nep-law New Economics Papers
on Law and Economics
Issue of 2022‒03‒21
eight papers chosen by
Eve-Angeline Lambert, Université de Lorraine


  1. Legal Loopholes and Data for Dollars: How Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies Are Buying Your Data from Brokers By Shenkman, Carey; Franklin, Sharon Bradford; Nojeim, Greg; Thakur, Dhanaraj
  2. Simulating media platform mergers By Marc Ivaldi; Jiekai Zhang
  3. Occupational Regulation, Institutions, and Migrants' Labor Market Outcomes By Koumenta, Maria; Pagliero, Mario; Rostam-Afschar, Davud
  4. COVID-19, Job Loss, and Intimate Partner Violence in Peru By Jorge M. Agüero; Erica Field; Ignacio Rodriguez Hurtado; Javier Romero
  5. Strategic Formal Layoffs: Unemployment Insurance and Informal Labor Markets By Bernardus Van Doornik; David Schoenherr; Janis Skrastins
  6. Strategic Formal Layoffs: Unemployment Insurance and Informal Labor Markets By Bernardus Van Doornik; David Schoenherr; Janis Skrastins
  7. Unemployment Insurance as a Subsidy to Risky Firms By Bernardus Van Doornik; Dimas Fazio; David Schoenherr; Janis Skrastins
  8. Rent-Extraction from the Unemployment Insurance System: The Role of Firms By Bernardus Van Doornik; David Schoenherr; Janis Skrastins

