nep-lma New Economics Papers
on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages
Issue of 2021‒07‒19
25 papers chosen by
Joseph Marchand
University of Alberta

  1. Skill Demand and Wages. Evidence from Linked Vacancy Data By Ziegler, Lennart
  2. Firms' Margins of Adjustment to Wage Growth: The Case of Italian Collective Bargaining By Devicienti, Francesco; Fanfani, Bernardo
  3. Give It Another Shot: Startup Experience and the Mobilization of Human Resources in New Ventures By Rocha, Vera; Pozzoli, Dario
  4. The Demand for Executive Skills By Stephen Hansen; Tejas Ramdas; Raffaella Sadun; Joe Fuller
  5. Who Paid Los Angeles' Minimum Wage? A Side-by-Side Minimum Wage Experiment in Los Angeles County By Christopher Esposito; Edward E. Leamer; Jerry Nickelsburg
  6. Implications of Pension Illiteracy for Labor Supply and Redistribution By Gustafsson, Johan
  7. The Impact of COVID-19 on Economic Activity: Evidence from Administrative Tax Registers By Angelov, Nikolay; Waldenström, Daniel
  8. Infrastructure Investment and Labor Monopsony Power By Wyatt Brooks; Joseph P. Kaboski; Illenin O. Kondo; Yao Amber Li; Wei Qian
  9. Do Workers Benefit from Wage Transparency Rules? By Oliver Gürtler; Lennart Struth
  10. The Long-Run Effects of Consequential School Accountability By Mansfield, Jonathan; Slichter, David
  11. Originality, influence, and success: A model of creative style By Borowiecki, Karol Jan; Mauri, Caterina Adelaide
  12. The Market for CEOs By Peter Cziraki; Dirk Jenter
  13. COVID-19 and Income Inequality: Evidence from Monthly Population Registers By Waldenström, Daniel; Angelov, Nikolay
  14. How Americans Respond to Idiosyncratic and Exogenous Changes in Household Wealth and Unearned Income By Mikhail Golosov; Michael Graber; Magne Mogstad; David Novgorodsky
  15. Public Pension Reform and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-off By Gustafsson, Johan
  16. Employers’ willingness to invest in the training of temporary workers: a discrete choice experiment By Poulissen, Davey; de Grip, Andries; Fouarge, Didier; Künn, Annemarie
  17. Entrepreneurial Taxation with Endogenous Firm Entry and Unemployment By Holmberg, Johan
  18. Sexual Orientation and Earnings. A Meta-Analysis 2012-2020 By Drydakis, Nick
  19. Management Practices Drive Productivity – But Not Without Human Capital By Ohlsbom, Roope
  20. The Effect of Photos and a Local-Sounding Name on Discrimination against Ethnic Minorities in Austria By Weichselbaumer, Doris; Schuster, Julia
  21. Entry and Exit of Informal Firms and Development By Brian McCaig; Nina Pavcnik
  22. The impact of local and foreign automation on labor market outcomes in emerging countries By Diaz Pavez, Luis R.; Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada
  23. Return Migrants and the Wage Premium: Does the Legal Status of Migrants Matter? By Elmallakh, Nelly; Wahba, Jackline
  24. The impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep of child-parent dyads By Nguyen, Ha Trong; Christian, Hayley; Le, Huong Thu; Connelly, Luke; Zubrick, Stephen R.; Mitrou, Francis
  25. Empowering the health workforce to make the most of the digital revolution By Karolina Socha-Dietrich

  1. By: Ziegler, Lennart (University of Vienna)
    Abstract: This study provides new evidence on skill requirements in the labor market and shows to what extent skill demand is associated with wages and vacancy duration. Using more than 1.5 million job postings administered by the Austrian public employment service, I identify the most common skill requirements mentioned in job descriptions. Because employers in Austria are legally required to state the minimum remuneration for advertised positions, it is possible to relate the skill content of jobs to wage postings. Moreover, I estimate skill associations with starting wages for a subset of vacancies which can be matched to administrative data on employment spells of eventual hires. Accounting for education, work experience, and firm and occupation fixed-effects, there exists a robust association between the number of skill requirements and wages. In particular, jobs with many skill requirements pay substantially higher wages. While I estimate large effects for managerial and analytical skills, associations with most soft skills are small. Employers also need longer to fill vacancies with many skill requirements. Robustness tests show that measurement error is unlikely to explain these results and that the estimates can be replicated using vacancy postings from another job board.
