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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Oriana Bandiera; Amen Jalal; Nina Roussille |
| Abstract: | In countries with low female employment, college educated women often transition directly from education to homemaking. Does this reflect informed, forward-looking choices or unanticipated constraints? We study this question in Pakistan, where two-thirds of college-educated women remain out of the labor force. Tracking 2, 400 students from two major universities, we document labor market expectations before graduation, and realized outcomes in the year that follows. Men and women have similar work aspirations, apply at similar times and rates, and receive comparable numbers of job offers, but women are more likely to reject them. As a result, a 27 pp employment gap emerges within six months. The gap stems largely from timing: for women, there is a critical window, immediately post-graduation, during which job search is associated with much higher chances of employment. There is no such window for men. To test whether this relationship is causal—and anticipated—we randomize a modest incentive to apply early. By shifting students’ search into the critical early window, the intervention raises women’s employment by ~ 20%, but leaves men’s unaffected, closing a third of the gender employment gap. Treatment effects are driven by women who underestimate how quickly marriage market activities arise, revealing an “illusion of time.” |
| JEL: | I25 J16 J21 J64 O15 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34051 |
| By: | Huebener, Mathias (Bundesinstitut für Bevölkerungsforschung (BiB)); Odermatt, Reto (University of Basel) |
| Abstract: | We assess the gendered effects of having children on well-being, careers, and the division of domestic work. As exogenous variation in parenthood, we exploit the quasi-random success of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments. Children increase mothers’ well-being only in the short term, while fathers experience longer-lasting gains. However, only mothers show a persistent decline in labor supply and a rise in domestic work. Their satisfaction with the division of work declines, and they are more likely to perceive it as unfair, implying that the new equilibrium in the division of work deviates from mothers’ preferences. |
| Keywords: | IVF treatment, gender inequality, well-being, parenthood, child penalty |
| JEL: | I31 J13 J16 J22 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18039 |
| By: | Felix Degenhardt (University of Potsdam); Jan Sebastian Nimczik (ESMT Berlin) |
| Abstract: | We examine whether gig jobs in online food delivery (OFD) are a stepping stone for refugees entering the Austrian labor market. Our identification strategy combines the quasi-random assignment of refugees to Austrian regions with the expansion of gig firms across the country. The local availability of OFD jobs at the time of access to the labor market initially accelerates job finding among refugees. Subsequently, however, gig workers remain in low-paid, unstable jobs with low career prospects, while the employment rate of refugees without gig opportunities catches up. The local availability of gig jobs negatively affects human capital investments and job search behavior, even among refugees outside the gig economy. |
| Keywords: | gig work, refugees, employment restrictions, labor market integration |
| JEL: | J15 J61 J81 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2517 |
| By: | Katarzyna Bech - Wysocka (Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); Warsaw School of Economics); Magdalena Smyk (Group for Research in Applied Economics (GRAPE); Warsaw School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Statistical discrimination theory explains wage differences between demographic groups by referring to differences in group averages or heuristic-based decision-making. This study investigates whether providing employers with accurate information about individual productivity affects wage-setting practices. We replicate a labor market scenario in which employers determine wages based on perceived productivity differences between male and female workers. Our experimental findings suggest that statistical discrimination influences initial wage decisions, but access to individual performance data reduces reliance on group-based heuristics. The dominant strategy when the actual information about performance is to share the resources according to contribution. We observe that in tasks where women statistically outperform, higher-scoring individuals tend to receive slightly less than their proportional contribution, whereas in tasks where men perform better, they tend to receive slightly more than their contribution. Furthermore, we show that with only statistical information, significant gender-based wage discrimination aligned with performance stereotypes occurs, but there is no gender discrimination under full information about performance. Our results contribute to the broader discussion on labour market inequalities and approaches to reducing statistical discrimination. |
| Keywords: | statistical discrimination, productivity, information, gender |
| JEL: | J71 J16 C91 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:106 |
| By: | Melentyeva, Valentina; Riedel, Lukas |
