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on Labour Economics |
| By: | José Victor C. Giarola; Olivier Marie; Frank Cörvers; Hans Schmeets |
| Abstract: | We study a policy change in the Netherlands that unexpectedly reduced the duration of preferential tax treatment for high-skilled migrants from specific countries. Using administrative data, we document substantial out-migration responses driven entirely by the top 1% of earners, with no detectable response below the 95th percentile. Among the 95-99th percentile, previously internationally mobile workers also leave sooner, particularly to countries offering tax breaks, consistent with tax shopping behavior and pointing to distortionary effects of international tax competition. Increased tax intake from remaining workers offsets revenue lost from departing high earners, making the policy fiscally cost-neutral. |
| Keywords: | taxation, immigration, labor income, Netherlands |
| JEL: | F22 H31 J61 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12813 |
| By: | Bérgolo, Marcelo; Ferrando, Mery; Giaccobasso, Matias; Vilá, Joan |
| Abstract: | Job displacement generates large and persistent income losses. This paper examines how alternative social protection mechanisms mitigate the consequences of job loss in Uruguay, a middle-income country with a relatively well-developed social safety net. Using matched employer-employee administrative data, we combine variation from mass layoffs with difference-in-differences and regression-discontinuity designs to estimate the effects of job displacement and the insurance value of two policies: (i) a traditional contributory unemployment insurance program and (ii) a noncontributory conditional cash transfer program targeting low-income households. We document that after employment falls it gradually rebounds, while earnings decline sharply, with labor income falling by about 50% in the short term, and remain below pre-displacement levels even five years later. The persistent earnings losses are primarily driven by lower post-displacement wages. Comparing the insurance value of alternative policy responses, we find that the cash transfer program provides substantial protection for vulnerable and middle-income workers facing layoffs, while unemployment insurance does not generate comparable medium-term gains. |
| Keywords: | Job displacement |
| JEL: | J64 J65 I38 H53 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:14659 |
| By: | Pascal Heß (Institute for Employment Research (IAB) and IZA@LISER); Armando Miano (University of Naples Federico II and CSEF) |
| Abstract: | We study how employed workers perceive and respond to opportunities for occupational mobility. Using a large-scale survey of 4, 500 full-time workers in Germany, linked with administrative employment data, we measure workers’ beliefs about the transferability of their skills, the similarity of alternative occupations to theirs, the benefits— potential earnings—and costs—retraining and licensing requirements—of moving to other occupations. We also capture respondents’ beliefs about exposure of their own and alternative occupations to automation and AI. The results reveal that workers are imperfectly informed about opportunities in other occupations: they systematically underestimate task similarity and wages in alternative occupations while overestimating the need for retraining or licensing. These misperceptions are more severe for bluecollar workers and for workers in commercial and administrative occupations, and are strongly negatively correlated with intentions to seek jobs in other occupations. Randomized information treatments providing data on wages, retraining requirements, and displacement risk meaningfully alter workers’ beliefs and mobility intentions, even nine months after the intervention. |
| Keywords: | Occupational mobility, Information frictions, Job search, Beliefs, Automation, AI. |
| JEL: | J01 J24 J62 D91 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sef:csefwp:792 |
| By: | Gianluca Orefice; Giovanni Peri; Gianluca Santoni |
| Abstract: | Using employer-employee Italian data over the period 1998-2018 we analyze the impact of the largest regularization of undocumented immigrant workers in Italy on wage, employment and mobility outcomes of natives. Our empirical strategy takes advantage of the 2002 Bossi-Fini law that unexpectedly regularized 634, 000 undocumented non-EU immigrants, with variation across firms and provinces that was not correlated with previous economic performance. We find that the policy had a small effect on the average wage of native workers and positive effects on their employment at the local labor market level. Additionally, native co-workers in firms more affected by the policy were more likely to change employers in the post-policy period. Such higher mobility resulted in a heterogeneous wage effect across switchers: workers that managed to transition towards better firms experienced wage gains in the medium- and long-run, while other workers experienced wage losses. This implied an increase in wage dispersion for natives and some losers among Italian workers. |
| Keywords: | workers, firms, immigrant regularization, local labor market |
| JEL: | F16 J20 J61 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12817 |
| By: | Dean R. Lillard; Joseph J. Sabia; Zihao Sheng; Casey Warman |