    Keywords: job advertisements, job boards, skills, wage differentials, vacancy duration
    JEL: J23 J24 J31
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14511&r=
  2. By: Devicienti, Francesco (University of Turin); Fanfani, Bernardo (University of Turin)
    Abstract: This paper studies firms' adjustment behavior to the growth in labor costs induced by Italian collective bargaining institutions. Our research design compares several firms' outcomes across collective agreements within the same sector and geographic location, exploiting discontinuities in contractual wages' growth as a source of variation in labor costs. Results show that on average employment and revenues fall, wages increase, while firms' productivity, workers' average quality, the profit margin and capital intensity do not change in response to higher labor costs. These effects are heterogeneous across the firms' productivity distribution. Employment, revenues, productivity and the profit margin are positively or not related to contractual wage growth among relatively more efficient firms, while they are negatively related to this shock at less productive companies. More efficient firms tend to substitute high- with low-skilled workers, which are instead more likely to be laid off by less efficient employers. These results suggest that more efficient companies adjust to the growth in labor costs through cost-saving strategies and they may benefit from cleansing effects that increase their product market shares.
    Keywords: collective bargaining, minimum wage, productivity, employment, matched employer-employee data
    JEL: J00 J23 J24 J31 J38 J58 L13
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14532&r=
  3. By: Rocha, Vera (Copenhagen Business School); Pozzoli, Dario (Copenhagen Business School)
    Abstract: Human resources can provide a competitive advantage to firms, but we still know little about how newly-founded ventures start mobilizing these resources. Given the central role of entrepreneurs' background in designing the strategy of new firms, we investigate whether and how startup experience, namely past performance as entrepreneurs, influences employee mobilization strategies in new ventures. Integrating behavioral theories of the firm with regulatory focus theory, we postulate that serial entrepreneurs who failed in the past are more likely to be prevention oriented and change their employee mobilization strategies towards a more targeted hiring approach in subsequent ventures. Using Danish register data, we compare the employee sourcing practices of serial entrepreneurs with their former practices as novice entrepreneurs, as well as with a control group of first-time entrepreneurs who engage in serial venturing later on. We find that entrepreneurs who have already failed (i.e. discontinued a former business) select their employees from fewer sources in the labor market. Our tests lend support for learning as a key mechanism driving these differences. Alternative mechanisms such as selection effects, stigma of failure, and demand-side constraints are not empirically supported.
    Keywords: failure, hiring, new ventures, startup experience, human capital
    JEL: J24 L26 C01
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14493&r=
  4. By: Stephen Hansen; Tejas Ramdas; Raffaella Sadun; Joe Fuller
    Abstract: We use a unique corpus of job descriptions for C-suite positions to document skills requirements in top managerial occupations across a large sample of firms. A novel algorithm maps the text of each executive search into six separate skill clusters reflecting cognitive, interpersonal, and operational dimensions. The data show an increasing relevance of social skills in top managerial occupations, and a greater emphasis on social skills in larger and more information intensive organizations. The results suggest the need for training, search and governance mechanisms able to facilitate the match between firms and top executives along multiple and imperfectly observable skills.
    JEL: J23 J24 M12
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28959&r=
  5. By: Christopher Esposito; Edward E. Leamer; Jerry Nickelsburg
    Abstract: In the restaurant industry, the incidence of an increase in the minimum wage may fall on restaurant owners, customers, landlords, and/or employees. We analyze the first two in this study, with implications for the incidence borne by landlords and employees. We exploit a geographical discontinuity in Los Angeles County, where in 2015 the City of Los Angeles passed a minimum wage law and in 2016 the State of California passed a different minimum wage law. This created two minimum wage schedules in the county that remained unequal for over five years. Using a novel data set from a multi-year price survey, our analysis shows that the incidence of Los Angeles City’s higher minimum wage fell on customers in high-income neighborhoods, and on landlords and restaurant owners in low-income neighborhoods. We further show that the mix of responses at restaurants subject to the LA City minimum wage, including price increases, menu changes, and restaurant closures, was affected by proximity to restaurants subject to the lower California State minimum wage. The effect of neighborhood income levels and distance to lower-wage competition has important implications for designing minimum wage policies.