| Abstract: | We show that the widespread approach to estimate the career costs of motherhood - so called "child penalties" - is prone to produce biased results, as it pools first-time mothers of all ages without accounting for their differences in characteristics and outcomes. We propose a novel method building on the recent advances in the difference-in-differences literature to address this issue. Applied to German administrative data, our method yields 30 percent larger post-birth earnings losses than the conventional approach. We document meaningful effect heterogeneity by maternal age in both magnitude and interpretation, highlighting its key role in understanding the impact of motherhood. |
| Keywords: | child penalty, maternal labor supply, heterogeneous treatment effects, event study |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J31 C23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:321862 |
| By: | Quynh Huynh (Univsersity College London); Hyejin Ku (University College London) |
| Abstract: | We examine the relationship between economic development and female labor force participation, with a focus on the impact of gender norms. Analyzing quasi-random variation in provincial exports in reunified Vietnam from 2002 to 2018, we find that a positive economic shock led to a significant decline in women’s labor market engagement, particularly among married women from wealthier households and those with husbands in more skilled occupations. This trend is more pronounced in the South (formerly capitalist) than in the North (always socialist), and among native Southerners compared to Northerners relocated to the South after the war. Our findings highlight the importance of gender role attitudes in shaping women’s responses to rising incomes. |
| Keywords: | female labor force participation, social norms, gender role attitudes, income andsubstitution effects, trade liberalization |
| JEL: | J16 J22 O12 |
| Date: | 2025–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2516 |
| By: | Jean-Victor Alipour (LMU Munich, ifo Institute) |
| Abstract: | I study how the rise in working from home (WFH) affects the gender division of paid and unpaid labor (caregiving, domestic tasks). Identification uses differences in individuals' exposure to the Covid-induced WFH shock, measured by the WFH feasibility of their job in 2019. Using panel data from the German SOEP, I estimate 2SLS models that instrument realized WFH in 2022 with WFH feasibility. Results show that WFH reduces paid hours and increases domestic work and leisure (including sleep) among women. Men's time use remains largely unchanged, partly because WFH induces moves toward larger, more distant homes, offsetting commuting time savings. Within-couple analyses confirm that the Big Shift to WFH intensifies gender gaps in paid and unpaid work, particularly caregiving. I find that gender norms, bargaining power, and childcare demands interact with WFH in ways that reinforce the unequal division of labor. |
| Keywords: | work from home; time use; unpaid work; division of labor; gender norms; bargaining power; |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–08–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:542 |
| By: | Arellano-Bover, Jaime (Yale University, IZA, CESifo); San, Shmuel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) |
| Abstract: | We study how job mobility, firms, and firm-ladder climbing can shape immigrants’ labor market success. Our context is the mass migration of former Soviet Union Jews to Israel during the 1990s. Once in Israel, these immigrants faced none of the legal barriers that are typically posed by migration regulations around the world, offering a unique backdrop to study undistorted immigrants’ job mobility and resulting unconstrained assimilation. Rich administrative data allows us to follow immigrants for up to three decades after arrival. Differential sorting across firms and differential paysetting within firms both explain important shares of the initial immigrant-native wage gap and subsequent convergence dynamics. Moreover, immigrants are more mobile than natives and faster at climbing the firm ladder, even in the long term. As such, firm-to-firm mobility is a key driver of these immigrants’ long-run prosperity. Lastly, we quantify a previously undocumented job utility gap when accounting for non-wage amenities, which exacerbates immigrant-native disparities based on pay alone. |
| Keywords: | JEL Classification: |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cge:wacage:764 |
| By: | Andrew Mountford (Royal Holloway University of London); Jonathan Wadsworth (Royal Holloway University of London) |
