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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Brunello, Giorgio (University of Padova); Campo, Francesco (University of Padova); Lodigiani, Elisabetta (University of Padova); Miotto, Martina (University of Padova); Rocco, Lorenzo (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the factors influencing the intended college major choices of high school students in Italy, ranking the relative importance of expected earnings, perceived ability, and major-specific tastes, that we measure directly using a Coller and Williams game. We find that major-specific tastes and self-assessed ability are significantly more influential in shaping academic intentions than mean expected earnings at age 30. We estimate that a one standard deviation change in the taste for (resp. perceived ability in) a given major increases the odds of choosing that major (relative to Humanities, our benchmark scenario) by 136.4% (resp. 114.1%), far outweighing the 39.3% increase associated with a one standard deviation change in mean expected earnings. |
| Keywords: | major choice, Italy, expectations |
| JEL: | I21 I23 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18444 |
| By: | Pawel Adrjan; Svenja Gudell; Emily E. Nix; Allison Shrivastava; Jason Sockin; Evan P. Starr |
| Abstract: | Amidst rising political polarization, firms engage more frequently with political issues through public statements and policies. This paper examines how firms' stances on polarizing issues impact worker sorting, leveraging announcements from hundreds of employers following the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning federal abortion rights. We introduce a methodology to uncover labor market competitors for each announcing firm based on job seekers' revealed preferences. While announcing firms received more applications from job seekers, particularly in Democratic-leaning states and female-dominated jobs where abortion was outlawed, current employees began searching for jobs elsewhere as employee satisfaction declined, particularly among male-dominated jobs. Smaller companies with less-established reputations experienced the largest effects. When deciding whether to take a sociopolitical stance, firms face a complicated trade-off: attracting culturally-aligned workers at the expense of alienating current ones. |
| JEL: | J0 P0 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34948 |
| By: | Biasi, Paola (Italian National Institute of Social Security); De Paola, Maria (University of Calabria) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the labor market consequences of motherhood in Italy, focusing on how institutional and local contexts shape the child penalty. Using INPS administrative data, we track mothers in the public and private sectors from three years before to five years after their first child’s birth. Employing an event-study framework with individual fixed effects, we estimate labor market exit probabilities and earnings losses by sector. Mothers face substantial, persistent penalties, much larger in the private sector, particularly regarding employment exits. Local conditions, childcare availability, unemployment rates, and gender norms, affect these outcomes mainly on the extensive margin, while earnings losses for those who remain employed are less sensitive. These contextual effects are strongest in the private sector, while public sector mothers are largely insulated from local factors. |
| Keywords: | child penalty, public sector, private sector, event study, economic conditions, childcare availability, gender norms |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J18 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18448 |
| By: | Khaliliaraghi, Negar (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Lundborg, Petter (Lund University); Vikström, johan (IFAU and Uppsala University) |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in earnings persist even among high-skilled workers, in part because men and women often perform different tasks within and across jobs. We study a rare setting in which high-skilled men and women perform the same tasks under comparable conditions, allowing us to assess gender differences in productivity and pay without confounding from task or client allocation. Using administrative data from the Swedish Public Employment Service between 2003 and 2014, we exploit a rotation scheme that quasirandomly assigns job seekers to employment caseworkers. We find that productivity differences are small: job seekers assigned to female and male caseworkers exit unemployment at similar rates, and hourly wages—conditional on productivity—are nearly identical across genders, leaving little scope for wage differences driven by discrimination or bargaining in this setting. Despite this, female caseworkers earn about 8 percent less per year, entirely due to differences in contracted and actual hours worked. We also find suggestive evidence that male caseworkers are more likely to be promoted than equally productive female colleagues. Taken together, the results show that when tasks are standardized and performance is measured objectively, gender differences in productivity and hourly pay are minimal, while gaps in annual earnings and career progression persist. |