    JEL: J2 J3 J31
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28966&r=
  6. By: Gustafsson, Johan (Department of Economics, Umeå University)
    Abstract: This paper explores the effects of pension illiteracy on aggregate labor supply and the redistributive performance of public pension systems. I consider an overlapping generations model in continuous time populated with individuals who differ in labor productivity and pension literacy. Agents suffering from pension illiteracy fail to fully account for the structure of the pension system when planning their economic behavior over the life cycle. In particular, I assume that myopic agents treat changes to replacement income as exogenous in the active-retired trade-off and contributions to the pension system as a pure labor income tax. I find that pension illiteracy can negatively impact aggregate labor supply and increase earnings inequality and lifetime income inequality. This suggests that pension illiteracy may limit the efficiency gains of increasing the correlation between individual contributions and benefits, making the equity-efficiency trade-off difficult to characterize in the context of pension reforms.
    Keywords: Labor supply; Myopia; Public pension
    JEL: H55 J22 J26
    Date: 2021–06–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0993&r=
  7. By: Angelov, Nikolay (Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies); Waldenström, Daniel (Research Institute of Industrial Economics, Stockholm)
    Abstract: We use population-wide tax register data to document the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on firm sales, tax revenues, and sick pay in Sweden. The pandemic impact is identified using within-year, between-year, and geographical variation, and our data allows us to run placebo tests. Our findings confirm the large negative effects of the pandemic, but shed new light on their magnitudes and sensitivity to COVID-19 morbidity rates. Specifically, we find that the impact on VAT and firm sales was larger than on commonly used industrial and service production indexes, larger than the effect on electricity for industrial use, but less than the effect on excise taxes on air travel. The pandemic's impact on short-term sick pay is large, but unlike tax payments, it does not vary with local infection rates, indicating behavioral responses to more generous rules for sickness insurance during the pandemic.
    Keywords: COVID-19, VAT, excise taxes, sick pay
    JEL: H24 H25 J22 J24
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izapps:pp179&r=
  8. By: Wyatt Brooks; Joseph P. Kaboski; Illenin O. Kondo; Yao Amber Li; Wei Qian
    Abstract: In this paper we study whether or not transportation infrastructure disrupts local monopsony power in labor markets using an expansion of the national highway system in India. Using panel data on manufacturing firms, we find that monopsony power in labor markets is reduced among firms near newly constructed highways relative to firms that remain far from highways. We estimate that the highways reduce labor markdowns significantly. We use changes in the composition of inputs to identify these effects separately from the reduction of output markups that occurs simultaneously. The impacts of highway construction are therefore pro-competitive in both output and input markets, and act to increase the share of income that labor receives by 1.8--2.3 percentage points.
    JEL: J0 J42 O1 O18
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28977&r=
  9. By: Oliver Gürtler (University of Cologne); Lennart Struth (University of Cologne)
    Abstract: Wage transparency rules arguably enable workers better to assess their contribution to firm value, allowing them to make wage demands that more accurately reflect their value for the employing firm and to lower wage gaps in turn. This paper contains a formal analysis of transparency rules and their effects on wages. We find that these rules induce firms to behave strategically with the aim of manipulating the information workers receive. We identify a large class of rules that yield an identical equilibrium outcome. For productivity distributions with decreasing (increasing) hazard rate, transparency rules increase (potentially decrease) workers' payoff.
    Keywords: Wage-setting, transparency rule, payoff, strategic effect, learning effect
    JEL: J31 J71 K31 M51
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:105&r=
  10. By: Mansfield, Jonathan (Binghamton University, New York); Slichter, David (Binghamton University, New York)
    Abstract: The rise of high-stakes accountability programs was one of the most noticeable changes in the U.S. education system during the 1990s and early 2000s. We measure the impact of these programs on students' long-run outcomes. We find that exposure to accountability modestly but detectably increased educational attainment – roughly .02 years per year of exposure. Effects on income were positive, but again modest and insignificant in most specifications. Lastly, if accountability had substantial effects on human capital, treated individuals would be expected to sort into occupations requiring greater use of tested (math and literacy) skills, potentially at the expense of non-tested skills. Instead, we find that accountability had virtually no effect on occupational requirements. Our results suggest that accountability was likely net beneficial for students' long-run outcomes, but not transformative.
