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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Christina Langer; Simon Wiederhold |
| Abstract: | We develop novel measures of early-career skills that are more detailed, comprehensive, and labor-market-relevant than existing skill proxies. We exploit that skill requirements of apprenticeships in Germany are codified in state-approved, nationally standardized apprenticeship plans. These plans provide more than 13, 000 different skills and the exact duration of learning each skill. Following workers over their careers in administrative data, we find that cognitive, social, and digital skills acquired during apprenticeship are highly – yet differently – rewarded. We also document rising returns to digital and social skills since the 1990s, with a more moderate increase in returns to cognitive skills. |
| Keywords: | returns to skills, apprenticeship plans, labor market, earnings, early-career skills |
| JEL: | I21 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bav:wpaper:222_langerwiederhold&r=lma |
| By: | Sabien Dobbelaere (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam); Catherine Fuss (National Bank of Belgium); Mark Vancauteren (Universiteit Hasselt) |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between offshoring and the prevalence and intensity of labor market imperfections at the firm level in Belgium and the Netherlands. Wage markup pricing stemming from workers’ monopoly power is more prevalent than wage markdown pricing originating from firms’ monopsony power in both countries. Offshoring benefits firms in that imports of final as well as intermediate goods are associated with a higher prevalence and intensity of wage markdowns. The widening effect of offshoring on wage markdowns arises from an increase in productivity that is only imperfectly passed through into an increase in wages. Offshoring is negatively related to the prevalence of wage markups. This also holds for the intensity of wage markups measured by workers’ bargaining power in Belgium. |
| Keywords: | Wage markdowns, wage markups, firm-level offshoring |
| JEL: | F14 F16 J42 J50 |
| Date: | 2023–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20230006&r=lma |
| By: | Daron Acemoglu; Hans R. A. Koster; Ceren Ozgen |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effects of robot adoption on firm-level and worker-level outcomes in the Netherlands using a large employer-employee panel dataset spanning 2009-2020. Our firm-level results confirm previous findings, with positive effects on value added and hours worked for robot-adopting firms and negative outcomes on competitors in the same industry. Our worker-level results show that directly-affected workers (e.g., blue-collar workers performing routine or replaceable tasks) face lower earnings and employment rates, while other workers indirectly gain from robot adoption. We also find that the negative effects from competitors' robot adoption load on directly-affected workers, while other workers benefit from this industry-level robot adoption. Overall, our results highlight the uneven effects of automation on the workforce. |
| JEL: | D63 E22 E23 E24 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31009&r=lma |
| By: | Baran, Cavit (Northwestern University); Chyn, Eric (University of Texas at Austin); Stuart, Bryan (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the impact of the First Great Migration on children. We use the complete count 1940 Census to estimate selection-corrected place effects on education for children of Black migrants. On average, Black children gained 0.8 years of schooling (12 percent) by moving from the South to North. Many counties that had the strongest positive impacts on children during the 1940s offer relatively poor opportunities for Black youth today. Opportunities for Black children were greater in places with more schooling investment, stronger labor market opportunities for Black adults, more social capital, and less crime. |
| Keywords: | Great Migration, human capital, education, place effect |
| JEL: | N32 J15 J24 H75 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15979&r=lma |
| By: | Isaac Sorkin; Melanie Wallskog |
| Abstract: | Over the last several decades, rising pay dispersion between firms accounts for the majority of the dramatic increase in earnings inequality in the United States. This paper shows that a distinct cross-cohort pattern drives this rise: newer cohorts of firms enter more dispersed and stay more dispersed throughout their lives. A similar cohort pattern drives a variety of other closely related facts: increases in worker sorting across firms on the basis of pay, education, and age, and increasing productivity dispersion across firms. We discuss two important implications. First, these cohort patterns suggest a link between changes in firm entry associated with the decline in business dynamism and the rise in earnings inequality. Second, cohort effects imply a slow diffusion of inequality: we expect inequality to continue to rise as older and more equal cohorts of firms are replaced by younger and more unequal cohorts. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that this momentum could be substantial with increases in between-firm inequality in the next two decades almost as large as in the last two. |
| JEL: | J3 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30977&r=lma |
