui Assaad; Jackline Wahba |
| Abstract: | As of 2022, Sudan was home to 1.1 million refugees and 3.7 million internally displaced persons(IDPs), along with a substantial population that had previously experienced displacement. TheSudan Labor Market Panel Survey (SLMPS) 2022 over-sampled locations hosting the displacedin order to facilitate research on refugees and IDPs. This paper investigates the geographicdistribution of the displaced, their demographics, their labor market and socioeconomic statusand outcomes, and their education, health, food security outcomes. It also reviews theirexperiences of shocks, their coping strategies, and the types of social assistance they receive.Important distinctions are made between current and returned IDPs and refugees and theiroutcomes are compared to those of Sudanese who were never displaced. Analyses also exploredifferences by location of residence (in host communities and camps), by sex, and acrossdifferent age groups. |
| Keywords: | demographics, displacement, education, health, internally displaced persons, labor, refugees, sudan |
| JEL: | F22 I14 I24 J11 J21 O15 R23 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hic:wpaper:413 |
| By: | Schiff, Maurice (World Bank) |
| Abstract: | Ability drain's (AD) impact on host countries is significant: 30 percent of US Nobel laureates since 1906 are immigrants, and they or their children founded 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies. However, while brain drain (BD) and gain (BG) have been studied extensively, AD has not. I examine migration's impact on ability (a), education (h), and productive human capital s = s(a, ℎ), for home country residents and migrants under the 'vetting' immigration system, which accounts for s (e.g., US H-1B program). Findings are: i) Education increases with ability; ii) Migration reduces (raises) residents' (migrants') average ability, with an ambiguous (positive) impact on the average level of ℎ and s; iii) These effects increase with ability's inequality or variance; iv) The model and empirical studies suggest that AD ≥ BD for educated US immigrants and that their real income is about twice their home country income; v) A net drain in average s holds for any BD and for an AD that is a fraction of our estimate; vi) This article also provides a detailed description of the multiple home country benefits generated by the brain and ability drains. And policy implications are presented. |
| Keywords: | migration, points system, vetting system, ability drain, brain drain, brain gain |
| JEL: | F22 J24 J61 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17199 |
| By: | Veronika Placha (Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic) |
| Abstract: | This study examines gender disparities beyond pay gaps, focusing on the impact of childbirth on overall well-being. Traditional gender roles, especially in parenting, lead to unequal divisions of labor and affect both partners´ well-being, yet the shift in well-being after childbirth remains underexplored. Utilizing data from the 2013 and 2018 EU SILC surveys, the study investigates the well-being gap between mothers and fathers, revealing that childbirth significantly influences parents´ subjective well-being. Mothers tend to experience a longer-lasting positive effect, peaking during the newborn stage and gradually diminishing as children grow older, while fathers´ wellbeing boost is shorter-lived, typically fading after the child´s first year. The findings also indicate that the well-being gap between mothers and fathers has widened over time, especially during the preschool years, underscoring the complex dynamics of well-being among parents. |
| Keywords: | Subjective well-being, Gender disparities, Childbirth, Well-being gap |
| JEL: | J13 J16 I31 J12 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fau:wpaper:wp2024_28 |
| By: | Agar Brugiavini (Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Raluca Elena Buia (Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice); Irene Simonetti (Department of Economics, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) |
| Abstract: | The extremely tight restrictions meant to limit the spread of COVID-19 pandemic strongly hit the economic activity in all countries, resulting in exceptional work disruptions and sizable (temporary) layoffs. Recent literature document the existence of an age-bias in the recruitment of new employees, which may make of older workers a vulnerable category, if experiencing work disruptions. Using data from the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, we enquire to what extent having experienced work interruptions in the first wave of the pandemic might have affected the working career of older workers. Our results indicate that having undergone work disruptions in 2020 is associated with a significantly larger probability of ending up as retirees or not employed in both 2021 and 2022. The effect is not homogenous among countries. While the estimate is not significant for Northern countries, it is significant for the other country clusters, the magnitude of the effect being larger for Central-East European countries. |
| Keywords: | work interruptions, retired, unemployed, not employed |
| JEL: | J08 J71 J78 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ven:wpaper:2024:10 |
| By: | April Burrage; Nilanjana Dasgupta; Ina Ganguli |
| Abstract: | This study examines gender differences in the social impact and commercial motives for academic entrepreneurship using the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps) program. I-Corps provides experiential entrepreneurship training to faculty and graduate student researchers at local I-Corps university sites and through a nationwide program. Since the inception of I-Corps, only 20% of participants have been women. We first use survey data from one I-Corps university site to show that women participants had higher social entrepreneurial intentions compared to commercial entrepreneurial intentions, and these social entrepreneurial intentions were higher than men’s. We then extend and generalize this finding by analyzing 1, 267 publicly available project summaries from the National I-Corps Program from 2012-2019. We find that women PIs’ I-Corps project proposals emphasized social impact significantly more than men PIs, while projects for all PIs emphasized commercial impact to a similar degree. We next ran a field experiment to estimate the causal impact of social impact vs. commercial motives by experimentally manipulating the recruitment email messages inviting researchers to participate in the I-Corps training program. We find that women were more likely to show interest in a social impact version of a message compared to a commercial version, while men showed equal interest in both types of messages. Taken together, our results indicate that women are more interested in pursuing commercialization and entrepreneurship activities when they are tackling societal problems. They suggest that low-cost interventions that emphasize the social impact value of entrepreneurial opportunities may increase gender diversity in entrepreneurship activities. |