| Abstract: | This study explores the effects of COVID-19 school closures on labor market outcomes of Canadian parents of school-aged children. Using newly collected data on grade-level-specific school closures across 141 Canadian cities along with individual-level panel data from the Labour Force Survey, difference-in-differences estimates provide robust evidence that restrictions on in-person schooling reduced employment among partnered mothers of school-aged children by approximately 2 percentage points. For fathers, labor supply adjustments are much weaker and concentrated on single fathers. Finally, auxiliary analyses using administrative tax records provide suggestive evidence that school closures increased public benefit receipt among single parents. |
| JEL: | I24 I28 J21 J22 J30 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35432 |
| By: | Lorenzo Cappellari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Tommaso Colussi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro CuoreAuthor-Name: Lorenzo Cappellari); Marco Ovidi (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore) |
| Abstract: | We study how committee dynamics affect the recognition of academic excellence and its consequences in the labour market. Using administrative records from a major Italian university and exploiting exogenous variation in the gender composition of graduation committees, we show that equally prepared female graduates are significantly less likely to receive laude honors when evaluated by male-majority committees, while males are unaffected. The effect is concentrated among students advised by female or early-career faculty and disappears when a woman chairs the committee, pointing to the role of authority and influence in deliberations. We show pre-defense gender gaps in adivsors’ official laude requests in male-majority committees, consistent with nominations responding to expected committee support. Gaps in academic distinction translate into meaningful entry-wage penalties, contributing to gender gaps at labor-market entry. |
| Keywords: | Gender bias, academic evaluation, labor market outcomes. |
| JEL: | J16 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def154 |
| By: | Rigissa Megalokonomou1; Juliana Silva-Goncalves2; Roel van Veldhuizen3 |
| Abstract: | We study the role of self-promotion and career advice in sustaining gender differences in labor market outcomes. We conduct a pre-registered experiment in which “advisers” advise “workers” to attempt either a more or a less ambitious task. We find that women promote themselves less than men and, as a result, are 12 percentage points less likely to be advised to choose the more ambitious task. This gender gap in advice persists across both quantitative and qualitative self-assessments and is robust to variation in advisers’ information sets—including when advisers observe workers’ actual performance—but is eliminated and even reversed when advisers are informed of the gender gap in self- promotion. |
| Keywords: | Advice, Gender, Self-Promotion, Randomized Experiment |
| JEL: | C91 D91 J16 |
| Date: | 2026–07–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mos:moswps:paper_1785128272966_880 |
| By: | Simon Quach |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the labor market effects of overtime coverage in the United States, where salaried workers are covered for overtime if their base pay falls below a legislated salary threshold. Using an event-study design with administrative payroll data and state-level threshold changes from 2014-2021, I find evidence against conventional models of overtime. Contrary to the historical intent of policymakers, firms do not increase employment by substituting more workers for fewer hours. However, contrary to compensating differential models, firms also do not offset the costs of overtime by lowering workers' base pays. Instead, employers raised salaries above the threshold to keep workers exempt from overtime, indicating that monitoring and adjusting workers' hours is costly for firms. Taken together, these results suggest that expanding overtime coverage increases workers' earnings without negatively impacting employment. |
| JEL: | J01 J08 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35433 |
| By: | Daniel Goller; Enzo Brox; Stefan C. Wolter |
| Abstract: | Why do people sort into poorly fitting occupations? This paper shows that imperfect self-knowledge about skills is an important source of skill mismatch at labor market entry. We use unique data from standardized professional aptitude tests linked to administrative records on educational trajectories and early labor market outcomes in Switzerland. The data allow us to observe objective skills and subjective skill beliefs for many productivity-relevant skills in a high-stakes setting. We document large differences among individuals in how well their beliefs align with their skills. Imperfect self-knowledge predicts misaligned occupational aspirations, higher realized skill mismatch, and a higher probability of dropout. Guided by a Roy-style model of occupational choice with imperfect self-knowledge, we interpret these findings as evidence that distorted self-assessments at the school-to-work transition contribute to the misallocation of talent. |
| Keywords: | information frictions, occupational choice, skill mismatch, self-knowledge |
