nep-lma New Economics Papers
on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages
Issue of 2021‒03‒15
23 papers chosen by
Joseph Marchand
University of Alberta

  1. Wages, Minimum Wages, and Price Pass-Through: The Case of McDonald’s Restaurants By Orley C. Ashenfelter; Štěpán Jurajda
  2. Culture as a Hiring Criterion: Systemic Discrimination in a Procedurally Fair Hiring Process By Meurs, Dominique; Puhani, Patrick A.
  3. Estimating the Effects of the Minimum Wage Using the Introduction of Indexation By Kawaguchi, Daiji; Mori, Yuko
  4. Revisiting Offsets of Psychotherapy Coverage By Benjamin Ly Serena
  5. The twilight of neoliberalism in the USA? By Evans, Trevor
  6. The Effects of Overeducation on Wages in Trinidad and Tobago: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Analysis By Doon, Roshnie
  7. The COVID-19 shock on the labour market: Poverty and inequality effects across Spanish regions By Juan C. Palomino; Juan G. Rodríguez; Raquel Sebastian
  8. Income Dynamics in Sweden 1985-2016 By Benjamin Friedrich; Lisa Laun; Costas Meghir
  9. Selection on Welfare Gains: Experimental Evidence from Electricity Plan Choice By Stéphane Bonhomme
  10. The Gendered Impact of the COVID-19 Recession on the US Labor Market By Stefania Albanesi; Jiyeon Kim
  11. Hours, Employment, and Earnings of American Manufacturing Workers from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries By Pencavel, John
  12. Technology, labour market institutions and early retirement: evidence from Finland By Naomitsu Yashiro; Tomi Kyyrä; Hyunjeong Hwang; Juha Tuomala
  13. Consumption and Hours between the United States and France By Lei Fang; Fang Yang
  14. Spending and Job Search Impacts of Expanded Unemployment Benefits: Evidence from Administrative Micro Data By Peter Ganong; Fiona Greig; Max Liebeskind; Pascal Noel; Daniel Sullivan; Joseph Vavra
  15. The Geography of Job Tasks By Enghin Atalay; Sebastian Sotelo; Daniel Tannenbaum
  16. Voice at Work By Jarkko Harju; Simon Jäger; Benjamin Schoefer
  17. Breaking Gender Barriers: Experimental Evidence on Men in Pink-Collar Jobs By Delfino, Alexia
  18. Towards a new growth model in CESEE: Convergence and competitiveness through smart, green and inclusive investment By Gereben, Áron; Wruuck, Patricia
  19. Differences in life expectancy between self-employed workers and paid employees when retirement pensioners: evidence from Spanish social security records By Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González; Marta Regúlez-Castillo; Carlos Vidal-Meliá
  20. Gender and Psychological Pressure in Competitive Environments By Booth, Alison L.; Nolen, Patrick J.
  21. COVID-19: a crisis of the female self-employed By Daniel Graeber; Alexander S. Kritikos; Johannes Seebauer
  22. What makes a productive Ph.D. student? By Corsini, Alberto; Pezzoni, Michele; Visentin, Fabiana
  23. What Marginal Outcome Tests Can Tell Us About Racially Biased Decision-Making By Peter Hull

  1. By: Orley C. Ashenfelter; Štěpán Jurajda
    Abstract: We use price and wage data from McDonald's restaurants to provide evidence on wage increases, labor-saving technology introduction, and price pass-through by a large low-wage employer facing a flurry of minimum wage hikes from 2016-2020. We estimate an elasticity of hourly wage rates with respect to minimum wages of 0.7. In 40% of instances where minimum wages increase, McDonald's restaurants' wages are near the effective minimum wage level both before and after its increase; however, we also uncover a tendency among a large subset of restaurants to preserve their pay 'premium' above the minimum wage level. We find no association between the adoption of labor-saving touch screen ordering technology and minimum wage hikes. Our data imply that McDonald's restaurants pass through the higher costs of minimum wage increases in the form of higher prices of the Big Mac sandwich. We find a 0.2 price elasticity with respect to wage increases, which implies an elasticity of prices with respect to minimum wages of about 0.14. Based on a listing of all US McDonald's restaurants from 2010 to 2020, we also find no effects of minimum wages on McDonald's restaurant entry and exit.