| Keywords: | Gender Gaps; Productivity; Wages; Task Allocation |
| JEL: | D84 I12 J12 J21 |
| Date: | 2026–03–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_007 |
| By: | Clemens, Michael (George Mason University) |
| Abstract: | The US government in 2025 imposed a $100, 000 tax on each high-skill foreign worker entering with an H-1B work visa. The only public economic justification calculates the tax to offset an estimated wage penalty for H-1B workers relative to US natives. But this estimate suffers from substantial bias. Reexamining the same data shows that H-1B workers receive a modest wage premium relative to comparable natives, roughly 6% on average—inconsistent with any wage penalty—when using equivalent wage concepts and comparing workers of the same age, gender, education, and tenure, in the same occupation and local labor market. I trace most of the discrepancy to four methodological choices that inflate the prior estimate: 1) undisclosed imputation of missing data, 2) pooling of non-contemporaneous years, 3) a definition of local labor markets contradicting standard economic practice and US law, and 4) failure to consider H-1B workers' low job tenure. The remaining discrepancy arises from comparing incompatible wage concepts for H-1B versus native workers. Beyond measurement, the theory of public economics implies that a revenue-maximizing immigration tax reduces welfare relative to alternatives, even with zero weight on immigrant welfare. |
| Keywords: | immigration, tax, h-1b, skill, stem, worker, labor, welfare, immigrant, nonimmigrant, visa, wages, gap |
| JEL: | J08 J38 J68 H21 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18435 |
| By: | Cabrera-Hernandez, Francisco (Department of Economics, Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas); Duval Hernández, Robert (Open University of Cyprus) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the labor market effects of Mexico’s 2019 minimum wage reform, which doubled wages in northern border municipalities. Using other northern municipalities with smaller wage adjustments as a comparison group, we examine changes in worker transitions across employment states. The reform lowered quit rates among formally employed workers but increased them for certain informal workers. Although the wage hike did not raise overall layoffs, it altered their composition: laid-off formal workers became more likely to transition into informal employment, while new formal hires increasingly came from previously employed informal workers. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, employment transitions, Mexico |
| JEL: | J3 J38 J63 O10 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18443 |
| By: | David Card; Jesse Rothstein; Moises Yi |
| Abstract: | We use data from the Longitudinal Employer Household Dynamics linked to the 2000 Census to study intergenerational earnings mobility in the United States. We augment the standard intergenerational transmission model relating children’s log earnings to those of their parent with an additional term representing mean log parent earnings in the childhood neighborhood. The between-neighborhood intergenerational relationship is twice as strong as the within-neighborhood relationship, even after adjusting for measurement error in parents’ earnings. Moreover, mean earnings of the parents in a neighborhood capture over 80% of the variation in unrestricted neighborhood effects that reflect differences in “absolute mobility”. Next, we use an AKM framework to decompose parents’, children’s, and neighboring parents’ earnings into person effects and establishment premiums. Children’s person effects are mainly influenced by parents’ and neighbors’ person effects, whereas children’s establishment premiums are mainly influenced by parents’ and neighbors’ establishment premiums. These patterns point to separate channels for human capital and access to jobs in the intergenerational transmission process. Finally, we explore the implications for the Black-white earnings gap. Neighborhoods explain 30% of the Black-white gap in children’s earnings conditional on parents’ earnings, operating largely through gaps in average person effects. Conditional on neighborhood average earnings, children from neighborhoods with higher Black shares achieve higher adult earnings. |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-18 |
| By: | Jakob R. Munch (Univeristy of Copenhagen); William W. Olney (Williams College); ; |
| Abstract: | ""Offshoring can reduce unionization rates by changing the composition of domestic employment or by eroding the union’s bargaining power and thus decreasing the benefits of membership. Using an employer-employee matched data set we measure the exogenous threat of offshoring at the firm-level and union decisions of individual workers. Findings show that the threat of offshoring reduces unionization rates, even within a job-spell. This is not driven by the changing composition of workers, but instead is consistent with a decline in the union's bargaining position. Additional results confirm that the union-wage-premium and the rent-sharing elasticity are both smaller at offshoring firms."" |
| Keywords: | Offshoring, Unions, Trade, Globalization, Collective Bargaining |