| Abstract: | The empirical migration literature often identifies the labor market effects of immigration using exogenous variation in migration concentration across sectors or regions. However, this approach differences out macroeconomic effects which occur in all sectors. In this paper we apply macroeconomic time series methods to UK data from 2001-2019 for 35 different sectors, to model, for the first time, immigration, native wages and hours worked, as responding to demand, supply and immigration shocks at both aggregate and sectoral levels. The labor market is thereby modeled as being subject to multiple shocks at any one time. Using a VAR approach, we find that the share of migrant labor is `Granger caused' by other labor market variables which suggests that immigration is, in part, endogenously determined by aggregate demand and supply. However, it also retains a component which has a negative association between immigration and native wages, which may be thought of as a `migration shock'. Using historical decompositions which decompose both the error terms and, novelly, the constant terms into their structural parts, we show that the `migration shock' accounts for most of the change in migration share over the sample period and plays a significant negative role in the determination of native wage growth, particularly in unskilled sectors. However other contemporaneous shocks have offsetting positive associations between immigration and native wages, whose effects differ substantially across sectors. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Demand, Supply, Wages, VAR, Sectoral Heterogeneity |
| JEL: | J6 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2534 |
| By: | Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg; Charles Gottlieb; Somik Lall; Meet Mehta; Michael Peters; Aishwarya Lakshimi Ratan; Pinelopi Goldberg |
| Abstract: | The extent to which women participate in the labor market varies greatly across the globe. If such differences reflect distortions that women face in accessing good jobs, they can reduce economic activity through a misallocation of talent. In this paper, we build on Hsieh et al. (2019) to provide a methodology to quantify these productivity consequences. The index we propose, the ”Global Gender Distortions Index (GGDI)”, measures the losses in aggregate productivity that gender-based misallocation imposes. Our index allows us to separately identify labor demand distortions (e.g., discrimination in hiring for formal jobs) from labor supply distortions (e.g., frictions that discourage women’s labor force participation) and can be computed using data on labor income and job types. Our methodology also highlights an important distinction between welfare-relevant misallocation and the consequences on aggregate GDP if misallocation arises between market work and non-market activities. To showcase the versatility of our index, we analyze gender misallocation within countries over time, across countries over the development spectrum, and across local labor markets within countries. We find that misallocation is substantial and that demand distortions account for most of the productivity losses. |
| Keywords: | misallocation, gender gaps, economic growth, development, discrimination |
| JEL: | O4 O11 J16 J20 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12061 |
| By: | Yajna Govind; Paolo Santini; Ellora Derenoncourt |
| Abstract: | We study racial inequality in 21st century France. Using parents’ nationality at birth, we overcome the lack of ethno-racial statistics stemming from the country’s “color-blind” approach. We document substantial earnings penalties for racial minorities along the income distribution. Penalties are larger at the median than the top and for Middle-Eastern and North African (MENA) and Sub-Saharan African origin (Black) individuals. We compare racial inequality in France vs. the U.S. by simulating where French minorities would fall in the U.S. distribution. Black and Non-White individuals in France benefit from the country’s lower overall inequality, but experience comparable, occasionally larger, rank gaps. |
| JEL: | D31 J15 J71 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34013 |
| By: | James J. Heckman; Colleen P. Loughlin; Haihan Tian |
| Abstract: | This paper uses longitudinal data to study the benefits of participation in scholastic athletics starting with high school participation and continuing with college athletics, including the benefits of intramural athletics. We study the impact of participation on a number of important life outcomes, including graduation from high school and college and wages after schooling is completed. Controlling for rich measures of cognitive and personality skills and social background, we find substantial benefits at all levels. Participation in athletics promotes social mobility for disadvantaged and minority students. |
| JEL: | I31 Z2 Z22 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34046 |
| By: | Xiqian Cai (Xiamen University); Pei Li (Zhejiang University); Qinyue Luo (RFBerlin); Hong Song (Fudan University); Huihua Xie (Zhejiang University) |
| Abstract: | Does gender identity affect judicial decisions? This paper provides novel evidence of in-group gender bias in the judicial decisions for almost all divorce cases in China. Exploiting the effectively random assignment of cases to judges, the analysis finds that female judges are 1.2 percentage points more likely to grant divorce petitions filed by female plaintiffs compared to male plaintiffs, relative to male judges. This bias primarily reflects female judges’ harsher treatment of male plaintiffs. The bias is significantly weaker in regions with stronger traditional gender norms, indicating that conservative cultural attitudes may constrain overt displays of in-group gender favoritism. Institutional legal development has little moderating effect, underscoring the primary role of culture. These findings highlight the importance of complementing efforts to promote judicial diversity with safeguards to detect and mitigate implicit bias. |