| JEL: | J16 L26 O31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32885 |
| By: | Brunori, Paolo (University of Florence); Ferreira, Francisco H. G. (London School of Economics); Neidhöfer, Guido (Turkish-German University) |
| Abstract: | How strong is the transmission of socio-economic status across generations in Latin America? To answer this question, we first review the empirical literature on intergenerational mobility and inequality of opportunity for the region, summarizing results for both income and educational outcomes. We find that, whereas the income mobility literature is hampered by a paucity of representative datasets containing linked information on parents and children, the inequality of opportunity approach – which relies on other inherited and pre-determined circumstance variables – has suffered from arbitrariness in model selection. Two new data-driven approaches – one aligned with the ex-ante and the other with the ex-post conception of inequality of opportunity – are introduced to address this shortcoming. They yield a set of new inequality of opportunity estimates for twenty-seven surveys covering nine Latin American countries over various years between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, more than half of the current generation's inequality is inherited from the past – with a range between 44% and 63%. We argue that on balance, given the parsimony of the population partitions, these are still likely to be underestimates. |
| Keywords: | inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility, Latin America |
| JEL: | D31 I39 J62 O15 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17202 |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Alexander Wolitzky |
| Abstract: | We propose a model of the interplay of employment relationships and community-based interactions among workers and managers. Employment relations can be either tough (where workers are monitored intensively and obtain few rents, and managers do not provide informal favors for their workers) or soft (where there is less monitoring, more worker rents, and more workplace favor exchange). Both workers and managers also exert effort in providing community benefits. The threat of losing access to community benefits can motivate managers to keep employment soft; conversely, the threat of losing future employment or future workers' trust can motivate workers and managers to exert effort in the community. Improvements in monitoring technologies; automation, outsourcing, and offshoring; declines in the minimum wage; and opportunities for residential segregation or for privatizing community-provided services can make both workers and managers worse-off by undermining soft employment relations and community cooperation. |
| JEL: | C73 D23 J00 P00 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32773 |
| By: | Mitchell Hoffman; Christopher T. Stanton |
| Abstract: | This chapter surveys recent advances in personnel economics. We begin by presenting evidence showing substantial and persistent productivity variation among workers in the same roles. We discuss new research on incentives and compensation; hiring practices; the influence of managers and peers; and time use, technology, and training. We emphasize two main themes. First, we seek to illustrate the interplay between these topics and productivity differences between people and work units. Second, we argue that personnel economics has benefited from exploration, which we think of as the willingness to use new data and methods to shed light on existing questions and to raise new ones. As many personnel studies use data from individual firms, we discuss external validity and provide concrete guidance on how to improve discussions of the generalizability of findings from specific contexts. |
| JEL: | J01 M5 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32849 |
| By: | Ahsan, Md Nazmul; Emran, M. Shahe; Shilpi, Forhad |
| Abstract: | We analyze the challenges in adopting the rank-rank model of intergenerational mobility for policy evaluation. For rank-based analysis of intergenerational mobility, it is standard to calculate cohort-specific ranks from the national distribution, but separately for children's and parents' generations. This ensures that children's inherited socioeconomic status and their life outcomes are measured on common scales irrespective of location and social groups. However, national ranks put the treatment and comparison groups together, and thus, a policy intervention leads to mechanical changes in ranks in the comparison group when the ranks of the treated individuals change because of the policy. We discuss how to deal with this contaminated comparison problem in the context of widely-used research designs: RCTs, Instrumental Variables (IV), and Difference-inDifference (DiD). In a RCT design with a binary treatment assignment, a simple solution is to calculate the ranks separately for the treatment and control groups. In an IV design, the ranks should be calculated separately for different values of the instrument. For a DiD design, an additional concern is how to avoid mechanical changes in the ranks of the pre cohorts following the policy intervention: calculate the ranks separately for pre and post periods. If the policy affects only the children, then, for all research designs, it is desirable to keep the parental ranks at the national level so that children's inherited