| By: | Nguyen, Cuong Viet; Tarp, Finn |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of a national cash transfer program in Vietnam on labor supply using large household surveys and a regression-discontinuity design based on discontinuity in age eligibility. We do not find evidence of a disincentive effect of the cash transfer on labor supply for adults aged 15-64. More importantly, we find robust evidence that the transfer program causes the adults to move from self-employed non-farm work to wage-paying jobs. A likely mechanism is that the transfer program reduces the labor force participation of older people, and they help housework and childcare for younger adults to have wage-paying jobs. |
| Keywords: | Cash transfer, social security, employment, labor market participation, Vietnam |
| JEL: | J22 N35 H55 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1243&r=lma |
| By: | Carlsson, Magnus (Linnaeus University); Eriksson, Stefan (Uppsala University); Rooth, Dan-Olof (Stockholm University) |
| Abstract: | Labor markets in advanced economies have undergone substantial change in recent decades due to globalization, technological improvements, and organizational changes. Due to these developments, oral and written language skills have become increasingly important even in less skilled jobs. Immigrants – who often have limited skills in the host country language upon arrival – are likely to be particularly affected by the increase in language requirements. Despite this increase in literacy requirements, little is known about how immigrants' language proficiency is rewarded in the labor market. However, estimating the causal effect of immigrants' language skills on hiring is challenging due to potential biases caused by omitted variables, reverse causality, and measurement error. To address identification problems, we conduct a large-scale field experiment, where we send thousands of fictitious resumes to employers with a job opening. With the help of a professional linguist, we manipulate the cover letters by introducing common second-language features, which makes the resumes reflect variation in the language skills of real-world migrants. Our findings show that better language proficiency in the cover letter has a strong positive effect on the callback rate for a job interview: moving from the lowest level of language proficiency to a level similar to natives almost doubles the callback rate. Consistent with the recent development that language proficiency is also important for many low- and medium-skilled jobs, the effect of better language skills does not vary across the vastly different types of occupations we study. Finally, the results from employer surveys suggest that it is improved language skills per se that is the dominant explanation behind the language proficiency effect, rather than language skills acting as a proxy for other unobserved abilities or characteristics. |
| Keywords: | labor migrants, language proficiency, language skills, human capital, field experiment |
| JEL: | F22 J15 J24 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15950&r=lma |
| By: | David Autor; Arindrajit Dube; Annie McGrew |
| Abstract: | Labor market tightness following the height of the Covid-19 pandemic led to an unexpected compression in the US wage distribution that reflects, in part, an increase in labor market competition. Rapid relative wage growth at the bottom of the distribution reduced the college wage premium and counteracted approximately one-quarter of the four-decade increase in aggregate 90-10 log wage inequality. Wage compression was accompanied by rapid nominal wage growth and rising job-to-job separations—especially among young non-college (high school or less) workers. At the state-level, post-pandemic labor market tightness became strongly predictive of price increases (price-Phillips curve), real wage growth among low-wage workers (wage-Phillips curve), and aggregate wage compression. Simultaneously, the wage-separation elasticity—a key measure of labor market competition—rose among young non-college workers, with wage gains concentrated among workers who changed employers and industries. Seen through the lens of a canonical job ladder model, the pandemic increased the elasticity of labor supply to firms in the low-wage labor market, reducing employer market power and spurring rapid relative wage growth among young non-college workers who disproportionately moved from lower-paying to higher-paying and potentially more-productive jobs. |
| JEL: | E31 J2 J3 J42 J64 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31010&r=lma |
| By: | Stephen Hansen; Peter John Lambert; Nicholas Bloom; Steven J. Davis; Raffaella Sadun; Bledi Taska |
| Abstract: | The pandemic catalyzed an enduring shift to remote work. To measure and characterize this shift, we examine more than 250 million job vacancy postings across five English-speaking countries. Our measurements rely on a state-of-the-art language-processing framework that we fit, test, and refine using 30, 000 human classifications. We achieve 99% accuracy in flagging job postings that advertise hybrid or fully remote work, greatly outperforming dictionary methods and also outperforming other machine-learning methods. From 2019 to early 2023, the share of postings that say new employees can work remotely one or more days per week rose more than three-fold in the U.S and by a factor of five or more in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. These developments are highly non-uniform across and within cities, industries, occupations, and companies. Even when zooming in on employers in the same industry competing for talent in the same occupations, we find large differences in the share of job postings that explicitly offer remote work. |