| Keywords: | gender, in-group bias, gender discrimination, judicial decisions |
| JEL: | J16 J14 J10 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2523 |
| By: | Samuel Dodini; Katrine V. Loken; Petter Lundborg; Alexander Willen |
| Abstract: | We examine the welfare consequences of reallocating high-skilled labor across national borders. A labor demand shock in Norway—driven by a surge in oil prices—substantially increased physician wages and sharply raised the incentive for Swedish doctors to commute across the border. Leveraging linked administrative data across the two countries and a difference-in-differences design, we show that this shift doubled commuting rates and significantly reduced Sweden’s domestic physician supply. The result was a persistent rise in mortality in Sweden, with no corresponding health gains in Norway. These effects were unevenly distributed, disproportionately harming certain places and populations. The underlying mechanism was a severe strain on Sweden’s healthcare system: shortages of high-skilled generalists led to more hospitalizations, premature discharges and higher readmission rates. Mortality effects were larger in low-density physician regions and concentrated in older individuals and acute conditions. |
| Keywords: | brain drain; worker mobility; mortality |
| JEL: | J2 J6 H1 |
| Date: | 2025–08–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:101405 |
| By: | Mykhailyshyna, Dariia; Zuchowski, David |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the impact of two massive and unexpected inflows of Ukrainians on voting behavior in Poland. The two migration shocks, caused by Russia's aggression against Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, allow us to compare the effects of conflict-induced labor migration and those of refugee inflows. Using an instrumental variable approach, we find that greater exposure to labor migrants reduces support for conservative parties in the short run and subsequently shifts voter preferences toward pro-redistribution parties. We do not find similar effects for refugees, who, unlike temporary labor migrants, had access to social benefits. Exposure to both types of Ukrainian migration leads to a decrease in far-right voting. This effect emerges only after the salience of Ukrainian migrants increases due to the escalation of Russia's aggression and the rise of anti-Ukrainian rhetoric from the Polish far-right. The backlash from Polish voters against the far-right rhetoric is ten times stronger in areas exposed to refugees than to labor migrants. Our results are robust to the use of a number of instruments and several sensitivity checks. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, Refugees, Political Economy, Voting, Poland, Ukraine |
| JEL: | D72 F22 J61 P16 R23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1649 |
| By: | Gallo, Giovanni; Ubaldi, Michele |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the effect of partner unemployment on individual physical health. Using data from two nationally representative Italian surveys of households and employing partial identification to address endogenous selection into unemployment, we show that the impact of partner unemployment on individual physical health is related to the role of the unemployed within the household. We document a null effect when the spouse is unemployed, whereas we find a negative health effect when the household head is unemployed. The negative effect of household head unemployment may be explained by a larger budget constraint and a consequent change in the dietary habits involving all household members. In particular, we highlight a decline in the quality of food consumption in the household when the household head is unemployed. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, dietary habits, consumption, food quality, body mass index |
| JEL: | D12 I10 J12 J60 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1638 |
| By: | Ran Abramitzky; Netanel Ben Porath; Victor Lavy; Michal Palgi |
| Abstract: | While many socialist countries suffered from harsh economic crises, studying their impacts on economic and political attitudes is challenging because of the scarcity of reliable data in nondemocratic contexts. We study a democratic socialist setting where we have ample information on such attitudes: the Israeli kibbutzim. Exploiting an economic crisis that hit some kibbutzim more than others, we find that the crisis led to reduced support for leftist political parties. This effect persisted for over 20 years after the crisis had ended. We document that the electoral movement was rooted in a rightward shift in economic attitudes, suggesting that economic crises may undermine socialist regimes by silently changing attitudes toward them. In our unique setting, we can also study recovery mechanisms from the crisis. First, we find that while a sharp debt relief arrangement restored trust in the leadership, it did not reverse the impact of the crisis on economic attitudes. Second, as part of their efforts to recover from the crisis, kibbutzim liberalized their labor markets. Analyzing the staggered shift away from equal sharing to market-based wages, we find that this labor market liberalization led kibbutz members to move further rightward in their political voting and economic attitudes. |
