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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Fischer, Alexander (Trivago, Germany); Gorshkov, Andrei (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Sandoy, Tróndur M. (University of Faroe Islands, Faroe Islands); Walldorf, Jeanette (Ministry of Children and Education, Denmark) |
| Abstract: | Do alumni ties preserve economic advantage? Linking random tutorial-group assignments at a Danish business school to administrative career data, we show that students align careers more with group peers than others in the same cohort, particularly through shared workplaces. These effects are especially pronounced among students from the wealthiest families and concentrated in top-paying firms. More exposure to affluent peers raises earnings, access to top-paying jobs, and increases the probability of reaching the top income ranks for similarly privileged students, while not for others. Job transitions to group peers point to gains from peer-connected moves, again concentrated among wealthier students. |
| Keywords: | Social connections; Peer effects; Elite university; Social mobility |
| JEL: | I24 I26 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_017 |
| By: | Bonin, Simone Maria (Danmarks Nationalbank and Aarhus University); Gorshkov, Andrei (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy) |
| Abstract: | We study the transmission of firm-specific export shocks through labor markets, examining how these shocks influence workers’ wages at competing firms via labor market competition. Using rich Danish administrative data, a flexible, empirically driven definition of workers’ outside options, and an identification strategy based on world import demand shocks, we show that both own-firm and competitor export shocks raise incumbent workers’ wages. These export-driven shocks also trigger competitive worker reallocation, as expanding exporters poach workers from other firms. The results indicate spillover effects of export shocks extending to non-exporting firms. |
| Keywords: | labour market competition; export shocks; worker outside options |
| JEL: | F16 J23 J31 J63 |
| Date: | 2026–09–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_016 |
| By: | Petter Lundborg; Adrian Nieto |
| Abstract: | We examine how early exposure to STEM professionals in the local neighborhood shapes children’s long run educational and labor market outcomes. To identify causal effects, we use Swedish register data and several sources of variation in exposure to STEM qualified neighbors measured at the 100 by 100 meter grid. Exposure during compulsory education raises children’s math performance, and evidence points to social ties as the main channel. It also increases the presence of boys and girls in science programs in high school and university, but mainly boys are more likely to complete a STEM bachelor degree. This gender gap persists into adulthood: STEM employment and earnings rise predominantly for boys. The results show that high skill professionals can serve as community based informal role models and that neighbors can shape long run educational and labor market trajectories. |
| Keywords: | STEM, science, neighbors, role model, human capital, labor trajectory |
| JEL: | I2 J2 J3 O3 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12955 |
| By: | Ichimura, Hidehiko (University of Arizona, Department of Economics); Sawada, Yasuyuki (University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics); Takayasu, Yutaro (Hitotsubashi University, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study); Tanaka, Mari (University of Tokyo) |
| Abstract: | When societies transition from hereditary to meritocratic systems, to what extent does educational expansion broaden access to elite positions and change inherited patterns of occupational sorting? We study Japan after the Meiji Restoration, which abolished samurai hereditary privileges in public-sector positions and modernized education. Exploiting cohort-specific discontinuities in access to secondary schooling created by the expansion of public secondary schools, we find that greater access increased elite attainment among both samurai and commoner families, but most additional elites entered sectors historically associated with their family background. Many had non-elite fathers, indicating greater upward intergenerational mobility into elite status. |
| Keywords: | social mobility, intergenerational mobility, secondary education, social transition, history |
| JEL: | J62 I24 I26 N35 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18924 |
| By: | Manasi Deshpande; Alessandra Voena; Jason B. Weitze |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in childhood on adult outcomes using multiple sources of variation. Using variation across and within two quasi-experiments, we find that the program has heterogeneous effects that vary with the parental earnings response to SSI benefits: the program has positive effects on children when parents do not adjust their labor supply in response to SSI income (meaning household income increases), but zero or negative effects on children when parents offset the transfer by reducing earnings (meaning household income remains constant or falls). These results suggest that, relative to parent non-work time, income is crucial in the human capital production of low-income children with disabilities. We estimate a model of maternal labor supply and child human capital formation to quantify the relative importance of these channels. Our findings indicate that 1) the income effects of SSI on children's human capital are substantial, with a limited role for perverse incentive effects from conditioning benefits on disability status, and 2) parental work on net improves children's outcomes by increasing household resources, despite the potential decrease in parental time. |
