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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Picchio, Matteo; van Ours, Jan C. |
| Abstract: | High temperatures can have a negative effect on workplace safety for a variety of reasons. Discomfort and reduced concentration caused by heat can lead to workers making mistakes and injuring themselves. Discomfort can also be an incentive for workers to report an injury that they would not have reported in the absence of heat. We investigate how temperature affects injuries of professional tennis players in outdoor singles matches. We find that for men injury rates increase with ambient temperatures. For women, there is no effect of high temperatures on injuries. Among male tennis players, there is some heterogeneity in the temperature effects, which seem to be influenced by incentives. Specifically, when a male player is losing at the beginning of a crucial (second) fourth set in (best-of-three) best-of-five matches, the temperature effect is much larger than when he is winning. In best-offive matches, which are more exhausting, this effect is age-dependent and stronger for older players. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, temperatures, tennis, injuries, health |
| JEL: | J24 J81 Q51 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1487 |
| By: | Black, Ines (Duke University); Figueiredo, Ana (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | We show that occupation mobility creates the illusion of cyclical hiring wages. Using administrative data, we find that wages of new hires who remain in the same occupation are no more cyclical than those of existing workers, whereas wages of occupation switchers are highly cyclical. We uncover higher wage cyclicality also among workers who switch occupations within the same firm. Moreover, wage cyclicality increases, the more different current and previous occupations' required skills. Our results suggest that the widely documented cyclicality of entry wages reflects composition effects due to changes in match quality in worker's occupation, rather than wage flexibility. |
| Keywords: | wage cyclicality, occupational mobility, reallocation, match quality |
| JEL: | J31 J61 E24 E32 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17189 |
| By: | Mathieu P.A. Steijn (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) |
| Abstract: | The COVID-19 crisis may have widely and permanently altered the labor market through the demand for skills. Crises tend to accelerate technological change. Previous recent crises were characterized by an acceleration of automation, which generally led to a decrease in middle-income jobs with routine skills, known as job polarization. This study finds that the COVID-19 pandemic, which is characterized by an acceleration of digitization, has led to a unique, large, and relatively persistent labor reallocation shock. Labor market dynamics in the Netherlands reveal an unprecedentedly large rise in high-income jobs and an unprecedentedly large drop in low-income jobs. These dynamics are strongly associated with a previously virtually irrelevant job characteristic in occupations, namely, the ability to work from home, and not the manual, routine, or abstract thinking skill content of jobs that had strong explanatory power in previous recent crises. This suggests an acceleration of the importance of digital skills rather than abstract thinking skills. Post-pandemic trends up to 2023Q4 indicate that there is a recovery in the types of jobs (relatively) lost but that the reallocation shock is quite persistent in the type of jobs gained. Further evidence of a persistent change in the demand for (digital) skills is found in results on job mobility. These show that the pandemic is associated with a persistent improved probability in obtaining a high-income job for persons with lower levels of education but relatively reduced chances for older persons. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19, crisis, working from home, technological change, labor market, job mobility, digitization |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J24 J31 J60 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–07–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tin:wpaper:20240047 |
| By: | Brian Callaci (Open Markets Institute); Matthew Gibson (Williams College and IZA); Sérgio Pinto (University of Maryland at College Park and Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), DINAMIA’CET); Marshall Steinbaum (University of Utah); Matt Walsh (Lightcast) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the nationwide impact of the Washington State attorney general’s 2018-2020 enforcement campaign against no-poach clauses in franchising contracts, which prohibited worker movement across locations within a chain. Implementing a staggered difference-in-differences research design using Burning Glass Technologies job vacancies and Glassdoor salary reports from numerous industries, we estimate a 6 percent increase in posted annual earnings from the job vacancy data and a 4 percent increase in worker-reported earnings. |
| Keywords: | Employer market power, oligopsony, monopsony, franchising chains, antitrust, wages, salaries |
| JEL: | J42 K21 L40 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:24-405 |
| By: | Gagliardi, Nicola; Grinza, Elena; Rycx, François |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we investigate the impact of rising temperatures on firm productivity using longitudinal firm-level balance-sheet data from private sector firms in 14 European countries, combined with detailed weather data, including temperature. We begin by estimating firms' total factor productivity (TFP) using control-function techniques. We then apply multiple-way fixed-effects regressions to assess how higher temperature anomalies affect firm productivity - measured via TFP, labor productivity, and capital productivity. Our findings reveal that global warming significantly and negatively impacts firms' TFP, with the most adverse effects occurring at higher anomaly levels. Labor productivity declines markedly as temperatures rise, while capital productivity remains unaffected - indicating that TFP is primarily affected through the labor input channel. Our moderating analyses show that firms involved in outdoor activities, such as agriculture and construction, are more adversely impacted by increased warming. Manufacturing, capital-intensive, and blue-collar-intensive firms, compatible with assembly-line production settings, also experience significant productivity declines. Geographically, the negative impact is most pronounced in temperate and mediterranean climate areas, calling for widespread adaptation solutions to climate change across Europe. |