socioeconomic status is measured on a common scale. As an empirical application, we provide evidence on the effects of Inpres schools on intergenerational educational mobility in Indonesia using the DiD design developed by Duflo (2001). The evidence suggests that the conclusions regarding the impact of Inpres schools depend critically on the way ranks are calculated. If we follow the current practices when calculating the ranks, the DiD estimates suggest that the 61, 000 primary schools failed to affect relative mobility even though it improved absolute mobility for the children from low-educated families. In contrast, when the ranks are calculated to tackle the mechanical contamination problem, the evidence, especially from the correct functional form (quadratic), suggests that Inpres schools improved both relative and absolute mobility of the disadvantaged children. The Inpres schools led to higher intercept and quadratic coefficient of the mobility equation while reducing the linear coefficient. The analysis presented here has important implications for economists and sociologists working on intergenerational mobility. |
| Keywords: | Rank-Rank Model, Intergenerational Mobility, Causal Effects, Policy Evaluation, Mechanical Changes in Ranks, Contaminated Comparison, Inpres Schools, Indonesia |
| JEL: | D3 I24 J62 O12 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:121676 |
| By: | Petach, Luke |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of religion on the economic progress of Black Americans after Reconstruction. Southern religious institutions-particularly the Southern Baptist church-played a key role in the development of the Lost Cause mythology that helped legitimate the white supremacist political order which dominated the American South well into the twentieth century. Using county-level data on religious adherence from the 1860 Census and data on county economic characteristics from the full count Census for the years 1850 to 1910, I show that from 1870 onward Black incomes, Black literacy rates, the share of Black individuals with "high-skill" occupations, and the share of Black individuals with manufacturing occupations were lower in counties with a greater pre-Civil War Baptist membership share. This finding is robust to county-fixed effects, year-fixed effects, state-specific linear time trends, and controlling for the county slave population share prior to 1860. No such negative effect on Black economic outcomes exists for the Catholic church, which never formally recognized the Confederacy. I highlight the relationship between Baptist church membership and Lost Cause ideology by demonstrating a positive effect of Baptist membership on Confederate monument construction, lynching, and showings of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation. |
| Keywords: | Economics of Religion, Stratification Economics, Economic History, Post- Reconstruction, Lost Cause |
| JEL: | Z12 Z13 J15 N31 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1480 |
| By: | Guillem Verd Llabrés (Universidad de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain) |
| Abstract: | After the end of World War II, family allowances became central to Western European Welfare states as they influenced gender relations, demographic growth, child welfare and wage regulation. Yet, their implementation was shaped by several determinants —fertility rates, religion, Conservative dictatorships, or party competition— whose relative importance is still open to study. Spain provides a significant case study to understand such determinants. It was a firstcomer in developing family allowances, giving them a crucial role in the Francoist social policies, but their development was marked by significant religious cleavages, left-right political competition and regime changes during the interwar period. The paper shows that, despite gaining momentum among catholic campaigners and Parties, the apathy —if not opposition— from the left, employers and landowners prevented the scheme from being developed before the Spanish Civil War. After the conflict, despite becoming central to Francoist social programs targeting the family and the labour market, family allowances fell well behind campaigners’ expectations, and proved unable to reach a significant proportion of Spanish families. The Spanish low fiscal capacity and the inability to collect contributions —particularly in the countryside— were central to understanding such a difficult development. |
| Keywords: | Family Allowances, Spain, Religious Cleavage, Political Regime, Fiscal Capacity |
| JEL: | I38 J13 N34 N44 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2405 |
| By: | van der Vaart, J; Groneck, M; van Ooijen, R |
| Abstract: | A well-established negative correlation exists between lifetime income and health and mortality risk. We quantify the welfare implications of living longer and using less LTC by higher incomes, implying higher lifetime retirement income and lower lifetime LTC cost. To this end, we model singles’ and couples' consumption and saving behavior throughout the life cycle. Households face uncertain labor income at working age and uncertain and heterogeneous health and mortality across socioeconomic groups, so precautionary savings will differ across these groups. In addition, we assume that households value living and giving bequests to their heirs, implying a potential saving motive for bequests. We estimate the parameters of the model using unique administrative data from the Netherlands. Old-age insurance programs for retirement and LTC provision result in a substantial redistribution of welfare due to socioeconomic inequalities in LTC needs and mortality. The welfare effect amounts to 23.4% additional consumption after age 65 for the income-rich compared to those in the bottom lifetime income quartile. A large part of 22.2pp of the welfare gain for the richer households is explained by their strong preferences for leaving bequests: they have lower co-payments for LTC and more retirement income, which they spend on leaving a larger bequest upon death. |
| Keywords: | socioeconomic inequalities; long-term care and mortality risk; retirement programs; couples' life-cycle model |
| JEL: | D15 H55 I14 J14 J17 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:24/20 |