| JEL: | J0 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34049 |
| By: | Marina Agranov; S. Nageeb Ali; B. Douglas Bernheim; Thomas R. Palfrey |
| Abstract: | Strategic models of legislative bargaining predict that proposers can extract high shares of economic surplus by identifying and exploiting weak coalition partners. However, strength and weakness can be difficult to assess even with relatively simple bargaining protocols. We evaluate experimentally how strategic complexity affects the ability to identify weak coalition partners, and for the partners themselves to determine whether their positions are weak or strong. We find that, as strategic complexity progressively obscures bargaining strength, proposers migrate to egalitarianism, in significant part because non-proposers begin placing substantial weight on fairness. Greater analytic skill dampens but does not eliminate these patterns. |
| JEL: | C73 C92 D72 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34083 |
| By: | Fischer, Martin; Nilsson, Therese; Seblova, Dominika; Lövdén, Martin |
| Abstract: | This study examines the relationship between the number of children and dementia risk among parents, addressing longstanding questions about how parenthood shapes cognitive health in later life. Using comprehensive administrative data on all parents born in Sweden between 1920 and 1950, along with their completed fertility histories, our baseline analysis reveals a U-shaped association between the number of children and dementia risk. Childless individuals and those with more than three children face significantly higher dementia risks. However, when accounting for confounding factors through instrumental variable analysis and within-sibling comparisons, we find no evidence that having multiple children increases dementia risk. Instead, our esults suggest that parenthood generally lowers the risk of dementia across all parity levels, challenging recent studies reporting a negative relationship between higher parity and cognitive function. Furthermore, we find that fathers benefit more than mothers from having additional children in terms of cognitive health in old age. Complementary analyses focusing on known dementia risk factors including educational attainment, labor market outcomes, and social or geographical proximity to children suggest that motherhood-related penalties may attenuate the cognitive health benefits of parenthood for women. |
| Abstract: | Diese Studie untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen der Anzahl der Kinder und dem Demenzrisiko bei Eltern und geht der Frage nach, wie Elternschaft die kognitive Gesundheit im späteren Leben beeinflusst. Basierend auf umfassenden Verwaltungsdaten zu allen in Schweden zwischen 1920 und 1950 geborenen Eltern sowie deren vollständigen Fertilitätsverläufen zeigt unsere Grundanalyse eine U-förmige Beziehung zwischen der Anzahl der Kinder und dem Demenzrisiko. Kinderlose Personen sowie diejenigen mit mehr als drei Kindern haben ein signifikant höheres Demenzrisiko. Wenn jedoch Störfaktoren durch Instrumentvariablenansätze oder den Vergleich von Geschwisterpaaren untereinander berücksichtigt werden, finden wir keine Hinweise darauf, dass eine größere Anzahl an Kindern das Demenzrisiko erhöht. Im Gegenteil deuten unsere Ergebnisse darauf hin, dass Elternschaft das Risiko für Demenz über alle Paritätsstufen hinweg insgesamt senkt. Dies widerspricht jüngeren Studien, die einen negativen Zusammenhang zwischen einer höheren Kinderzahl und kognitiven Funktionen berichten. Darüber hinaus zeigen unsere Ergebnisse, dass Väter im Vergleich zu Müttern stärker von zusätzlichen Kindern in Bezug auf ihre kognitive Gesundheit im Alter profitieren. Ergänzende Analysen zu bekannten Demenzrisikofaktoren - darunter Bildungsniveau, Arbeitsmarktverläufe sowie soziale und geografische Nähe zu den Kindern - deuten darauf hin, dass die Nachteile durch Mutterschaft bei Frauen die kognitiven Gesundheitseffekte der Elternschaft für Frauen abschwächen können. |
| Keywords: | Old-age dementia, instrumental variables, administrative register data |
| JEL: | J13 J14 J16 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:323235 |
| By: | Silvia De Poli |
| Abstract: | This paper assesses how extending paternity leave duration in Spain affects labour market outcomes and relationship stability. By combining administrative data from different sources, this study provides both descriptive and causal evidence of the effectiveness of the reform. First, we show that having a child substantially increases the gender employment gap between fathers and mothers by about 20 percentage points. Yet, between 2016 and 2021, when the duration of paternity leave gradually increased from two to sixteen weeks, this gap decreased by five percentage points. Second, using a regression discontinuity design, we analyse the causal effect of the 2018 reform, which introduced an additional week of leave for fathers that, for the first time, could be taken independently of the mother’s leave. Although we do not find robust evidence of an effect on the labour market, we show that the reform increased the stability of the relationship among couples where the mother was employed before childbirth. From a policy perspective, our findings suggest that extending paternity leave could have important implications in balancing family responsibilities and mitigating relationship conflicts. |