    Keywords: accountability, long-run effects, teacher incentives, teaching to the test
    JEL: I28 J24 H0
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14503&r=
  11. By: Borowiecki, Karol Jan (Department of Business and Economics); Mauri, Caterina Adelaide (Department of Business and Economics)
    Abstract: Creative workers strive to achieve success and influence by producing original output. In this paper we introduce a model of style, which enables us to define and measure originality and influence. We apply the model to classical music composed since the 15th century. Using extensive data on the content of musical compositions, popular success, and biographical information, we apply and test the proposed methodology. We find that more original composers tend to be more influential upon the work of their later peers and more successful with present-day audiences. A positive association between originality and influence also holds across works by a given composer. This opens paths for numerous other applications of this methodology.
    Keywords: Creativity; innovation; influence; style; music history; creative industries
    JEL: J24 N30 O31 Z11
    Date: 2021–07–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:sdueko:2021_006&r=
  12. By: Peter Cziraki; Dirk Jenter
    Abstract: We study the market for CEOs of large publicly-traded US firms, analyze new CEOs’ prior connections to the hiring firm, and explore how hiring choices are determined. Firms are hiring from a surprisingly small pool of candidates. More than 80% of new CEOs are insiders, defined as current or former employees or board members. Boards are already familiar with more than 90% of new CEOs, as they are either insiders or executives who directors have previously worked with. There are few reallocations of CEOs across firms – firms raid CEOs of other firms in only 3% of cases. Pay differences appear too small to explain these hiring choices. The evidence suggests that firm-specific human capital, asymmetric information, and other frictions have first-order effects on the assignment of CEOs to firms.
    Keywords: CEO labor markets, CEO-firm matching, assignment models, CEO turnover, CEO compensation
    JEL: D22 G34 J23 M12 M51
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9143&r=
  13. By: Waldenström, Daniel (Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)); Angelov, Nikolay (The Swedish Tax Agency and Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies (UCFS))
    Abstract: We measure the distributional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using newly released population register data in Sweden. Monthly earnings inequality increased during the pandemic, and the key driver is income losses among low-paid individuals while middle- and high-income earners were almost unaffected. The pandemic had a larger negative impact on private-sector workers and on women. Using data on individual take-up of government COVID-19 support, we show that policy significantly dampened the inequality increase, but did not fully offset it. Annual total market income inequality, which also includes capital income and taxable transfers, shows similar patterns of increasing inequality during the pandemic.
    Keywords: Pandemic; Income inequality; Earnings; Government policy
    JEL: D31 H12 H24 J22
    Date: 2021–07–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1396&r=
  14. By: Mikhail Golosov; Michael Graber; Magne Mogstad; David Novgorodsky
    Abstract: We study how Americans respond to idiosyncratic and exogenous changes in household wealth and unearned income. Our analyses combine administrative data on U.S. lottery winners with an event-study design that exploits variation in the timing of lottery wins. Our first contribution is to estimate the earnings responses to these windfall gains, finding significant and sizable wealth and income effects. On average, an extra dollar of unearned income in a given period reduces pre-tax labor earnings by about 50 cents, decreases total labor taxes by 10 cents, and increases consumption by 60 cents. These effects are heterogeneous across the income distribution, with households in higher quartiles of the income distribution reducing their earnings by a larger amount. Our second contribution is to develop and apply a rich life-cycle model in which heterogeneous households face non-linear taxes and make earnings choices along both intensive and extensive margins. By mapping this model to our estimated earnings responses, we obtain informative bounds on the impacts of two policy reforms: an introduction of UBI and an increase in top marginal tax rates. Our last contribution is to study how additional wealth and unearned income affect a wide range of behavior, including geographic mobility and neighborhood choice, retirement decisions and labor market exit, family formation and dissolution, entry into entrepreneurship, and job-to-job mobility.