    JEL: J23 J30 J38
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28506&r=all
  2. By: Meurs, Dominique; Puhani, Patrick A.
    Abstract: Criteria used in hiring workers often do not reflect the skills required on the job. By comparing trainee performance for newly hired workers conditional on competitive civil service examination scores for hiring French public sector workers, we test whether women and men with the same civil service examination score exhibit similar performance in a job-related trainee programme. Both the civil service examination and trainee scores contain anonymous and non-anonymous components that we observe separately. We find that by the end of the trainee programme (first year of employment), women are outperforming men on both anonymous written and non-anonymous oral evaluations, a finding that holds both conditionally and unconditionally for the civil service examination results. According to further analysis, however, it is the anonymously graded "essay on common culture" civil service examination that, unlike the other CSE components, disadvantages women in this particular context.
    Keywords: recruitment; disparate impact; systemic discrimination; audit
    JEL: H83 J45 J71 M51
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-682&r=all
  3. By: Kawaguchi, Daiji (University of Tokyo); Mori, Yuko (Tsuda University)
    Abstract: We examine the impacts of the minimum wage on employment using the minimum-wage hike induced by the introduction of indexation of the local minimum wage to the local cost of living. The revision of the Minimum Wage Act in 2007 of Japan essentially required the government to set the minimum wage indexed to the local cost of living, with a five-year moratorium period. The government subsequently increased the minimum wage in areas where the cost of living was high relative to the local minimum wage. Allowing for different trends in labor-market outcomes across regions in the pre-treatment period, we find that the minimum-wage hike raised the wages of low-wage workers, but reduced the employment of less-educated young men. A panel analysis based on matched Labor Force Survey data indicates that the minimum-wage hike decreased the job flows of prime-age men and women.
    Keywords: minimum wage, low skill workers, employment, Japan
    JEL: J23 J38 J42 J64 J81
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14086&r=all
  4. By: Benjamin Ly Serena (University of Copenhagen)
    Abstract: Mental illness is a leading cause of disability worldwide with vast costs to society. Yet, insurance coverage for effective treatments remains limited. This paper revisits the Offset Hypothesis, which claims insurance coverage for psychotherapy is self-financing through reductions in the use of other health care services and improved labor market outcomes. I study a 2008 reform of the Danish public health care system that introduced 60 percent coverage of the cost of psychotherapy for depression and anxiety patients below age 38. Using Regression Discontinuity and Difference-in-Difference designs, I show that psychotherapy coverage reduces the use of other mental health services, physical health care and suicide attempts, but does not impact employment, sick leave or disability pension receipt. Still, the reduction in health care costs is sufficiently large to finance the policy. This suggests mental health coverage is both welfare improving and cost reducing.
    Keywords: mental health, health insurance, health care, offset, labor market
    JEL: I13 I18 I38 H51 H55
    Date: 2021–03–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kud:kucebi:2105&r=all
  5. By: Evans, Trevor
    Abstract: The US economic expansion which began in 2009 was unusually prolonged but relatively weak. Profitability and investment strengthened between 2010 and 2015 but then began to falter. After Trump took office in 2017 there was a minor recovery in investment but the proceeds of major tax cuts were overwhelmingly used to finance pay outs to share owners. Unemployment fell steadily from 2010 but with a shift towards lower paid jobs. Median wages increased from around 2014, but while those for women had risen steadily since the 1980s, those for men only recuperated their 1980 level in 2018. By contrast, top incomes soared. The impact of the Covid19 epidemic was partly cushioned by huge government spending programmes, but unemployment among less skilled workers increased strongly, while the massive monetary response led to an unprecedented bonanza for the rich. The Biden government's first major initiative extended unemployment benefits and promoted a national response to the health emergency, but failed to secure an increase in the national minimum wage to $15 an hour.
    Keywords: US economy,profitability,investment,finance,employment,wages
    JEL: E25 E32 E44 E58 E65 F44 G01
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ipewps:1572021&r=all
  6. By: Doon, Roshnie
    Abstract: The main aim of this study is to analyse the wage returns of Overeducated workers employed in Trinidad and Tobago. To undertake such a study, data from the Continuous Sample Survey of Population (CSSP) for the period 1991-2015 is used to estimate an initial OLS and Quantile regression version of the Mincerian Earnings equations, which is commonly used in the education mismatch literature. To observe the unconditional partial effects of small changes in wage returns of overeducated workers at the mean, the Recentred Influence Function is estimated. The results reveal that if the earnings of overeducated workers who receive low wages, was replaced with that of high wages, then this would lead to a rise, or shift in the returns of overeducated workers, if only their biographical information is considered. The inclusion of their skill and geographic location would cause their earnings to shift further. The shift in the earnings of overeducated workers, when examined across the wage distribution, would tend to favor those who were married, younger, i.e., in the 25-35 age group, who were highly skilled at their jobs. These groups of overeducated workers would experience the lowest wage penalties in comparison to their single, mature, and semi-skilled colleagues.