| Keywords: | paternity leave, employment, relation stability, regression discontinuity design |
| JEL: | C31 J12 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fbk:wpaper:2025-03 |
| By: | Erik Snowberg; Leeat Yariv |
| Abstract: | This introductory chapter outlines key criteria for evaluating experimental measures, and connects these criteria to the selection of experimental parameters across various contexts. We aim for this chapter to serve as a framework for assessing the different measures, elicitations, and designs explored throughout the handbook. |
| JEL: | D9 D90 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34031 |
| By: | Satyajit Chatterjee; Dean Corbae; Kyle P. Dempsey; José-Víctor Ríos-Rull |
| Abstract: | Credit scores are a primary screening device for the allocation of credit, housing, and sometimes even employment. In the data, credit scores grow and fan out with age; at the same time, income and consumption inequality also increase with a cohort’s age. We postulate a simple model with hidden information to explore the joint determination of credit scores, income, and consumption over an individual’s lifetime which can replicate these empirical facts. We use the model to understand the role of technologies like big data or legal restrictions limiting information on certain adverse events like medical expenses intended to increase credit market access. |
| JEL: | D82 E21 G51 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34027 |
| By: | Christian Dustmann (University College London); Uta Schoenberg (University of Hong Kong) |
| Abstract: | This chapter offers a novel approach to analyzing the effects of immigration on labor markets by structuring the discussion around a conceptual framework that links empirical estimates to fundamental structural parameters. This framework facilitates a clear interpretation and comparison of the parameters estimated by different empirical methods and clarifies the specific questions each method addresses. Section II introduces the canonical labor market model as a foundation for categorizing empirical approaches. Section III details the empirical approaches. Section IV differentiates between immigration’s impacts on regions and workers, proposing a framework to connect these perspectives. Recognizing the limitations of the basic canonical model, Section V explores extensions that incorporate critical adjustment mechanisms to immigration shocks, such as endogenous technology adoption, innovation, and product price adjustments. Section VI broadens the analysis by examining monopsonistic labor markets and search frictions, moving beyond the assumption of perfect competition. Finally, Section VII concludes with a discussion of unexplored research questions that are pivotal for advancing the understanding of immigration’s labor market effects and shaping future research agendas. |
| JEL: | J61 J31 J23 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:2522 |
| By: | Liran Einav; Amy Finkelstein; Petra Persson |
| Abstract: | We characterize the causal impact of having a child with Down syndrome relative to having one without Down syndrome using event studies around birth and population-wide Swedish administrative data from 1990 to 2019. The incremental effect of having a child with Down syndrome is to increase the likelihood of parental co-habitation and subsequent child-bearing. These effects exist both in an environment with essentially no prenatal testing – where the birth of a child with Down syndrome is random conditional on maternal age – as well as once prenatal screening and testing is more common. In both contexts, total income also increases due to the presence of a generous allowance for families with a child with a disability, but the impact on labor earnings differs. In the “no-testing” environment, having a child with Down syndrome leads to a greater decrease in maternal earnings post-birth relative to having a child without Down syndrome, but this effect reverses sign once testing is available. Our results speak to the impact on families of a child with Down syndrome in a setting where families are largely insured against any additional financial costs. |
| JEL: | I1 J13 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34064 |
| By: | Eric A. Hanushek; Le Kang; Xueying Li; Lei Zhang |
| Abstract: | The changing pattern of quality in China’s rural schools across time and province is extracted from the differential labor market earnings of rural migrant workers. Variations in rates of return to years of schooling across migrant workers working in the same urban labor market but having different sites of basic education provide for direct estimation of provincial school quality. Corroborating this approach, these school quality estimates prove to be highly correlated with provincial cognitive skill test scores for the same demographic group. Returns to quality increase with economic development level of destination cities. Importantly, quality appears higher and provincial variation appears lower for younger cohorts, indicating at least partial effectiveness of more recent policies aimed at improving rural school quality across provinces. Surprisingly, however, provincial variations in quality are uncorrelated with teacher-student ratio or per student spending. |