| JEL: | C55 E24 M54 O33 R3 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31007&r=lma |
| By: | Hamann, Silke (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Niebuhr, Annekatrin (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany ; Univ. Kiel); Roth, Duncan (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany); Sieglen, Georg (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "We estimate spatially heterogeneous effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on labour market dynamics in Germany until December 2021. While initially slightly larger in rural regions, adverse effects quickly become more pronounced and persistent in large agglomerations. We ascribe the larger impact of the pandemic in large agglomerations to two factors. First, a combination of a higher share of skilled workers and jobs suitable for working-from-home is positively related to an increased inflow rate into unemployment. We argue that spillover effects from reduced product market demand in large cities caused by changes in behaviour such as working-from-home or online shopping are a possible explanation. Second, a higher pre-crisis unemployment rate in large agglomerations is associated with a lower outflow rate out of unemployment. This might reflect the less favourable composition of unemployment in large cities which reduces the probability of transitions into employment during crises." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| JEL: | J23 J63 R23 |
| Date: | 2023–03–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:202303&r=lma |
| By: | David J. Deming |
| Abstract: | This paper reviews and synthesizes the literature on the macroeconomic implications of human capital theory. I begin with a review of the canonical model of education and the wage structure pioneered by Tinbergen (1975) and developed more fully by Goldin and Katz (2007). I also review innovations such as the task framework developed by Acemoglu and Autor (2011). The canonical model does a surprisingly good job of predicting changes in the wage structure in the U.S. and other developed countries over the last half-century. Relative to the canonical model, the task framework adopts a more flexible view of technology and does a better job of fitting non-monotonic changes in the wage structure. Yet the task framework does not fully explain why educated workers have done so well since 1980, nor does it explain other recent facts such as flattening returns to cognitive skills and growing returns to non-cognitive, “higher-order” skills such as teamwork. To understand these recent trends, we must move beyond a single index view of human capital, toward richer, multi-dimensional frameworks. I conclude with a discussion of the nascent literature on the implications of multi-dimensional human capital for the wage structure, which raises more questions than it answers. |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31001&r=lma |
| By: | Domenico Depalo (Bank of Italy, Labor Market Department); Alessandro Palma (Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) & CEIS, Università di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the effect of air pollution on work-related accidents using administrative data from Italy in a setting characterized by strict air pollution and work safety regulations. To address the potential endogeneity due to unobserved productivity shifts and firm-specific pollution sources, we use winter heating rules in highly urbanized areas as a exogenous sources of variation in pollution exposure. We find that a one unit increase in PM10 causes 0.014 additional accidents and 0.0013 additional disabilities. We also explore the theoretical implications of these findings in a setting where firms are risk carriers and fully bear the compensation costs of less severe accidents. We empirically confirm that firms have an incentive to deploy defensive investments also when the risk of accidents derives from external factors, as in the case of air quality. Our back-of-the-enveloped calculation shows that each additional unit in PM10 concentration would increase the total cost of an accident by about 1.7%. |
| Keywords: | air pollution, workplace safety, work accidents, IV, winter heating |
| JEL: | I18 J28 J81 Q51 Q53 |
| Date: | 2023–02–25 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:554&r=lma |
| By: | Spencer Bastani (Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU); Research Institute for Industrial Economics (IFN); Uppsala Center for Fiscal Studies; Uppsala Center for Labor Studies; CESIfo); Thomas Giebe (Department of Economics and Statistics, School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University, Sweden.); Oliver Gürtler (University of Cologne, Germany) |
| Abstract: | "Using a promotion signaling model in which wages are realistically shaped by market forces, we analyze how male overconfidence combined with competitive workplace incentives affects gender equality in the labor market. Our main result is that overconfident workers exert more effort to be promoted, which translates into a higher probability of promotion and superior wage growth. Interestingly, workers who are not overconfident have higher expected ability conditional on promotion than overconfident workers. However, overconfident workers accumulate more human capital through learning-by-doing and therefore have higher expected productivity. Because overconfident workers compete fiercely, they incur higher effort costs and discourage their colleagues, and we find that overconfidence can be either self-serving or self-defeating for the overconfident worker. " |