| JEL: | D83 J24 J41 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12814 |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan (London School of Economics); Wang, Wanying (Department of Health Policy, London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Although flexible employment policies can help employed individuals balance caregiving and paid work, limited evidence has been devoted to examining the effect of working flexibly on the supply of care to older adults. In this paper, we study the impact of flexible working conditions on the supply of informal adult care and mental health. We exploit variation from the 2014 expansion of the Right to Request Flexible Work (RRFW) to employees in the UK. Our findings point to a gendered response to increased employment flexibility. We document a 1.3-percentage-point increase in the likelihood that men provide informal care within the household, alongside less regular daytime work, greater control over working hours, and higher engagement in home production. In contrast, among potential female caregivers, we find that the reform reduced the probability of high-intensity caregiving, which is typically incompatible with employment or related activities. We document that the increased workplace flexibility not only encourages caregiving but also helps reduce gender disparities in unpaid care. We additionally find suggestive evidence of improved mental health outcomes, particularly among men. |
| Keywords: | flexible working, informal care, right to request flexible work, mental health, United Kingdom |
| JEL: | J14 J22 I13 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18800 |
| By: | Diegmann, André; Müller, Steffen; Schoefer, Benjamin |
| Abstract: | We revisit the employer size wage effect (ESWE) - arguably the most basic and influential departure from the law of one price for labor. Our main result is that this canonical fact disappears completely across establishments within the same firm, even though they operate in different local labor markets. We uncover and dissect this fact by including a firm fixed effect in otherwise standard cross-sectional regressions of wages on establishment size. We implement this demanding specification in population-wide triple-linked firmestablishment-employee data in Germany. This result is new to the ESWE literature (for which our paper also provides the first systematic meta-analysis). This wage-size decoupling is hard to square with the view that employment is determined along a finitely elastic employer-specific labor supply curve - i.e., employers pay exactly the minimum needed for the quantity of labor, but no more - the foundation of the monopsony view. By contrast, large multi-establishment firms (MEF) appear to hire off their labor supply curves (or those curves are very elastic), pay wage premia above the monopsonistic minimum, and leave excess labor supply. We find some evidence for a reemergence of the ESWE within lowpremium MEFs. Overall, at least for the 25% of German employment in large firms for which the ESWE disappears, wage setting and employment determination may be better accounted for by alternative models, namely accommodating above-market-clearing wage premia and rationing of labor supply, such as efficiency wage theories. |
| Keywords: | Employer Size Wage Effect, Multi-Establishment Firms, Wage Setting, Monopsony |
| JEL: | J31 D22 L23 M50 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:341993 |
| By: | Kaur, Sarvnipun; Arora, Anshika; Singh, Prakarsh |
| Abstract: | Night-shift bans prevent women from working nights on equal terms with men. Though most countries repealed such bans, India retains gender-based restrictions. After 2017, several states permitted women in service-establishments to work nightshifts under administrative requirements. Exploiting this staggered rollout, we find reforms reshaped female employment composition without affecting its level. Women in treated-states were 10.1% more likely to be employed in services and 5.3% less likely in non-services. This effect is stronger in safer districts, robust to placebos and contemporaneous manufacturing reforms. Lifting this constraint may expand employment, but administrative-costs can offset these gains. We find the former dominates. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Labor law, Sectoral employment |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J78 K31 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1791 |
| By: | [Lukas Lehner] |
| Abstract: | This paper studies unemployed workers’ preferences for two widely debated social policy innovations often framed as rivals: a job guarantee and a basic income. It addresses how support for the two policies compares, how policy generosity shapes that support, and which groups are most supportive. Leveraging a randomized experiment in a representative survey of unemployed workers in Austria, the analysis documents broad support for both policies: consistently higher for guaranteed jobs though a majority support both policies. Increasing generosity raises support for each policy, and crossing a pay threshold above average unemployment benefits sharply increases willingness to accept guaranteed jobs. Support and willingness to participate are strongest among disadvantaged respondents, while a small socio-economically advantaged minority opposes both policies across generosity levels. The results suggest that guaranteed jobs and guaranteed income are better understood as complementary rather than opposing strategies for strengthening the welfare state in the twenty-first century. |
| Keywords: | job guarantee; universal basic income; unemployed workers; survey experiment; social policy preferences; welfare state attitudes |
| JEL: | I31 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_1125 |
| By: | Bick, Alexander; Dias Da Silva, António; Weißler, Marco |