    Keywords: Job-Education Mismatch,Overeducation,Unconditional Quantile Regression,Trinidad and Tobago
    JEL: D31 I26 J31
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:797&r=all
  7. By: Juan C. Palomino (University of Oxford (UK), INET and Department of Social Policy and Intervention.); Juan G. Rodríguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), ICAE, EQUALITAS and CEDESOG.); Raquel Sebastian (Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Spain), ICAE and EQUALITAS.)
    Abstract: We evaluate the distributional consequences of social distancing for the case of Spanish regions. Under 2 months of lockdown plus 10 months of partial functioning our study consistently finds potential wage losses that are sizeable and uneven across the wage distribution all around Spain, but with different intensity depending on the region’s productive structure. The increase of the headcount poverty index oscillates between 8.2 (Navarre) and 19.2 (the Balearic Islands) percentage points, while the Gini coefficient rises between 2.3 (Navarre) and 5.3 (the Balearic Islands) Gini points. We also find that inequality between regions increases, eroding regional cohesion in Spain.
    Keywords: COVID-19; poverty; inequality; teleworking; social distancing; regions; Spain.
    JEL: D33 E24 J21 J31
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doicae:2103&r=all
  8. By: Benjamin Friedrich; Lisa Laun; Costas Meghir
    Abstract: This paper analyzes earnings inequality and earnings dynamics in Sweden over 1985–2016. The deep recession in the early 1990s marks a historic turning point with a massive increase in earnings inequality and earnings volatility, and the impact of the recession and the recovery from it lasted for decades. In the aftermath of the recession, we find steady growth in real earnings across the entire distribution for men and women and decreasing inequality over more than 20 years. Earnings dynamics differ substantially by gender, education, and origin. Men face lower volatility than women, but their earnings growth is more closely tied to the business cycle. Earnings volatility is also higher among high-educated and foreign-born workers. We document an important role of social benefits usage for the overall trends and for differences across sub-populations. Higher benefits enrollment, especially for women and immigrants, is associated with higher earnings volatility. As the generosity and usage of benefit programs declined over time, we find stronger earnings growth among low-income workers, consistent with higher self-sufficiency.
    JEL: E24 E25 J24 J3
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28527&r=all
  9. By: Stéphane Bonhomme (University of Chicago)
    Abstract: How much do individuals contribute to team output? I propose an econometric framework to quantify individual contributions when only the output of their teams is observed. The identification strategy relies on following individuals who work in different teams over time. I consider two production technologies. For a production function that is additive in worker inputs, I propose a regression estimator and show how to obtain unbiased estimates of variance components that measure the contributions of heterogeneity and sorting. To estimate nonlinear models with complementarity, I propose a mixture approach under the assumption that individual types are discrete, and rely on a mean-field variational approximation for estimation. To illustrate the methods, I estimate the impact of economists on their research output, and the contributions of inventors to the quality of their patents.
    Keywords: Team production, networks, unobserved heterogeneity, sorting, comple-mentarity
    JEL: C13 J31
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2021-15&r=all
  10. By: Stefania Albanesi; Jiyeon Kim
    Abstract: The economic crisis associated with the emergence of the novel corona virus is unlike standard recessions. Demand for workers in high contact and inflexible service occupations has declined, while parental supply of labor has been reduced by lack of access to reliable child care and in-person schooling options. This has led to a substantial and persistent drop in employment and labor force participation for women, who are typically less affected by recessions than men. We examine real time data on employment, unemployment, labor force participation and gross job flows to document the gendered impact of the pandemic. We also discuss the potential long-term implications of this crisis, including the role of automation in depressing the recovery of employment for the worst hit service occupations.