    JEL: D15 H2 J22
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:29000&r=
  15. By: Gustafsson, Johan (Department of Economics, Umeå University)
    Abstract: Alternative structures of public pension programs have distinct implications for the trade-offs that determine economic behavior over the life cycle. This paper studies these implications in terms of labor supply and economic inequality to characterize the equity–efficiency trade-off between a redistributive (Beveridgean) and an earnings-based (Bismarckian) benefit formula. The economy is modeled as a continuous-time overlapping generations model with endogenous labor supply, savings, and human capital formation. Individuals differ in ability, and they are free to choose how much to work at each period in time and when to enter and exit the labor market. Numerical simulations provide the qualitative insights that a redistributive pension system introduces opposite effects on the incentives to retire for high- and low-skilled individuals, which leads to an increased earnings inequality. This effect can, in turn, dominate the reduced pension inequality such that lifetime and population-wide income inequality increases. Ultimately, it appears that the equity–efficiency trade-off is difficult to characterize when accounting for endogenous labor supply on both the intensive and extensive margins.
    Keywords: Equity-Efficiency; Inequality; Public Pension Policy
    JEL: H55 I24 J22
    Date: 2021–06–29
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0992&r=
  16. By: Poulissen, Davey (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, ROA / Health, skills and inequality); de Grip, Andries (ROA / Health, skills and inequality, RS: GSBE Theme Learning and Work, RS: SBE - MACIMIDE); Fouarge, Didier (RS: GSBE Theme Learning and Work, RS: GSBE Theme Data-Driven Decision-Making, ROA / Labour market and training); Künn, Annemarie (RS: GSBE Theme Learning and Work, ROA / Labour market and training)
    Abstract: Various studies have shown that temporary workers participate less in training than those on permanent contracts. Human resources practices are considered to be an important explanation for this difference. We develop a theoretical framework for employers’ provision of training that explicitly incorporates the costs and benefits associated with training investments in employees with different types of employment contracts. Our framework not only predicts employers to be less willing to invest in temporary workers due to the shorter time horizon associated with such an investment, but it also provides insights into how this willingness depends on characteristics of the training that are related to the expected costs and benefits of the training investment. A discrete choice experiment is used to empirically test the predictions from our theoretical framework. In line with our theoretical framework, we find that employers are less likely to invest in the training of temporary workers. This particularly holds when temporary workers do not have the prospect of a permanent contract with their current employer. Furthermore, we show that employers’ likelihood of investing in temporary workers indeed depends on aspects related to the costs and benefits of training, that is, a financial contribution to the training costs made by employees, a repayment agreement that applies when workers leave the organisation prematurely, and the transferability of the skills being trained. Our findings can be used to increase employers’ willingness to invest in temporary workers. However, similar effects are observed when looking at employers’ willingness to invest in permanent workers, suggesting that it will be difficult to decrease the gap in employers’ willingness to invest between temporary and permanent workers.
    JEL: J24 J41 J62
    Date: 2021–05–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2021003&r=
  17. By: Holmberg, Johan (Department of Economics, Umeå University)
    Abstract: This paper deals with optimal nonlinear taxation of labor and entrepreneurial income and extends the recent study of Scheuer (2014) to accommodate equilib- rium unemployment. We find that even if employment is endogenous, the govern- ment can achieve redistribution of income through taxation without distorting production efficiency. This is possible if the government taxes entrepreneurial and labor income separately. The results also show that including involuntary unem- ployment creates an incentive to tax entrepreneurial income at lower marginal rates and labor income at higher marginal rates than otherwise.