| JEL: | I38 J13 J14 J22 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35725 |
| By: | Robert Fairlie; Jane Wu; Robert W. Fairlie |
| Abstract: | The impact of AI on the employment prospects of recent college graduates is hotly debated with no consensus on the magnitude of impacts nor even the timing of those potential impacts. Using CPS microdata, we provide the first estimates of the effects of AI on the unemployment of recent college graduates in June, July and August 2026. We provide evidence suggesting that unemployment rates are especially high for summer months and that 2026 might be the first year of widespread enough AI use in the workplace to detect impacts of AI on recent college graduates, the group argued to be most vulnerable to AI replacement. Taking an agnostic approach to defining treatment timing, we find that unemployment rates did not spike in summer 2026 relative to summer months in previous years and did not rise in a significant way relative to older college graduates or young workers without a college degree. We also provide the first analysis of an expanded definition of unemployment that includes those who report “wanting a job” which adds nearly two percentage points to the unemployment rate of recent college graduates but we find no evidence of a statistically significant increase in summer 2026 even after adding these “sidelined unemployed.” We estimate difference-in-differences and event-study interaction models using both older college graduates and young non-college graduates as comparison groups and do not find evidence of an increase in relative unemployment rates. Finally, we estimate models in which we interact 2026 unemployment with AI exposure and remote work availability by occupation and find some evidence of a positive relationship with remote work availability. |
| Keywords: | AI, technological change, unemployment, job loss, college graduates |
| JEL: | J21 J24 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12994 |
| By: | Hirakawa, Marie (Nihon University); Nagase, Nobuko (Otsuma Women’s University); Usui, Emiko (Hitotsubashi University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how Japan's 2016 expansion of employees' social insurance coverage affected women's employment and working hours. At firms with 501 or more employees, the reform lowered the prescribed weekly-hours threshold for mandatory pension and health-insurance coverage from about 30 to 20 hours. Using the Labour Force Survey's rotating panel, we study one-year transitions among women aged 45–59 initially working 20–29 nonregular hours, comparing large firms subject to the reform with smaller firms in a difference-in-differences design. Among married women—likely exempt from contributions before the reform as dependent spouses—the probability of remaining at 20–29 hours fell by 7.55 percentage points, while moves below 20 hours and to 30–39 hours rose by 4.57 and 2.66 points, respectively. Among unmarried women—more likely to have paid their own pension contributions—moves to 40–49 hours rose by 11.77 points. Reductions below 20 hours were largest among married women with university-educated or high-earning husbands. Triple-difference estimates show little change in wages or bonuses. Coverage expansion can thus shift hours in opposite directions, depending on workers' prior insurance status and household circumstances. |
| Keywords: | social insurance, Employees’ Pension Insurance, part-time employment, labor supply, married women, Japan |
| JEL: | J16 J22 J31 J32 J38 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18919 |
| By: | David Card; Jesse Rothstein; Moises Yi |
| Abstract: | We use data on 44, 000 twin pairs observed as adolescents in the 2000 Census, linked to their earnings 20 years later, to study the heritability of labor market outcomes. We extend the Classical Twins Design (CTD), which identifies heritability from contrasts between monozygotic and dizygotic twins, to settings where an analyst does not observe zygosity but can measure outcomes for same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also allow for the presence of a family- and sex-specific component affecting same-sex siblings but only partly shared by opposite-sex siblings. Our extended model identifies heritability from the difference-in-differences of same-sex vs. opposite-sex twins vs. siblings. The estimates indicate strong heritability (h² approximately 0.36) of log earnings. Using an AKM (Abowd et al., 1999) decomposition that separates the person-specific component of earnings from employer-specific pay premiums, we find that both components are heritable. The heritability of employer pay premiums, however, is mainly driven by same-sex twins who work at the same firm, suggesting that social interactions may lead to an over-estimate of the genetic component in earnings. Excluding siblings who work together leads to estimates of the heritability of log earnings that are 15% lower. Similar biases may be present in CTD-based estimates of heritability for other social outcomes like education. |