    JEL: E24 J16 J2 J21 J23
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28505&r=all
  11. By: Pencavel, John (Stanford University)
    Abstract: For a century, two labor market empirical regularities characterized the movements of the hours of work, employment, and hourly compensation of American manufacturing production workers. They resembled conditional labor supply functions. Increases in employment substituted for reductions in hours per worker. The implied elasticities of hours and employment with respect to hourly earnings declined in absolute value over time. The activities of trade unions and the effects of statutory legislation contribute to the explanations for what is observed. Recently,changes in real hourly earnings contribute little to understanding movements in hours of work and in employment of these workers.
    Keywords: hours, employment, hourly compensation, labor supply
    JEL: J22 E24 N32
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14175&r=all
  12. By: Naomitsu Yashiro; Tomi Kyyrä; Hyunjeong Hwang; Juha Tuomala
    Abstract: Among various barriers to increasing employment of older workers, this paper focuses on two notable ones that are relevant for the future of work. First, older workers engaged in codifiable, routine tasks are particularly prone to the risk of being displaced by computers and robots. Second, several countries have in place various labour market institutions that encourage early retirement, such as exceptional entitlements or looser criteria for unemployment and disability benefits applied to older individuals. This paper presents evidence that these two factors reinforce each other to push older workers out of employment. It is found that older workers who are more exposed to digital technologies are more likely to leave employment, and that this effect is significantly magnified when they are eligible to an extension of unemployment benefits until they start drawing old age pension. Furthermore, a simple simulation based on the empirical findings illustrates that a reform that tightens the eligibility for the benefit extension would increase mostly the employment of older workers that are more exposed to digital technologies.
    Keywords: early retirement, technological change, unemployment benefits
    JEL: H55 J26 J65 O33
    Date: 2021–03–05
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1659-en&r=all
  13. By: Lei Fang; Fang Yang
    Abstract: We document large differences between the United States and France in allocations of consumption expenditures and time by age. Using a life-cycle model, we quantify to what extent tax and transfer programs and market and home productivity can account for the differences. We find that while labor efficiency by age and home-production productivity are crucial in accounting for the differences in the allocation of time, the consumption tax and social security are more important regarding allocation of expenditures. Adopting the U.S. consumption tax decreases welfare in France, and adopting the U.S. social security system increases welfare in France.
    Keywords: consumption expenditure; home production; labor supply; fiscal policy
    JEL: E21 E62 J22 O57 H31
    Date: 2021–01–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedawp:90077&r=all
  14. By: Peter Ganong (University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)); Fiona Greig (JP Morgan Chase & Co. - JP Morgan Chase Institute); Max Liebeskind (JPMorgan Chase Institute); Pascal Noel (University of Chicago Booth School of Business); Daniel Sullivan (JPMorgan Chase Institute); Joseph Vavra (University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER))
    Abstract: How did the largest expansion of unemployment benefits in U.S. history affect household behavior? Using anonymized bank account data covering millions of households, we provide new empirical evidence on the spending and job search responses to benefit changes during the pandemic and compare those responses to the predictions of benchmark structural models. We find that spending responds more than predicted, while job search responds an order of magnitude less than predicted. In sharp contrast to normal times when spending falls after job loss, we show that when expanded benefits are available, spending of the unemployed actually rises after job loss. Using quasi-experimental research designs, we estimate a large marginal propensity to consume out of benefits. Notably, spending responses are large even for households who have built up substantial liquidity through prior receipt of expanded benefits. These large responses contrast with a theoretical prediction that spending responses should shrink with liquidity. Simple job search models predict a sharp decline in search in the wake of a substantial benefit expansion, followed by a sustained rebound when benefits expire. We instead find that the job- finding rate is quite stable. Moreover, we document that recall plays an important role in driving job-finding dynamics throughout the pandemic. A model extended to fit these key features of the data implies small job search distortions from expanded unemployment benefits. Jointly, these spending and job finding facts suggest that benefit expansions during the pandemic were a more effective policy than predicted by standard structural models. Abstracting from general equilibrium effects, we find that overall spending was 2.0-2.6 percent higher and employment only 0.2-0.4 percent lower as a result of the benefit expansions.
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2021-19&r=all
  15. By: Enghin Atalay (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Sebastian Sotelo (University of Michigan); Daniel Tannenbaum (University of Nebraska-Lincoln)
    Abstract: We present new facts about the geography of work using online job ads and introduce new measures of job tasks, technology requirements, and the degree of specialization within firms or occupations. We show that the (i) intensity of interactive and analytic tasks, (ii) technological requirements, and (iii) task specialization all increase with city size. The gradient for tasks and technologies is steeper for jobs requiring a college degree. We show that these facts help account for the urban wage premium, both in aggregate and across skill groups.