| Keywords: | overconfidence, promotion, competition, gender gap, tournament, theory |
| JEL: | C72 D91 J16 J24 M51 M52 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ajk:ajkdps:220&r=lma |
| By: | Anton Korinek |
| Abstract: | Large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have the potential to revolutionize research in economics and other disciplines. I describe 25 use cases along six domains in which LLMs are starting to become useful as both research assistants and tutors: ideation, writing, background research, data analysis, coding, and mathematical derivations. I provide general instructions and demonstrate specific examples for how to take advantage of each of these, classifying the LLM capabilities from experimental to highly useful. I hypothesize that ongoing advances will improve the performance of LLMs across all of these domains, and that economic researchers who take advantage of LLMs to automate micro tasks will become significantly more productive. Finally, I speculate on the longer-term implications of cognitive automation via LLMs for economic research. |
| JEL: | A10 B41 J23 O3 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30957&r=lma |
| By: | Gu, Xin (Georgia Institute of Technology); Li, Haizheng (Georgia Tech) |
| Abstract: | We study peer effects in online training participation using unique data from a large-scale online teacher training program. The platform data allow us to observe the accurate duration of attendance for every individual-lecture pair. We classify peer groups as close peers, local peers, and global peers based on their relationships. By controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, we find positive effects of close and local peer appearance on trainees' joining a lecture and on their length of stay in the lecture. However, global peers generate a negative but economically insignificant impact. Peer effects differ by group and increase with the relationship closeness. Using the survey data, we investigate the mechanisms of peer influences and find that social interactions facilitate online peer effects. Peer pressure and reputation concerns also help explain our findings. Our results shed new light on how peer effects can be utilized to improve the effectiveness of online learning. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, online training |
| JEL: | I21 J24 M53 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15964&r=lma |
| By: | Philippe Aghion; Ufuk Akcigit; Ari Hyytinen; Otto Toivanen |
| Abstract: | Why is invention strongly positively correlated with parental income not only in the US but also in Finland which displays low income inequality and high social mobility? Using data on 1.45M Finnish individuals and their parents, we find that: (i) the positive association between parental income and off-spring probability of inventing is greatly reduced when controlling for parental education; (ii) instrumenting for the parents having a MSc-degree using distance to nearest university reveals a large causal effect of parental education on offspring probability of inventing; and (iii) the causal effect of parental education has been markedly weakened by the introduction in the early 1970s of a comprehensive schooling reform. |
| JEL: | J24 O3 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30964&r=lma |
| By: | Katharine G. Abraham; Brad Hershbein; Susan N. Houseman; Beth Truesdale |
| Abstract: | Good data on the size and composition of the independent contractor workforce are elusive, with household survey and administrative tax data often disagreeing on levels and trends. We carried out a series of focus groups to learn how self-employed independent contractors speak about their work. Based on these findings, we designed and fielded a large-scale telephone survey to elicit more accurate and complete information on independent contractors, including those who may be coded incorrectly as employees in conventional household survey data and those who are independent contractors in a secondary work activity. We find that, upon probing, roughly one in 10 workers who initially reports working for an employer on one or more jobs (and thus is coded as an employee) is in fact an independent contractor on at least one of those jobs. Incorporating these miscoded workers into estimates of work arrangement on the main job nearly doubles the share who are independent contractors, to about 15 percent of all workers. Young workers, less-educated workers, workers of color, multiple-job holders, and those with low hours are more likely to be miscoded. Taking these workers into account substantively changes the demographic profile of the independent contractor workforce. Our research indicates that probing in household surveys to clarify a worker’s employment arrangement and identify all low-hours work is critical for accurately measuring independent contractor work. |
| JEL: | C83 J41 J46 L24 M55 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30997&r=lma |
| By: | Diego A. Comin; Javier Quintana; Tom G. Schmitz; Antonella Trigari |