| Abstract: | While employer-to-employer (E2E) transitions are by now well-documented, these data alone cannot reveal what drives mobility: who searches, why, and how search translates into transitions. Using novel panel data from the ECB and NY Fed consumer expectations surveys, we provide the first systematic cross-country analysis of on-the job search (OJS) and E2E transitions across eleven euro area countries and the U.S. Our data uniquely include direct measures of OJS and its motives (job loss expectations for precautionary, pay satisfaction for job ladder) for all workers, not just searchers. We find that OJS is widespread, making employed workers the majority of searchers, and it strongly predicts E2E transitions. Motives differ dramatically: precautionary search dominates in Europe, while the job ladder motive dominates in the U.S. OJS is highly persistent, with 40% continuing to search even after starting a new job. JEL Classification: J64, D84 |
| Keywords: | expectations, job search, labor market transitions |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20263267 |
| By: | Johan Fourie; Kris Inwood; Martine Mariotti |
| Abstract: | Audit studies show that employers discriminate at hiring, and firm-sorting evidence shows that they segregate workers across employers. Less is known about discrimination after hiring, within the firm, because personnel data rarely observe initial assignment, later performance, and separation jointly. We use records from the South African Constabulary, a mounted police force whose pay was fixed within rank and class, to isolate the within-firm assignment margin. The cleaned sample contains 354 Afrikaner recruits and more than 10, 000 other men enlisted between 1900 and 1908; 300 of the Afrikaner recruits enlisted after the May 1902 Treaty of Vereeniging. Afrikaners were placed in shorter contracts and lower job classes than observably similar non-Afrikaners. The wage gap disappears once assignment is held fixed. Within rank, character ratings are statistically equivalent across groups, and the early Afrikaner dismissal hazard attenuates sharply with tenure, consistent with slow employer learning. Voluntary separations peak in the second half of the first year, after the early dismissal threat has receded. The misallocation is costly on both sides: the firm loses 26, 000 to 176, 000 service-days, and the worker loses tenure, retention, and re-enlistment. |
| Keywords: | within-firm discrimination; misallocation; employer learning; personnel economics; turnover; sorting |
| JEL: | J15 J24 J62 J63 J71 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:auu:hpaper:139 |
| By: | Lorenzo Cappellari (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore; Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore); Bernardo Fanfani |
| Abstract: | We study how updates in pay floors set by collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) shape the wage structure in Italy. We estimate stacked event-panel difference-indifferences models around changes of contractual minima and trace distributional impacts. Pay-floor hikes of 2.2% on average raise mean log FTE daily wages by 2.2%, but effects are near zero at the 10th percentile and stronger at the 90th, implying inequalityenhancing wage-rate responses. This asymmetry reflects both within-agreement heterogeneity, as lower-paid workers within CBAs respond less, and between-agreement heterogeneity, as low-wage CBAs exhibit weaker pass-through. Non-compliance with pay floors is higher in low-wage CBAs, thus it is a potential driver of asymmetries even if its level is not affected by wage updates. Pay-floor hikes reduce employment and days worked only among low-wage workers and only among full-time jobs, which may further contribute to the muted wage response in the lower tail through selection mechanisms. |
| Keywords: | collective bargaining, contractual minimum wages, wage structure. |
| JEL: | J31 J38 J51 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctc:serie1:def155 |
| By: | Riccarda Rosenball (University of Graz, Austria) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of export entry on the within-firm gender wage gap. Existing studies provide mixed evidence on this relationship. I show that part of this inconsistency reflects how the standard worker-level empirical approach aggregates firm-level treatment effects. When linked employer-employee data are used to estimate effects that operates at the firm level, ordinary least squares (OLS) does not recover a simple average across firms. Instead, firms receive implicit OLS weights that are proportional to the number of worker observations they contribute, giving disproportionate influence to large firms. Applying the standard empirical approach on German data, I estimate that export entry reduces the within-firm gender wage gap by approximately 1.2 percentage points. However, this average effect disappears once the estimation is reweighted by inverse firm size, thereby removing the mechanical firm-size component of the implicit OLS weights. The apparent reduction in the gender wage gap is therefore driven by a small number of large exporters rather than representing a general pattern across firms. The paper highlights an important issue that arises whenever individual-level data are used to estimate treatment effects operating at the group level: in the presence of heterogeneous group-level effects, OLS estimates reflect implicit weighting schemes rather than simple averages across groups. Recognizing these implicit weighting structures is therefore essential for interpreting empirical estimates and drawing policy conclusions. |
| Keywords: | Gender Wage Gap, Exporting Firms, Linked Employer-Employee Data, Heterogenous Effects |
| JEL: | F16 J16 J70 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:grz:wpaper:2026-14 |