    Keywords: Optimal Taxation; Entrepreneurship; Occupational choice; Unemployment
    JEL: H21 H25 J24 J65 L26
    Date: 2021–06–30
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:umnees:0994&r=
  18. By: Drydakis, Nick (Anglia Ruskin University)
    Abstract: This meta-analysis utilizes 24 papers published between 2012-2020 that focus on earnings differences by sexual orientation. The papers cover the period between 1991 and 2018, and countries in Europe, North America and Australia. The meta-analysis indicates that gay men earned less than heterosexual men. Lesbian women earned more than heterosexual women, while bisexual men earned less than heterosexual men. Bisexual women earned less than heterosexual women. According to the meta-analysis, in data sets after 2010, gay men and bisexual men and women continue to experience earnings penalties, while lesbian women continue to experience earnings premiums. The meta-regression estimates indicate relationships between study characteristics and the estimated earnings effects for sexual minorities. For instance, regions, sexual minority data set sizes, and earnings classifications influence the outcomes. The persistence of earnings penalties for gay men and bisexual men and women in the face of anti-discrimination policies represents a cause for concern and indicates the need for comprehensive legislation and workplace guidelines to guarantee that people receive fair pay and not experience any form of workplace inequality simply because of their sexual orientation.
    Keywords: sexual orientation, discrimination, earnings
    JEL: C93 E24 J15 J16 J71
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14496&r=
  19. By: Ohlsbom, Roope
    Abstract: Abstract Data collected with the Finnish Management and Organizational Practices Survey (FMOP) is used to study the association between management practices and firm productivity, and to examine whether human capital intensity acts as a moderator variable for this relationship. A comparison of how well different models predict productivity from management practices and human capital reveals a linear two-way interaction between the education of managers and management practices. We find evidence that the marginal benefit of adopting more structured management practices is different for establishments with different levels of managerial human capital. Testing and accounting for this interaction is important for reliable estimation of the management-productivity relationship. Accounting for the interaction, a 10 percent increase in the FMOP management score is found to be associated with an average of 7.1 percent higher labour productivity. Management practices can account for more than 24 percent of the observed productivity dispersion. This is close to as much as is accounted for by information and communication technologies and more than by research and development and human capital.
    Keywords: Management practices, Management survey, FMOP, Productivity, Human capital, Education
    JEL: D22 J24 L25 L60 M11 M50
    Date: 2021–07–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:88&r=
  20. By: Weichselbaumer, Doris (University of Linz); Schuster, Julia (University of Linz)
    Abstract: A large body of research documents the existence of discrimination against migrants and ethnic minorities in the labour market. This study investigates for Austria, to what degree employment discrimination against ethnic minorities is mitigated, when they abstain from following the Austrian norm of including a photograph to their job application that would make their ethnicity salient or when they hold a local sounding name. In our correspondence test, we found that with matching ethnic names and ethnic photographs, black but not Asian job applicants suffered from discrimination. With a local sounding name, blacks (but not Asians) bettered their employment chances. Although photographs may facilitate ethnic discrimination, we did not find that their omission improved minorities' labour market chances. On the contrary, Asians were penalised for leaving out their photograph. Indeed, if candidates did not attach photos despite the convention to do so, we found statistically significant discrimination not only against black, but also Asian applicants.
    Keywords: migration, discrimination, hiring, correspondence testing
    JEL: C93 J15 J71
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14495&r=
  21. By: Brian McCaig; Nina Pavcnik
    Abstract: Non-farm informal businesses comprise the majority of the firm distribution in developing countries. We document novel stylized facts about entry and exit of informal, non-farm firms using nationally representative panel data over 15 years and across regions with varying levels of local economic development in Vietnam. First, we find that informal businesses exhibit rates of entry and exit around 14-18% annually. Entry and exit rates are similar and highly correlated at a point in time, within industries, and within regions. They both decline over time and across space with economic development. Second, although market selection influences which firms survive, entry and exit has little net effect on aggregate (revenue) productivity or hiring of workers outside the household. This owes to overlapping labor productivity of entering and exiting firms and low subsequent productivity growth and hiring among the surviving entrants. Nonetheless, entry and exit are associated with large changes in individual income. Third, the large overlap in revenue of entering and exiting informal businesses and the high correlation between entry and exit rates are related to the education of owners and their economic activities before and after operating an informal business. Informal business owners are less educated on average than wage workers in the formal sector, but more educated than agricultural workers. The transitions in and out of operating an informal business reflect the underlying structure of economic activities of the working age population, with education gaps also playing a role. The most common transition into non-farm businesses is to and from self-employment in agriculture. The likelihood of this transition declines with economic development, highlighting the role of net entry from agriculture into informal non-farm businesses in structural change.