| JEL: | F16 |
| Date: | 2025–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_117 |
| By: | Susan Athey; Lisa K. Simon; Oskar Nordström Skans; Johan Vikström; Yaroslav Yakymovych |
| Abstract: | Using rich Swedish administrative data, we apply causal machine learning methods to study how earnings losses after job displacement vary with observable characteristics that may be relevant for targeting policy interventions for workers. Heterogeneity in effects is as large within as across worker groups defined by age and schooling, and as large within as across establishments. A substantial portion of cross-establishment heterogeneity can be explained by industry and local labor market characteristics, suggesting a role for place- and industry-based targeting. The largest losses are concentrated among already vulnerable workers, indicating that well-designed targeting policies can improve both efficiency and equity. |
| JEL: | C45 J21 J31 J65 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34946 |
| By: | Yueh-ya Hsu; Reshmaan N. Hussam; Erin M. Kelley; Gregory Lane |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates household preferences over who should work and whether these preferences are malleable. We document that men and women prefer that husbands work over wives. To understand why, we randomly assign a six-week job to either the husband or wife and document asymmetry: women’s work improves their own wellbeing but not their husbands’, while men’s work improves both partners’ wellbeing. One year later, we surprise households with a work opportunity. Both women and men in households where women were previously employed are more likely to prefer the woman take the job and express fewer concerns about women’s employment in general. |
| JEL: | D91 I31 J22 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34969 |
| By: | Vera Chiodi (Sorbonne University Paris); Bruno Crépon (CREST-ENSAE); Guillermo Cruces (Universidad de San Andrés, CONICET, and University of Nottingham) |
| Abstract: | Housing conditions, residential location, and employment are key determinants of individual welfare, particularly for vulnerable populations facing credit constraints and information frictions. We examine how housing assistance affects employment outcomes using a randomized controlled trial in France that provided vulnerable youth (aged 18–25) with both job search assistance and housing support, including rent guarantees. The program successfully improved housing conditions: beneficiaries experienced better accommodation stability, reduced precarious situations, and increased satisfaction with their housing. However, despite substantial social worker support, the program did not improve employment rates, contract types, or earnings. Strikingly, beneficiaries moved to neighborhoods with objectively worse employment opportunities and lower socioeconomic indicators, yet reported higher satisfaction with their residential areas. This apparent paradox reveals that beneficiaries appear to prioritize housing affordability and conditions over employment access. Our results suggest that successful interventions may need to explicitly balance housing improvements with maintaining access to employment opportunities. |
| JEL: | J8 J60 O18 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sad:wpaper:180 |
| By: | William W. Olney (Williams College); Owen Thompson (Williams College); ; |
| Abstract: | "Internal migration in the United States has declined substantially over the past several decades, which has important implications for individual welfare and macroeconomic adjustment. This paper studies the determinants of internal migration and how they have changed over time. We use administrative data from the IRS covering the universe of bilateral moves between every Commuting Zone (CZ) in the country over a 23 year period. This data is linked to information on local wage levels and home prices, and we estimate bilateral migration determinants in rich regression specifications that contain CZ-pair fixed effects. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we find that migration is decreasing with origin wages and destination home prices, and is increasing with destination wages and origin home prices. We then examine the contributions of earnings and home prices to the noted overall decline in internal migration. These analyses show that wages on their own would have led to an increase in migration rates, primarily because migrants are increasingly responsive to high earnings levels in potential destination CZs. However, these wage effects have been more than offset by housing related factors, which have increasingly impeded internal mobility. In particular, migration has become much less responsive to housing prices in the origin CZ, such that many households that would have left in response to high home prices several decades ago now choose to stay. " |
| Keywords: | Internal Migration, Wages, Housing Prices, Mobility |
| JEL: | R23 J31 |
| Date: | 2025–08–27 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2025_116 |