| Keywords: | school quality, migration, China |
| JEL: | I25 J6 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12017 |
| By: | Ricardo B. Ang III (Department of Economics, Tulane University); Giseong Kim (Department of Economics, Georgia State University); Soojin Kim (Department of Economics, Georgia State University); Michael F. Pesko (Department of Economics, University of Missouri) |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of automation on workers' health risks in the United States. We first document that automation leads to a divergence in the severity of occupational health risks: while automation reduces nonfatal occupational injury incidence, it increases fatal injury incidence. Secondly, the disparity of health risks across age groups has widened due to automation. The overall hospitalizations have declined in commuting zones with higher automation exposure. Yet, the benefits are concentrated among young workers, while middle-aged workers experience increased hospitalizations, particularly due to despair-related conditions. Combining the occupational injury estimates, a back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that workplace automation provides significant, health-driven economic benefits. |
| Keywords: | Automation, Workplace injury, Health Risks, Fatalities, Mental health |
| JEL: | I1 O3 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:umc:wpaper:2508 |
| By: | Benjamin Schoefer |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a repositioning of Europe’s labor market institutions as potential drivers of the transatlantic gap in macroeconomic performance. Institutional diagnoses were prominent in times of high European unemployment in the 1980-90s. But interest waned as joblessness fell—even though the decline was uneven, precarious work arrangements have grown, and labor markets remain largely unreformed (unlike product and financial markets). Yet, rigid labor market institutions might continue to matter because they can stifle labor market and business dynamism: Europeans switch jobs much less frequently, and restructuring is much rarer. Recent research argues that such immobility impedes wage and productivity growth. Moreover, this low dynamism might contribute to Europe’s specific underperformance in tech, R&D, disruptive innovation, ICT adoption—where creative destruction requires fluid reallocation. This institutional labor market perspective on European competitiveness complements prevailing diagnoses focused on capital and product market fragmentation. Tight labor markets, lower unemployment, and shrinking labor supply might keep this nexus timely. |
| JEL: | E0 J0 O0 |
| Date: | 2025–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33975 |
| By: | Tolga Benzer (Turku School of Economics, University of Turku) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of access to state-run religious schools on girls’ outcomes in T\"urkiye. These schools, offering religious instruction and a conservative school environment, became accessible to girls following a 1976 court ruling. Exploiting variation in exposure to religious schools across district centers and cohorts, I find that access increased secondary school completion among girls—with more pronounced effects observed in conservative areas—while having negligible effects on boys. Treated women later had lower fertility and higher labor force participation. The findings show that removing cultural barriers to education can promote schooling and public life integration for culturally marginalized groups. |
| Keywords: | Culture, Religion, Education, Women's Empowerment, Islam |
| JEL: | I24 I25 J13 J16 J22 Z12 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tkk:dpaper:dp170 |
| By: | Docquier, Frédéric (LISER); Iandolo, Stefano (University of Salerno); Rapoport, Hillel (Paris School of Economics); Turati, Riccardo (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Vannoorenberghe, Gonzague (Catholic University Louvain) |
| Abstract: | We propose new ways to measure populism, using the Manifesto Project Database (1960-2019) as main source of data. We characterize the evolution of populism over 60 years and show empirically that it is significantly impacted by the skill-content of globalization. Specifically, imports of goods which are intensive in low-skill labor generate more right-wing populism, and low-skill immigration shifts the distribution of votes to the right, with more votes for right-wing populist parties and less for left-wing populist parties. In contrast, imports of high-skill labor intensive goods, as well as high-skill immigration flows, tend to reduce the volume of populism. |
| Keywords: | immigration, populism, globalization, trade |
| JEL: | D72 F22 F52 J61 P00 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18041 |
| By: | Daniel S. Hamermesh; Michał Myck |