| Keywords: | Climate change, Global warming, Firm productivity, Total factor productivity (TFP), Semiparametric methods to estimate production functions, Longitudinal firm-level data |
| JEL: | D24 J24 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:1485 |
| By: | Parrado, Eric; Benítez, Miguel |
| Abstract: | This paper introduces the AI Generated Index of Occupational Exposure (GENOE), a novel measure quantifying the potential impact of artificial intelligence on occupations and their associated tasks. Our methodology employs synthetic AI surveys, leveraging large language models to conduct expert-like assessments. This approach allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of job replacement likelihood, minimizing human bias and reducing assumptions about the mechanisms through which AI innovations could replace job tasks and skills. The index not only considers task automation, but also contextual factors such as social and ethical considerations and regulatory constraints that may affect the likelihood of replacement. Our findings indicate that the average likelihood of job replacement is estimated at 0.28 in the next year, increasing to 0.38 and 0.44 over the next five and ten years, respectively. To validate our methodology, we successfully replicate other measures of occupational exposure that rely on human expert assessments, substituting these with AI-based evaluations. The GENOE index provides valuable insights for policymakers, employers, and workers, offering a data-driven foundation for strategic workforce planning and adaptation in the face of rapid technological change. |
| JEL: | C53 C81 J23 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13696 |
| By: | Emilio Colombo; Fabio Mercorio; Mario Mezzanzanica; Antonio Serino |
| Abstract: | There is no doubt that AI and AI-related technologies are reshaping jobs and related tasks, either by automating or by augmenting human skills in the workplace. Many researchers have tried to estimate if, and to what extent, jobs and tasks are exposed to the risk of being automatized by state-of-the-art AI-related technologies. Our work tackles this issue through a data-driven approach: (i) developing a reproducible framework that uses several open-source large language models to assess the current capabilities of AI and robotics in performing work-related tasks; (ii) formalising and computing a measure of AI exposure by occupation, namely the TEAI (Task Exposure to AI) index. Our TEAI index is positively correlated with cognitive, problem-solving and management skills, while is negatively correlated with social skills. Our results show that about one-third of U.S. employment is highly exposed to AI, primarily in high-skill jobs, requiring graduate or postgraduate level of education. Using 4-year rolling regressions, we also find that AI exposure is positively associated with both employment and wage growth in the period 2003-2023, suggesting that AI has an overall positive effect on productivity. |
| JEL: | J24 O33 O36 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dis:wpaper:dis2401 |
| By: | Federico Fabio Frattini (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Francesco Vona (University of Milan and Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei); Filippo Bontadini (Luiss University and SPRU – University of Sussex) |
| Abstract: | What are the consequences of green industrialization on the labour market and industry dynamics? This paper tackles and quantifies this question by employing observable and reliable data on green manufacturing production for an extensive set of EU countries and 4-digit manufacturing industries for over a decade. First, at a descriptive level, this paper documents that potentially green industries outperform the others in terms of employment, average wages, value added and productivity, net of controlling for other drivers of the labour market and industry dynamics. Second, employing a shiftshare instrument to purge the analysis from possible endogeneity within green potential industries, this paper finds that an expansion of green production implies an increase in employment and value added. In contrast, average wages and labour productivity remain unchanged. These results hold in the short and long term, are heterogeneous depending on the countries considered, and are amplified by existing industry specialization and by accounting for input-output linkages. |
| Keywords: | Green transition, Employment, Manufacturing, Shift-share |
| JEL: | J21 J31 L6 O14 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2024.23 |
| By: | Piotr Danisewicz (Tilburg University - Department of Finance); Steven Ongena (University of Zurich - Department Finance; Swiss Finance Institute; KU Leuven; NTNU Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) |
| Abstract: | How does pay transparency affect the granting of credit by loan officers? We answer this question by studying the impact of the introduction of pay transparency laws across nine U.S. states with both individualand bank level data. Pay transparency laws spur bank employees, in particular loan officers, to leave for non-banks. Wages are traditionally higher there, and banks respond to these additional employee departures by increasing their own employee compensation. This catch-up in bank wages and the potential new hiring of employees then ostensibly leads to more bank risk-taking and lower bank loan performance. |