| JEL: | C31 D31 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35746 |
| By: | Yana Gallen; Melanie Wasserman |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence that gender affects the information an individual receives about careers. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek career information from 10, 000 working professionals. We randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. When students ask broadly for information about a career, female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance than male students. This gender difference persists when students specifically ask about work/life balance. A survey of professionals suggests non-altruistic motives for discussing work/life balance with women. Combining findings from the field experiment and results from an information intervention, we conclude that gender gaps in information received about work/life balance are consequential for gender gaps in career intentions. |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35750 |
| By: | Hild, Paul Ergün; Hilweg-Waldeck, Michael |
| Abstract: | Career choice, earnings, and other key economic outcomes have been linked to gender differences in willingness to compete. This paper examines how gender stereotypes shape these differences. We conduct a meta-study of prior work and demonstrate that the wide variation in gender competition gaps can be explained by stereotypes: Men enter competitions more in traditionally male-stereotyped domains, whereas in female-stereotyped domains, the gap is smaller or even reversed. Importantly, these differences are not explained by gender gaps in performance. To explore mechanisms, we collect belief data in an elicitation experiment. We find that stereotyped beliefs about gender performance differences explain more than half of the variation in competition gaps in the literature. Next, we experimentally manipulate stereotypes through framing and informational cues about others beliefs. Although these interventions significantly shift beliefs, the effects do not translate into changes in competitive behavior. Our findings highlight the importance of stereotypes in shaping gender gaps in competitiveness while suggesting that shifting beliefs alone is unlikely to close these gaps without deeper or longer-term interventions. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Competitiveness, Stereotypes, Beliefs, Experiment |
| JEL: | D91 J16 C90 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:343565 |
| By: | D'hert, Liam (Ghent University); Baert, Stijn (Ghent University); du Bois, Kristen (EDHEC Business School) |
| Abstract: | Workers who proactively exit employment to prevent burnout and preserve their mental health are, by their own logic, making a deliberate investment in long-term employability. Yet, related research on backlash against leave-taking suggests that employers may interpret this decision very differently at labour market re-entry. Using a preregistered vignette experiment in which professional recruiters evaluated 1, 176 simulated LinkedIn profiles, we examine how such self-directed mental health breaks, popularised as ‘micro-retirements’, shape hiring evaluations. We find that applicants returning from such breaks face hiring penalties as severe as those attached to burnout-related absences. Mechanism analyses reveal why: recruiters read these interruptions primarily as signals of ideal worker norm violation, alongside skill deterioration, while failing to recognise their proactive character. This mismatch between worker perspective and employer interpretation carries implications for hiring practice, workplace mental health, and career theory. |
| Keywords: | career break, mental health, burnout, unemployment, inactivity, hiring chances, stigma, factorial survey experiment, micro-retirement |
| JEL: | C91 I12 J24 J64 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18927 |
| By: | Hossain, Mohammad Zariab (Department of Economics, Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence of behavioral spillovers in public employment services (PES). Using rich Swedish administrative data from 2004–2018 and a difference-in-differences design exploiting caseworker moves across local PES offices, I show that caseworker’s broader vacancy referral behavior—vacancy referrals outside a job seeker’s stated preferences—responds strongly to the local work-practice styles. I also examine how these practice-environment shocks of the movers (caseworkers) affect their job seekers. Taken together, the evidence suggests that local referral practices and the surrounding organizational environment play an important role in shaping caseworker behavior, with consequences for job seekers’ reemployment prospects. |
| Keywords: | occupational mismatch; caseworkers; peer effects; job search; public employment services; active labor market programs; difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | C21 I38 J24 J24 J64 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–09–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_018 |
| By: | Vyborny, Kate; Garlick, Robert; Subramanian, Nivedhitha; Field, Erica |