    JEL: J46 L2 O17 O53
    Date: 2021–07
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28986&r=
  22. By: Diaz Pavez, Luis R.; Martínez-Zarzoso, Inmaculada
    Abstract: In the XXI century, the labor market effects of automation have gained significant attention from scholars and policymakers alike. Concerns about potential negative effects are particularly relevant in emerging countries, where a rapid acceleration of robot adoption and an increasing involvement in global value chains has been observed in recent years, with the subsequent increase in exposure to foreign competition. This paper estimates the effect of local and foreign robots on labor market outcomes and labor shares using a panel dataset composed of 16 sectors and ten emerging countries from 2008 to 2014. The endogeneity of robots' adoption is addressed with an instru- mental variable approach and using a shift-share index of exposure to foreign robots. When all sectors are considered, the main results show that only foreign robot adoption, but not local, has affected employment, whereas no effects on the labor share are found. When exploring sectoral heterogeneity, we find that the foreign robots' effect on employment has mainly occurred in the agricultural and industrial machinery sectors, the former being driven by a reduction of offshoring and affecting nearly 60% of jobs in emerging countries.
    Keywords: Automation,Labor markets,Inequality,Emerging countries
    JEL: J23 O33 F16
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:423&r=
  23. By: Elmallakh, Nelly (World Bank); Wahba, Jackline (University of Southampton)
    Abstract: This paper examines the impact of the legal status of overseas migrants on their wages upon return to the home country. Using unique data from Egypt, which allows us to distinguish between return migrants according to their type of international migration, documented versus undocumented, we examine the impact of the illegal status on wages upon return. Relying on a conditional mixed process model, which takes into account the selection into emigration, into return, and into the legal status of temporary migration, we find that, upon return, undocumented migrants witness a wage penalty compared to documented migrants, as well as relative to non-migrants. Our results are the first to show the impact of undocumented migration on the migrant upon return to the country of origin.
    Keywords: return migration, undocumented migration, illegality, wages, Egypt
    JEL: F22 J30
    Date: 2021–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp14492&r=
  24. By: Nguyen, Ha Trong; Christian, Hayley; Le, Huong Thu; Connelly, Luke; Zubrick, Stephen R.; Mitrou, Francis
    Abstract: This study explores the differential impact of weather on time allocation to physical activity and sleep by children and their parents. We use nationally representative data with time use indicators objectively measured on multiple occasions for more than 1,100 child-parent pairs, coupled with daily meteorological data. Employing an individual fixed effects regression model to estimate the causal impact of weather, we find that unfavourable weather conditions, as measured by cold or hot temperatures or rain, cause children to reduce physical activity time and increase sedentary time. However, such weather conditions have little impact on children's sleep time or the time allocation of their parents. We also find substantial differential weather impact, especially on children's time allocation, by weekdays/weekends and parental employment status, suggesting that these factors may contribute to explaining the differential weather impact that we observed. Our results additionally provide evidence of adaptation, as temperature appears to have a more pronounced impact on time allocation in colder months and colder regions. The results suggest that extreme weather conditions, including those associated with climate change, could make children vulnerable to reduced physical activity.
    Keywords: Weather,time allocation,physical activity,sleep,family,dyad
    JEL: I12 J13 J22 Q54
    Date: 2021
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:886&r=
  25. By: Karolina Socha-Dietrich (OECD)
    Abstract: Digital technologies offer unique opportunities to strengthen health systems. However, the digital infrastructure only provide the tools, which on their own cannot transform the health systems, but need to be put to productive use by health workers. This report discusses how to engage and empower the health workforce to make the most of the digital revolution. While many health workers already use some digital tools and perceive the benefits that they bring to them and to patients, many also question the value digital technologies produce in health care or complain about technology getting in the way of work. Moreover, health workers often report not having sufficient opportunities for the up-skilling required to fully use new technologies or that the legal, financial, and organisational aspects of work – designed in the pre-digital era – do not enable them to reap the full benefits of these new technologies. Health workers and patients also demand appropriate safeguards against possible lack of transparency or threats to data privacy.
    JEL: I11 I13 J45
    Date: 2021–07–19
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:elsaad:129-en&r=

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