  1. By: Shenkman, Carey; Franklin, Sharon Bradford; Nojeim, Greg; Thakur, Dhanaraj
    Abstract: Typically, government agencies seeking access to the personal electronic data of Americans must comply with a legal process to obtain that data. That process can be mandated by the Constitution (the Fourth Amendment’s warrant and probable cause requirement) or by statute (such as the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or various state laws). This report examines the concerning and rising practice of federal agencies sidestepping these legal requirements by obtaining data on Americans through commercial purchases from data brokers. Our research for this report involved interviewing experts on this issue and reviewing approximately 150 publicly available documents covering awards, solicitations, requests for proposals, and related information on contracts. We found significant evidence of agencies exploiting loopholes in existing law by purchasing data from private data brokers. The practice has prompted scrutiny from government watchdogs as well as members of Congress (Tau, 2021a; Wyden, 2021).
    Date: 2021–12–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:p3aqk&r=
  2. By: Marc Ivaldi (TSE - Toulouse School of Economics - UT1 - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole - Université Fédérale Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement); Jiekai Zhang (Hanken School of Economics)
    Abstract: The empirical analysis of media platforms economics has often neglected the multi-homing behaviour of advertisers. Assuming away the cross-substitutability and/or complementarity between the advertising slots of different platforms could damage the quality and the robustness of counterfactual analysis. To evaluate the consequence of such an abstraction, we compare the simulation results of hypothetical platform mergers when the demand on the advertising side is derived from a Translog cost model which allows for multi-homing, and when it is approximated by using a simple log-linear inverse demand model that ignores the differentiation among media platforms' advertising slots. Ignoring the existence of substitutes or complements on the advertising side would result in overpredicting the losses of the viewers' surplus and in underpredicting the gains in platforms' revenues
    Keywords: Two-sided market,Platform merger,Advertising,TV market,Competition policy
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03472984&r=
  3. By: Koumenta, Maria; Pagliero, Mario; Rostam-Afschar, Davud
    Abstract: We study how licensing, certification and unionisation affect the wages of natives and migrants and their representation among licensed, certified, and unionized workers. We provide evidence of a dual role of labor market institutions, which both screen workers based on unobservable characteristics and also provide them with wage setting power. Labor market institutions confer significant wage premia to native workers (3.9, 1.6, and 2.7 log points for licensing, certification, and unionization respectively), due to screening and wage setting power. Wage premia are significantly larger for licensed and certified migrants (10.2 and 6.6 log points), reflecting a more intense screening of migrant than native workers. The representation of migrants among licensed (but not certified or unionized) workers is 14% lower than that of natives. This implies a more intense screening of migrants by licensing institutions than by certification and unionization.
    Keywords: Occupational regulation,Licensing,Certification,Unionization,Migration,Wages
    JEL: J61 J31 J44 J71 J16
    Date: 2022
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1052&r=
  4. By: Jorge M. Agüero (University of Connecticut); Erica Field (Duke University, NBER and BREAD); Ignacio Rodriguez Hurtado (Duke University); Javier Romero (The World Bank and Universidad de Piura)
    Abstract: We collect retrospective panel survey data on household socioeconomic status and do-mestic conflict from a large nationwide sample in Peru and find a sizable and sustained increase in intimate partner violence (IPV) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The in-cidence of physical IPV increased by an estimated 56% from 2019 to April/May 2020, and the increase was sustained until July/August 2020, the latest data point collected in our survey. Households most likely to lose a job experienced the largest increases in IPV over the period, measured by variation in the level of job loss across occupations. These patterns suggest that part of the increase in IPV was a causal effect of income shocks created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
    JEL: J12 J16 K42 O15
    Date: 2022–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uct:uconnp:2022-08&r=
  5. By: Bernardus Van Doornik (Banco Central do Brasil); David Schoenherr (Princeton University); Janis Skrastins (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Abstract: Exploiting an unemployment insurance (UI) reform in Brazil, we study incentive effects of UI in the presence of informal labor markets. We find that eligibility for UI benefits increases formal layoffs by twelve percent. Most of the additional formal layoffs are related to workers transitioning to informal employment. We further document formal layoff and recall patterns consistent with rent extraction from the UI system. Workers are laid off as they become eligible for UI benefits and recalled just when benefits cease. Salary patterns around the reform are consistent with firms and workers sharing rents through lower equilibrium salaries.
    Keywords: unemployment insurance, informality, labor supply, rent-seeking
    JEL: J21 J22 J46 J65 K31
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2020-5&r=
  6. By: Bernardus Van Doornik (Banco Central do Brasil); David Schoenherr (Princeton University); Janis Skrastins (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Abstract: Exploiting an unemployment insurance (UI) reform in Brazil, we study incentive effects of UI in the presence of informal labor markets. We find that eligibility for UI benefits increases formal layoffs by twelve percent. Most of the additional formal layoffs are related to workers transitioning to informal employment. We further document formal layoff and recall patterns consistent with rent extraction from the UI system. Workers are laid off as they become eligible for UI benefits and recalled just when benefits cease. Salary patterns around the reform are consistent with firms and workers sharing rents through lower equilibrium salaries.
    Keywords: unemployment insurance, informality, labor supply, rent-seeking
    JEL: J21 J22 J46 J65 K31
    Date: 2020–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2020-05&r=
  7. By: Bernardus Van Doornik (Banco Central do Brasil); Dimas Fazio (National University of Singapore); David Schoenherr (Princeton University); Janis Skrastins (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Abstract: We document that a more generous unemployment insurance (UI) system shifts labor supply from safer to riskier firms and reduces compensating wage differentials risky firms need to pay. Consequently, a more generous UI system increases risky firms’ value and fosters entrepreneurship by reducing new firms’ labor costs. Exploiting a UI reform in Brazil that affects only part of the workforce allows us to compare labor supply for workers with different degrees of UI protection within the same firm, sharpening identification of the results. Altogether, our results suggest that UI provides a transfer system from safe to risky firms.
    Keywords: unemployment insurance, labor supply, firm risk, entrepreneurship
    JEL: J21 J22 J46 J65 K31
    Date: 2022–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2022-1&r=
  8. By: Bernardus Van Doornik (Banco Central do Brasil); David Schoenherr (Princeton University); Janis Skrastins (Washington University in St. Louis)
    Abstract: Exploiting an unemployment insurance (UI) reform in Brazil, we document formal layoff and recall patterns consistent with rent extraction from the UI system. Firms lay off workers just as they become eligible for UI benefits and recall them just when benefits cease. In addition, firms continue to employ some of the formally laid off workers informally. Salary patterns around the reform are consistent with workers sharing rents with firms through lower equilibrium salaries. We estimate that 2.3 to 11.8 percent of UI payments do not fulfill an insurance purpose, but redistribute income to firms and workers who play the system.
    Keywords: unemployment insurance, informality, labor supply, rent-seeking
    JEL: J21 J22 J46 J65 K31
    Date: 2020–08
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:econom:2020-20&r=

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