| Abstract: | We consider how a physical disability alters patterns of time use. A disability may raise the time cost of all activities; of some—making them differentially less worth doing; or it may make switching activities more costly. The first yields no predictions about time use, but the latter two possibilities both predict that fewer activities will be undertaken, with more time spent on each. These explanations describe our findings based on non-working ATUS 2008-22 respondents ages 70+, 32 percent of whom self-assess a disability. Data from the Polish Time Use Survey, where disability is medically certified, show similar results; and they demonstrate the same loss of variety over multiple days. Remarkably similar basic results are found using homogenized British, Canadian, French, Spanish, and Italian time-diaries. Overall, a mobility/physical disability leads an otherwise identical person to engage in over 10 percent fewer activities on a typical day. The lost variety represents extra costs equivalent in data from six countries to over twice the average annual income among older individuals in the country. |
| JEL: | I12 J14 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34068 |
| By: | Bachev, Hrabrin |
| Abstract: | The goal of this article is to identify contemporary modes and factors of labor supply in Bulgarian farms. Interdisciplinary New Institutional Economics methodology is incorporated, and an analysis is made of new representative micro data collected from the managers of farms of different types and locations. There has been enormous development in labor supply governance in Bulgarian farms during the last two decades. Permanent employment is a major form of labor supply in farms, followed by seasonal and part-time employment. Owners and family members account for the largest share of the total workforce. Different forms are used (high recurrence of contracts with the same person, output-based compensation, use of service supply or input contracts, etc.) to reduce transaction costs of labor and overall governance of farms. The reasons for using employment contracts and the importance of different labor supply and governance modes, intensity of transactions, types of partners, and kinds of remuneration vary considerably depending on juridical type, size, specialization, and locations of holdings. The most important problems in hiring labor are the lack of labor in the labor market, the high price of hired labor, requirement to pay social payments, pay-holidays, etc., big turnover of workers, high costs for adapting official labor standards, high costs for controlling of hired labor (cheating, stealing, etc.), high costs for negotiating conditions of employment, high costs to find good workers, low qualification of hired labor, advance age of hired labor, requirement for signing a written contract, and insufficient initiatives of workers. For a significant number of Bulgarian farms, the costs for finding needed labor, and the amount of costs for managing the hired labor and workers in the farm are factors strongly restricting the development of their enterprise. The latter is particularly important for a good proportion of major commercial farms like cooperatives, physical persons, and corporations, to a lesser extent for sole traders. Other critical factors strongly restricting development of Bulgarian farms at present stage of development are: legislation and regulation environment in the country and sector, the amount of costs for finding needed lands and natural resources, amount of costs for finding needed short-term and long-term assets, amount of costs for finding needed finance for the farms, amount of costs for finding needed innovations, amount of costs for marketing of output, amount of costs for registration, certification, etc., existence of informal and gray sector in agriculture, and socio-economic situation in the region and in the country. |
| Keywords: | governance, labor supply, modes, costs, new institutional economics |
| JEL: | J0 L2 Q12 Q13 Q15 Q18 |
| Date: | 2025–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125325 |
| By: | Akifumi Kusano (Graduate School of Economics, Waseda University; Waseda Institute of Social and Human Capital Studies (WISH), Tokyo, Japan); Haruko Noguchi (Faculty of School of Political Science and Economics, Tokyo, Japan; WISH, Tokyo, Japan); Yichen Shen (Graduate School of Health Innovation, Kanagawa University of Human Services, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan; WISH, Tokyo, Japan) |
| Abstract: | The maternity ward closures are observing across many countries, yet little known about how the closures affect obstetrician behavior and delivery practices. The unique institutional setting in Japan, exclusion of natural delivery from public health insurance, creates a unique institutional setting for analyzing physician’s delivery practices. This study analyzes the effect of hospital-based maternity ward closures on cesarean section practice and health outcomes. Using the Survey of Medical Institutions and Vital Statistics and employing a staggered difference-in-differences, we show that clinics increased the rate of cesarean section regardless of risk-factors of cesarean delivery. Moreover, this result was driven by private clinics. We interpret this result as evidence of overuse of cesarean sections that was caused by physician’s profit-maximizing behavior. Our findings imply that the expansion of insurance coverage for delivery care can mitigate this unintended effect. |
| Keywords: | Cesarean delivery, Physician-induced demand, Maternity ward closure |
| JEL: | I13 I18 J1 |
| Date: | 2025–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wap:wpaper:2520 |