    Keywords: geography, job tasks, education
    JEL: J20 J24 R12 R23
    Date: 2021–02–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mie:wpaper:682&r=all
  16. By: Jarkko Harju; Simon Jäger; Benjamin Schoefer
    Abstract: We estimate the effects of worker voice on job quality and separations. We leverage the 1991 introduction of worker representation on boards of Finnish firms with at least 150 employees. In contrast to exit-voice theory, our difference-in-differences design reveals no effects on voluntary job separations, and at most small positive effects on other measures of job quality (job security, health, subjective job quality, and wages). Worker voice slightly raised firm survival, productivity, and capital intensity. A 2008 introduction of shop-floor representation had similarly limited effects. Interviews and surveys indicate that worker representation facilitates information sharing rather than boosting labor’s power.
    JEL: G3 J3 J5 J63 L22
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28522&r=all
  17. By: Delfino, Alexia (Bocconi University)
    Abstract: Traditionally female-dominated sectors are growing and male-dominated ones shrinking, yet sectorial male shares are not changing. Why? I embed a field experiment within the UK national recruitment program for social workers to analyse barriers to men's entry and the nature of men's sorting into female-dominated occupations. I modify the content of recruitment messages to potential applicants to exogenously vary two key drivers of selection: perceived gender shares and expectations of returns to ability. I find that perceived gender shares do not affect men's applications, while increasing expected returns to ability encourages men to apply and improves the average quality of the applicants. This allows the employer to hire more talented men, who consistently perform better on the job and are not more likely to leave vis-á-vis men with lower expected returns to ability. I conclude by showing that there is no trade-off between men's entry and women's exit among talented applicants, both at hiring and on-the-job, and thus the net impact of raising expected returns to ability for the employer is positive.
    Keywords: recruitment experiment, gender barriers, beliefs
    JEL: D23 D83 J24 J7 M5
    Date: 2021–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14083&r=all
  18. By: Gereben, Áron; Wruuck, Patricia
    Abstract: This paper focuses on the growth and convergence of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European EU countries (CESEE). We argue that the factors behind the pre-crisis growth model of the region - skilled yet affordable labour force, foreign direct investment, imports of productivity-enhancing technology - are petering out, and are yet to be substituted. We propose a new growth model centred around a shift towards more home-grown innovation, digitalisation, climate change mitigation and a strong focus on skills, labour and social inclusion to leave the middle income trap behind for good and to boost economies' growth prospects in a post-COVID world. Based on analysis of firm-level data, we highlight the prerequisites of making this transition happen.
    Keywords: climate change,convergence,economic policy,digitalisation,innovation,labourmarket,long-term growth,productivity,skills
    JEL: J24 O14 O33 O40 P27 P28
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:eibwps:202101&r=all
  19. By: Juan Manuel Pérez-Salamero González (Department of Financial Economics and Actuarial Science, University of Valencia.); Marta Regúlez-Castillo (Department of Applied Economics III. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU).); Carlos Vidal-Meliá (Department of Financial Economics and Actuarial Science, University of Valencia.)
    Abstract: The aim of this paper is to examine differences in life expectancy (LE) between selfemployed (SE) and paid employee (PE) workers when they become retirement pensioners, looking at levels of pension income using administrative data from Spanish social security records. We draw on the Continuous Sample of Working Lives (CSWL) to quantify changes in total life expectancy at ages 65 (LE65) and 75 (LE75) among retired men over the longest possible period covered by this data source: 2005–2018. These changes are broken down by pension regime and pension income level for three periods. Contrary to what has been observed in countries such as Italy, Finland and Japan, LE65 in Spain is slightly higher for the self-employed than for the paid employees when retirement pensioners. For 2005-2010, a gap in life expectancy of 0.23 years between SE and PE retirement pensioners is observed. This gap widens to 0.55 years for 2014–2018. A similar trend can be seen if pension income groups are considered. For 2005-2010, the gap in LE65 between pensioners in the lowest and the highest income groups is 1.20 years. This gap widens over time and reaches 1.51 years for 2014–2018. Although these differences are relatively small, they are statistically significant. According to our research the implications for policy on social security are evident: differences in life expectancy by socioeconomic status and pension regime should be taken into account for a variety of issues involving social security schemes, e.g. to establish the age of eligibility for retirement pensions and early access to benefits, to compute the annuity factors used to determine initial retirement benefits, and to value the liabilities taken on for retirement pensioners.