| Abstract: | We compute new estimates for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) growth in five European countries and in the United States. Departing from standard methods, we account for positive profits and use firm surveys to proxy for unobserved changes in factor utilization. These novelties have a major impact in Europe, where our estimated TFP growth series are less volatile and less cyclical than the ones obtained with standard methods. Based on our approach, we provide annual industry-level and aggregate TFP series, as well as the first estimates of utilization-adjusted quarterly TFP growth in Europe. |
| JEL: | E01 |
| Date: | 2023–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:31006&r=lma |
| By: | Franca Glenzer; Pierre-Carl Michaud; Stefan Staubli |
| Abstract: | Many people forgo a higher stream of public pension income by claiming early. We provide both quasi-experimental and survey-experimental evidence that the timing of public pension claiming is relatively inelastic to changes in financial incentives in Canada. Using the survey experiment, we evaluate the effect of two different educational interventions and different ways of framing the incentive to delay claiming. While all three types of interventions induce delays, these interventions have heterogeneous financial consequences for participants who react. |
| JEL: | G53 J26 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30938&r=lma |
| By: | Naudé, Wim (RWTH Aachen University); Amorós, Ernesto (EGAP Tecnológico de Monterrey CEM); Brück, Tilman (ISDC - International Security and Development Center) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between state-based conflict and entrepreneurship. From a survey of the existing literature, we formulate two hypotheses: (1) state-based conflict has a negative association with productive and opportunity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship, and (2) a positive association with unproductive and necessity-motivated forms of entrepreneurship. We test these hypotheses by drawing on several state-based conflict and entrepreneurship measures, using appropriate estimators, and employing robustness checks. The evidence supports our hypotheses. Necessity-motivated start-up entrepreneurship is, on average, almost three times higher in countries in conflict than in countries not in conflict. Development level matters. In countries with less unemployment, more finance, and higher levels of physical, human capital and GDP, entrepreneurship is more resilient, and the ratio of female-to-male entrepreneurs in opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship higher. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurship, conflict, war, small business, employment |
| JEL: | L26 M13 J23 N40 O11 O17 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15946&r=lma |
| By: | Jessen, Jonas (European University Viadrina, Frankfurt / Oder); Jessen, Robin (RWI); Galecka-Burdziak, Ewa (Warsaw School of Economics); Góra, Marek (Warsaw School of Economics); Kluve, Jochen (KfW Development Bank) |
| Abstract: | We quantify micro and macro effects of changes in the potential benefit duration (PBD) in unemployment insurance. In Poland, the PBD is 12 months for newly unemployed if the previous year's county unemployment rate is more than 150% of the national average, and 6 months otherwise. We exploit this discontinuity using RD estimates on registry data containing the universe of unemployed from 2004 to 2020. For workers whose PBD is directly affected by the policy rule (benefit recipients younger than 50), a PBD increase from 6 to 12 months leads to 13 percent higher unemployment. The aggregate effect on unemployment is entirely explained by this increase. Thus, the micro effect equals the macro effect. We find no evidence of spill-overs on two distinct groups of unemployed whose PBD is unchanged and no effect on measures of labour market tightness. A decomposition analysis reveals that 12 months after an increase in the PBD, changes in exits from and entries into unemployment each contribute to about one half of the overall increase in unemployment. |
| Keywords: | unemployment benefits, extended benefits, spell duration, separation rate, regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | H55 J20 J65 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15978&r=lma |
| By: | Sona Badalyan; Darya Korlyakova; Rastislav Rehak |
| Abstract: | We focus on communication among hiring team members and document the existence of discrimination in the disclosure of information about candidates. In particular, we conduct an online experiment with a nationally representative sample of Czech individuals who act as human resource assistants and hiring managers in our online labor market. The main novel feature of our experiment is the monitoring of information flow between human resource assistants and hiring managers. We exogenously manipulate candidates’ names to explore the causal effects of their gender and nationality on information that assistants select for managers. Our findings reveal that assistants disclose more information about family and less information about work for female candidates relative to male candidates. An in-depth analysis of the disclosed information suggests that gender stereotypes play an important role in this disclosure discrimination. Furthermore, assistants disclose less information about foreigners overall. This effect appears to be driven by the less attention assistants are willing to devote to the CVs of foreigners, measured by the extra effort to learn more about the candidates. |
| Keywords: | Information; Disclosure; Hiring; Discrimination; Foreigners; Women; Online Experiment; |
| JEL: | C90 D83 J71 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp743&r=lma |
| By: | Fatih Guvenen; Alisdair McKay; Conor B. Ryan |