| Abstract: | Understanding specific barriers to job search and returns to relaxing these barriers is important for economists and policymakers. An experiment that changed the default process for initiating job applications increased applications by 600 percent on a search platform in Pakistan. Perhaps surprisingly, the marginal treatment-induced applications have approximately constant rather than decreasing returns. These results are consistent with a directed search model in which some jobseekers miss some high-return vacancies due to the psychological costs of initiating applications. These findings show that small reductions in search costs can substantially improve search outcomes in environments with some relatively inactive jobseekers. |
| Date: | 2026–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11465 |
| By: | Randall Akee; Emilia Simeonova |
| Abstract: | There is substantial heterogeneity in economic, educational, and health outcomes among American Indians, shaped by factors such as geographic location (urban vs. rural), resource endowments, and historical experiences with federal policies. Nonetheless, there is clear evidence that historical policies, including forced relocation, boarding schools, and assimilation efforts, have had long-lasting negative effects on human capital development and intergenerational mobility in these populations. Recent decades have seen improvements in some areas, particularly where tribes have exercised greater self-governance and implemented innovative economic development strategies. This paper emphasizes that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is inadequate for analyzing the sources and potential remediation of disparities across various outcomes between Native populations and descendants of later arrivals. A unique challenge is that the measurement and analysis of American Indian outcomes are complicated by issues of racial and tribal identification, data limitations, and changing definitions. These challenges can obscure true trends and make it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of policies or programs, underscoring the need for more precise and disaggregated data. This essay comments on the need for caution and clarity in the use and analysis of data for this population in both historical and contemporary settings. |
| JEL: | J0 N3 O10 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35730 |
| By: | Beata Osiewalska (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam)); Anna Matysiak (University of Warsaw, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Interdisciplinary Centre for Labour Market and Family Dynamics (LabFam); Cracow University of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the role of working from home (WFH) in shaping fertility across Austria, France, and Poland. While WFH can enhance flexibility and facilitate work–family reconciliation, it may also blur boundaries and intensify work demands, with ambiguous implications for childbearing. Using longitudinal Labour Force Survey (2006–2023), we estimate hazard models of first and subsequent births, distinguishing women’s and men’s on-site work, occasional and usual WFH, self-employment, and non-employment, as well as their couple-level configurations. The association between WFH and fertility is strongly context-, gender-, and parity-specific. For first births, women’s WFH is positively associated with entry into parenthood in France and Austria, but negatively in Poland, particularly when combined with temporary employment. For subsequent births, women’s WFH is linked to higher birth risks in France and Austria, whereas in Poland, this pattern appears only when she works from home and he works on-site. Men’s WFH shows little association with fertility. These findings highlight that WFH operates as both a resource and a strain: supportive policies and secure employment can turn WFH into a facilitator of family formation, whereas their absence may transform it into a source of constraint and inequality. |
| Keywords: | work from home, flexible work, fertility, couples, Europe |
| JEL: | J13 J81 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-35 |
| By: | Ohto Kanninen (Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE); Hannu Karhunen (Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE); Sanni Kiviholma (Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE); Jeremias Nieminen (Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE) |
| Abstract: | Several countries use immigration liberalization as a place-based policy tool, but evidence on its regional effects remains almost entirely descriptive. We examine the causal impact of removing labor market testing (LMT) regulations for labor immigrants in all occupations in the remote Finnish region of North Karelia. The reform allowed firms to hire non-EU foreign workers in all occupations without first advertising jobs to domestic applicants, resulting in a 14% rise in the stock of immigrant workers. Using synthetic control and difference-in-differences methods, we estimate causal effects of the reform at the regional, municipal, firm establishment, and individual levels. The reform caused immigrant inflows to increase primarily in cities and in specific types of occupations, i.e., low-paying occupations and ISCO groups 5, 7, 8, and 9. Across the firm size distribution, the increases concentrate around the median and the top. We find little evidence that the policy had meaningful effects on other regional or municipal outcomes: immigration liberalization boosted labor supply without generating transformative medium-term regional effects. |
| Keywords: | immigration, labor supply, aging population, regional economy, labor market testing, synthetic control, difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | R11 R58 J20 J38 J61 J68 |
