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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Elena Stancanelli (Observatoire Français des Conjonctures Économiques); Arthur Van Soest (Tilburg University, Netspar) |
| Abstract: | Existing studies show that individuals who retire replace some private consumption by home production, but do not consider joint behaviour of couples. Here we analyze the causal effect of retirement of each partner on hours of home production of both partners in a couple. Our identification strategy exploits the earliest age retirement laws in France, enabling a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach. We find that own retirement significantly increases own hours of home production and the effect is larger for men than for women. Moreover, retirement of the female partner significantly reduces male hours of home production but not vice versa. |
| Keywords: | House work, Ageing,Retirement,Regression Discontinuity |
| JEL: | D13 J22 J14 C1 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fce:doctra:1128&r=lma |
| By: | Görlitz, Katja (RWI); Tamm, Marcus (RWI) |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the question to which extent the complementarity between education and training can be attributed to differences in observable characteristics, i.e. to individual, job and firm specific characteristics. The novelty of this paper is to analyze previously unconsidered characteristics, in particular, personality traits and tasks performed at work which are taken into account in addition to the standard individual specific determinants. Results show that tasks performed at work are strong predictors of training participation while personality traits are not. Once working tasks and other job related characteristics are controlled for, the skill gap in training participation drops considerably for off-the-job training and vanishes for on-the-job training. |
| Keywords: | training, personality traits, working tasks, Oaxaca decomposition |
| JEL: | I21 J24 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6278&r=lma |
| By: | Ghazala Azmat; Nagore Iriberri |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on individuals' performance and affective response, under both piece-rate and flat-rate incentives. In a laboratory setup, agents perform a real effort task and when receiving feedback, they are asked to rate their happiness, arousal and feeling of dominance. Control subjects learn only their absolute performance, while the treated subjects additionally learn the average performance in the session. Under piece-rate, performance is 17 percent higher when relative performance feedback is provided. Furthermore, although feedback increases the performance independent of the content (i.e., performing above or below the average), the content is determinant for the affective response. When subjects are treated, the inequality in the happiness and the feeling of dominance between those subjects performing above and below the average increases by 8 and 6 percentage points, respectively. Under flat-rate, we do not find any effect on either of the outcome variables. |
| Keywords: | Relative performance, feedback, piece-rate, flat-rate, happiness |
| JEL: | C91 M52 D03 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1116&r=lma |
| By: | Michael Fritsch; Alexander Kritikos; Alina Rusakova |
| Abstract: | Based on representative data, the German Micro-Census, we provide an overview of the development of self-employment and entrepreneurship in Germany between 1991 and 2010, the first two decades after reunification. We investigate the socioeconomic background of these individuals, their education, previous employment status, and their income level. We observe a unique increase in self-employment in Germany by 40 percent which can partly be attributed to the transformation process of East Germany and to the shift to the service sector. We notice a yearly start-up rate of 1 percent among the working population (almost 20 percent of them being restarters), a decision that pays for the majority of individuals in terms of income. Contrary to other countries, in Germany there is a positive relationship between educational levels and the probability of starting a business. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, self-employment, start-ups, Germany |
| JEL: | L26 D22 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1184&r=lma |