| By: | de Koning, Bart (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Muller, Paul (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Belot, Michèle (Cornell University); Engels, Yvonne (UWV); Fouarge, Didier (ROA, Maastricht University); Keer, Mario (UWV); Kircher, Philipp (Cornell University); Phlippen, Sandra (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, ABN Amro) |
| Abstract: | We design an online platform to connect unemployed job seekers with `buddies': former job seekers who recently found employment. We focus on job seekers who search in occupations with poor prospects and buddies who successfully switched occupations. In a randomized controlled trial, we evaluate the impact of access to the platform on labor market outcomes. We find sizable effects. Thirteen to 18 months after getting access, initially unemployed job seekers are 6 percentage points (11%) more likely to be employed and earn 226 Euro more per month than those without access. The positive impact is concentrated among the long-term unemployed. |
| Keywords: | job search, occupational mobility, randomized experiment, role models |
| JEL: | J62 J64 C93 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18437 |
| By: | Seoyoung Kwon; Jongkwan Lee; Joan Monràs |
| Abstract: | High-skilled migration programs exist around the world in the hope that immigrants complement native workers, allow firms to grow, and boost innovation. We study the effect of one such program by exploiting the 2016 extension of the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which significantly prolonged the work authorization period for international STEM graduates. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences approach, we find that the policy successfully increased the local supply of high-skilled immigrants in exposed Commuting Zones. This local inflow stimulated firm creation and the demand for native high-skilled workers. The program might have also boosted innovation in certain sectors and startup investment, especially in Commuting Zones hosting top-ranked universities, where, overall, the effects tend to be larger. |
| Keywords: | Immigration, labor demand, firm dynamics, high-skilled migration |
| JEL: | F22 J31 J61 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upf:upfgen:1940 |
| By: | Contreras, Ivette; Dinarte, Lelys; Palacios-Lopez, Amparo; Costa, Valentina; Romero, Steffanny |
| Abstract: | This paper studies job preferences among women in rural and peri-urban areas in El Salvador using a discrete choice experiment. Drawing on focus group insights, the analysis varies wages and five non‑wage job attributes—contract status, experience requirements, commute safety, residential address disclosure, and childcare availability—and estimates preferences using a mixed logit model. Women are willing to forgo substantial earnings for jobs that offer a safe commute, accessible childcare, and lower barriers to entry. Formal contracts play a limited role in job choice in this high informality context. Preferences are heterogeneous: risk averse and rural women place a particularly high premium on safety and childcare, while younger and less risk averse women are more sensitive to entry barriers and address related stigma. The results highlight the importance of labor market frictions that prevent wages from compensating for job disamenities and suggest that policies targeting safety, childcare, and access may be more effective than contract formalization in expanding women’s employment opportunities. |
| Date: | 2026–03–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11333 |
| By: | Woosuk Choi; Josh Kinsler; Alexis Orellana; Ronni Pavan |
| Abstract: | We estimate major-specific earnings profiles using matched American Community Survey (ACS) and Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) data. Building on Deming and Noray (2020), we exploit a long earnings panel to overcome key limitations of cross-sectional approaches to lifecycle estimation. We find that engineering and computer science majors experience earnings growth that is comparable to or faster than that of other majors, a category including humanities, education, psychology, and similar fields. In contrast, Deming and Noray (2020) use a crosscohort approach and find that earnings for engineering and computer science majors decline relative to other fields over the lifecycle. |
| Date: | 2026–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-14 |
| By: | Burak Uras (Williams College); Jose Carreno (Central Bank of Chile); Harry Huizinga (Tilburg University); |
| Abstract: | "In this paper, we use comprehensive employer-employee data for the Netherlands to investigate the labor income effects of flexible labor contracts in two different settings: wage determination as in the AKM model, and an analysis of earnings losses after job displacement. In both settings, we find that flexible contracts lead to lower wages, but that workers with flexible contracts primarily earn less because they work at or join lower paying firms. This suggests that the negative impact of flexible contracts on wage income may be overstated if firm-specific pay differentials are not properly accounted for." |
| Keywords: | job displacement, flexible contracts, alternative work arrangements, earnings losses, firm-specific wage premiums, income disparities |
| Date: | 2026–02–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wil:wileco:2026_104 |