| Abstract: | We estimate an income process that is consistent with key facts on individual income risk and its variation over the business cycle. In particular, the estimated process generates income fluctuations that display (i) flat and acyclical variance, (ii) volatile and procyclical skewness, (iii) very high kurtosis, and (iv) a moderate rise in cross-sectional inequality over the life cycle, all consistent with the US data. Furthermore, the income process captures the predictable nature of business cycle income risk: income changes during a business cycle episode are partly predicted by income levels before that episode. The estimated process features a time-varying distribution of innovations as well as a factor structure for business cycle exposure. Incorporating the estimated process into a business cycle model adds only one state variable—as in the workhorse persistent-plus-transitory income process—making it a tractable option for modelers. |
| JEL: | E24 E3 J31 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30959&r=lma |
| By: | Carl Lieberman; Elizabeth Luh; Michael Mueller-Smith |
| Abstract: | Millions of people in the United States face fines and fees in the criminal court system each year, totaling over $27 billion in overall criminal debt to-date. In this study, we leverage five distinct natural experiments in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin using regression discontinuity designs to evaluate the causal impact of such financial sanctions and user fees. We consider a range of long-term outcomes including employment, recidivism, household expenditures, and other self-reported measures of well-being, which we measure through a combination of administrative records on earnings and employment, the Criminal Justice Administrative Records System, and household surveys. We find consistent evidence across the range of natural experiments and subgroup analyses of precise null effects on the population, ruling out long-run impacts larger than +/-3.6% on total earnings and +/-4.7% on total recidivism. Failure to find changes in outcomes undermines popular narratives of poverty traps arising from criminal debt but argues against the use of fines and fees as a source of local revenue and as a crime control tool. |
| Keywords: | criminal justice, fines, deterrence, recidivism, labor market outcomes |
| JEL: | H72 J24 K42 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-06&r=lma |
| By: | Walker, Brigham (Tulane University); Wisniewski, Janna (Tulane University); Tinkler, Sarah (Portland State University); Stano, Miron (Oakland University); Sharma, Rajiv (Portland State University) |
| Abstract: | Roughly a quarter of physicians in the United States are either international medical graduates (IMGs) or foreign-born physicians (FBPs). We propose a theoretical model where patient preferences that disfavor IMGs and FBPs may result in those physicians offering better access to their services compared with non-IMGs/FBPs in equilibrium. We use data from two field experiments to test the predictions from the model: one concerning patient preferences and the other concerning physician availability. In the patient preferences field experiment, we find that patients strongly prefer doctors educated in the United States to IMGs by about 2-to-1. In the physician availability field experiment, we find that US-born physicians generally have lower levels of availability including offering fewer appointments and longer wait times. These results indicate a substantial underutilization of FBPs relative to US-born physicians and suggest that a sizable share of the US healthcare provider base is unfairly disadvantaged based on nativity. |
| Keywords: | patient preferences, physician availability, foreign doctors, International Medical Graduates (IMGs), Foreign-Born Physicians (FBPs) |
| JEL: | I11 C93 J7 |
| Date: | 2023–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15951&r=lma |
| By: | Aashima Sinha |
| Abstract: | Building on a Kaleckian-structuralist macroeconomic growth model this paper examines the impact of the interaction between labor market gender equality and social reproduction (SR) or care provisioning, on economic growth across U.S. states. Using panel data for 2003-2017 and principal component analysis, I construct two composite scores for each state to capture care provisioning by household, state, and the market sectors on the supply side and caring tendency to invest in human capacities on the demand side. The interaction of these scores results in four stylized SR regimes. Next, I examine the relationship between women’s labor force participation rate (WLFPR) and state’s per-capita growth rate across these regimes. The paper contributes new evidence to the engendering macroeconomics scholarship on promoting gender-egalitarian and pro-care economic growth by showing that: 1) regimes characterized by strong public, market, and gender-equal care provisioning experience higher per-capita growth rates compared to regimes that lack such care provisioning; 2) higher WLFPR is compatible with higher economic growth in states with gender-equal care structures and 3) gender-equitable growth can be achieved via statelevel policies that expand social spending, access to care services, and gender equality in labor market. |
| Keywords: | social reproduction, care, growth, development, United States, gender, macroeconomics JEL Classification: J22, O4, O11 |
| Date: | 2023 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uta:papers:2023_03&r=lma |