| Date: | 2026–09–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pst:wpaper:365 |
| By: | Antonio Accetturo (Bank of Italy); Michele Cascarano (Bank of Italy); Andrea Locatelli (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | Zombie firms may hinder growth not only via capital misallocation, but also by tightening local labor markets. This paper studies whether zombie prevalence weakens healthy firms' ability to expand employment when they face positive export-demand shocks. Using Italian firm-level data for 2015-23, we exploit the variation in the incidence of employment in zombie firms over active population at local labor market level and firm-specific exposure to exogenous export-demand shocks constructed with a shift-share design. We show that firms located in local labor markets with a higher share of employment in zombie firms exhibit a weaker employment response to foreign-demand shocks. Effects are strongest for white-collar workers and for micro and small firms, consistent with tighter constraints on scarce skills and greater reliance on local hiring. Results are robust to alternative zombie definitions and shock constructions. |
| Keywords: | zombie firms, labor hoarding, labor misallocation, foreign demand shocks, local labor markets |
| JEL: | J23 D22 G33 R23 F16 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_1058_26 |
| By: | Otten, Sebastian |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether gender differences in teacher-assigned grades vary systematically across subjects. Using data from German secondary schools, I compare teacher-assigned grades with anonymously graded standardized test scores within a difference-in-differences framework. Across six core subjects spanning the humanities and STEM, I find systematic grading differentials favoring female students. The estimated differential is largest in German and Math and substantially smaller in English and the sciences, indicating considerable cross-subject heterogeneity. The differential also varies markedly by school track and teacher experience, with systematically larger estimates in the academic track and particularly pronounced differentials among novice teachers. |
| Keywords: | Gender differences, Teacher grading, Grade test differential, Educational inequality |
| JEL: | I21 I24 J16 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:343541 |
| By: | David Neumark; Jyotsana Kala |
| Abstract: | We provide a comprehensive analysis of the effects of minimum wages on blacks, and on the relative impacts on blacks vs. whites. We study not only teenagers – the focus of much of the minimum wage-employment literature – but also broader low-skill groups. We find no evidence that higher minimum wages reduce wage disparities. First, much of our evidence points to job loss effects from higher minimum wages are more evident for blacks – and more so for black men – but not detectable for whites. Second, in many of our analyses the effects of minimum wages are large enough to generate adverse effects on earnings (and relative earnings) of blacks. Third, given strong residential segregation by race in the United States, more adverse effects of minimum wages on blacks would fall on areas with a high black population share, and this appears to be accentuated by evidence that minimum wage effects are more adverse in areas where blacks are a very high share of the population, regardless of individual race. |
| Keywords: | minimum wages, race |
| JEL: | J23 J38 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12971 |
| By: | Drydakis, Nick |
| Abstract: | This study examines whether signalling AI-related digital skills improves employment outcomes for women from underrepresented groups in England, defined by race, age, sexual orientation, and autism-spectrum disclosure. Using correspondence evidence, the study finds that underrepresented women receive fewer interview invitations and are considered for lower-paid vacancies than majority-group women. In pooled analyses, signalling AI-related digital skills increases interview invitations for underrepresented applicants, but does not eliminate the disadvantage. These findings are consistent with AI Capital and productivity-signalling frameworks, as employers appear to value AI-related capabilities while the returns to such credentials remain constrained by persistent demographic inequalities. The study therefore shows that positive returns to AI-related skills and labour-market disadvantage can coexist. Its broader implication is that digital upskilling can strengthen the recruitment prospects of underrepresented women, but cannot by itself deliver parity in employment outcomes. A dual policy response is therefore required, combining wider and more equitable access to AI education and training with stronger anti-discrimination enforcement, greater transparency in shortlisting, improved oversight of recruitment processes, and systematic evaluation of how employers recognise applicant credentials. The study contributes to the economics of AI by linking correspondence evidence to the AI Capital framework and highlighting barriers to converting AI-related resources into meaningful employment opportunities. |
| Keywords: | AI Capital, Artificial Intelligence, Skills, Discrimination, Hiring, Wages, Sexual Orientation, Race, Age, Autism Spectrum |
| JEL: | J71 J24 J31 J64 C93 J15 J16 J14 O33 M51 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1823 |