    Keywords: Continuous Sample of Working Lives; Life expectancy; Paid employees; Retirement; Self-employed; Spain.
    JEL: C81 H55 I14 J26
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucm:doicae:2104&r=all
  20. By: Booth, Alison L. (Australian National University); Nolen, Patrick J. (University of Essex)
    Abstract: Gender differences in paid performance under competition have been found in many laboratory-based experiments, and it has been suggested that these may arise because men and women respond differently to psychological pressure in competitive environments. To explore this further, we conducted a laboratory experiment comprising 444 subjects, and measured gender differences in performance in four distinct competitive situations. These were as follows: (i) the standard tournament game where the subject competes with three other individuals and the winner takes all; (ii) an anonymized competition in which an individual competes against an imposed production target and is paid only if s/he exceeds it; (iii) a 'personified' competition where an individual competes against a target based on the previous performance of one anonymised person of unknown gender; and (iv) a 'gendered' competition where an individual competes against a target based on the previous performance of one anonymised person whose gender is known. We found that only men respond to pressure differently in each situation; women responded the same to pressure no matter the situation. Moreover, the personified target caused men to increase performance more than under an anonymized target and, when the gender of the person associated with the target was revealed, men worked even harder to outperform a woman but strived only to equal the target set by a male.
    Keywords: psychological pressure, tournament, piece rate, gender, competitive behaviour, experiment
    JEL: C91 C92 J16 J33 M52
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14174&r=all
  21. By: Daniel Graeber (DIW Berlin, University of Potsdam); Alexander S. Kritikos (DIW Berlin, University of Potsdam); Johannes Seebauer (DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin)
    Abstract: We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the government-mandated measures to contain its spread, affect the self-employed – particularly women – in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are 35% more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. Conversely, we do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, i.e. the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.
    Keywords: self-employed, COVID-19, income, gender, representative real-time survey data, decomposition methods
    JEL: J16 L26 J31 J71 I18
    Date: 2021–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pot:cepadp:27&r=all
  22. By: Corsini, Alberto (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France); Pezzoni, Michele (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, Observatoire des Sciences et Techniques, HCERES, OFCE, SciencePo, France, and ICRIOS, Bocconi University, Italy); Visentin, Fabiana (UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University)
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the social environment to which a Ph.D. student is exposed on her scientific productivity during the training period. Vertical and horizontal relationships depict the social environment. Vertical relationships are those supervisor-student, while horizontal relationships are those student-peers. We characterize these relationships by assessing how the supervisor's and peers' biographic and academic characteristics relate to the student's productivity as measured by the publication quantity, quality, and scientific network size. Unique to our study, we cover the entire student population of a European country for all the STEM fields. Specifically, we analyse the productivity of 77,143 students who graduated in France between 2000 and 2014. We find that having a female supervisor is associated with a higher student's productivity as well as being supervised by a mid-career scientist and having a supervisor with a high academic reputation. The supervisor's fundraising ability benefits only one specific dimension of the student's productivity, i.e., the student's work quality. Interestingly, the supervisor's mentorship experience negatively associates with student's productivity. Having many peers negatively associates with the student's productivity, especially if peers are senior students. Having female peers positively correlates with the student's productivity, while peers' academic status shows mixed effects according to the productivity dimension considered. We find results heterogeneity when breaking down our sample by field of research.
    Keywords: French Ph.D. students, Productivity determinants, Social environment, Supervisor, Peers
    JEL: J24 O30
    Date: 2021–03–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2021011&r=all
  23. By: Peter Hull
    Abstract: Marginal outcome tests compare the expected effects of a decision on individuals who are of different races but at the same indifference point of the decision-maker. I present a simple formalization of how such tests can detect racial bias, defined as a deviation from accurate statistical discrimination. Namely, the tests can reject that the decision-maker ranks individuals according to some accurate prediction of a mandated outcome, given some unspecified race-inclusive information set. The frontier of marginal effects can furthermore rule out canonical taste-based discrimination. I relate this analysis to other interpretations of marginal outcome tests, other notions of racial discrimination, and recent identification strategies.
    JEL: C21 C36 J15 J71
    Date: 2021–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28503&r=all

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