| Keywords: | Pay transparency, wage increases, financial institutions, loan performance |
| JEL: | J31 G21 G23 G01 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chf:rpseri:rp2441 |
| By: | Daniel Wheadon; Gonzalo Castex; George Kudrna; Alan Woodland |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effects of self-control preferences on household life cycle decisions, macroeconomic outcomes, and the roles they play in determining optimal means testing of public old-age pensions. To that end, we develop a stochastic overlapping generations model with heterogeneous households that have Gul-Pesendorfer self-control preferences. First, we show that in economies with higher self-control costs lifetime savings diminish, while labor supply and retirement are postponed to later ages. Hence, the fiscal burden to fund the public pension system increases. Second, we examine the effects of increasing self-control costs in the context of age pension means testing with alternative taper rates at which the pension benefit is withdrawn. We show that there is a negative relationship between self-control costs and taper rates, i.e., populations with higher self-control costs prefer lower taper rates. We find that if self-control costs are sufficiently high, a universal pension with a zero taper rate may be optimal. |
| Keywords: | self-control preferences, public pensions, progressivity, labor supply, life-cycle, stochastic OLG model |
| JEL: | C68 D15 D91 H2 H55 J22 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:een:camaaa:2024-57 |
| By: | Michael Ellington (Management School, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L697ZH UK); Chris Martin (Department of Economics, University of Bath, Bath BA27AY UK); Bingsong Wang (School of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 4DT, UK) |
| Abstract: | We estimate a Bayesian time-varying parameter VAR model to study evolving Beveridge Curve dynamics for the US for 1965-2022. This allows us to test the empirical relevance of different shocks in driving the Beveridge Curve dynamics, as proposed in theoretical literature. We show that demand and wage shocks play an important role in generating movements in unemployment and vacancies, in addition to the productivity and job destruction shocks that are the main focus of the existing literature. We show that the importance of different shocks has varied over time: the productivity shock is dominant from the 1960s to the mid-1990s, but thereafter the wage shock is equally important. And we show that changes in the slope of the aggregate Beveridge Curve reflect changes in the contributions of the different shocks that drive it, so part of the flattening of the aggregate Beveridge Curve in recent years reflects the growing importance of wage shocks. |
| Keywords: | time-varying parameter model, Beveridge Curve, unemployment, vacancies, US labour market |
| JEL: | E23 E32 J23 J30 J64 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2024007 |
| By: | Fakih, Ali (Lebanese American University); Lizzaik, Zeina (Concordia University) |
| Abstract: | The phenomenon of overqualification is becoming increasingly common across many countries. In this research study, the main objective is to examine factors that determine overqualification, the impact of overqualification on wages, and the earning differences between genders in the case of Egypt. We use a cross-sectional micro-level dataset taken from the Egyptian Labor Force Survey (LFS) conducted by the Economic Research Forum (ERF). We employ a probit model to capture factors determining overqualification. The empirical results reveal that different sociodemographic, economic sector, and job-related factors determine overqualification. Moreover, we apply different matching techniques, radius matching, nearest-neighbor matching, and a weighting method, inverse probability weighting (IPW) to estimate the causal impact of overqualification on wage earnings. The result shows that overqualification affects the hourly wage earnings negatively. For further investigation, we estimate our regression by gender. The coefficients are negative for both genders, with a higher magnitude among females, revealing that overqualified females face higher wage penalties than overqualified males. The paper provides policy recommendations for both the Egyptian educational system and the job market to mitigate overqualification in the country. |
| Keywords: | overqualification, wage penalty, matching techniques, Egypt |
| JEL: | I21 J23 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17247 |
| By: | Francisco Lasso-Valderrama; Carmiña O. Vargas |
| Abstract: | In Colombia, 50% of labor income is lower than the legal MW level. It is in this context that we analyze the effect of increasing MW on labor income distribution and its inequality, household income distribution and its inequality, and on monetary poverty prevalence. Specifically, we study the unconditional quantiles to establish whether there are differential effects for low quantiles, for those closer to MW, and for higher quantiles. We perform this analysis for different occupational groups. We also assess the effects of MW relative to median on labor income inequality, measured by its Gini coefficient, and on monetary poverty prevalence. We find that increases in MW raises quantile values of labor income for most occupational groups, except for the 10th quantile of those distributions. For this quantile, the effects are mostly not statistically significant. With respect to household income per-capita, we find that increasing MW raises all income quantiles, except for the lowest 10% of income. The effect for the 10th quantile is negative. Consistent with those results, we find that increasing MW when it is high relative to median income increases inequality measured by the Gini coefficient as well as monetary poverty prevalence. We use unconditional quantile regressions for our analysis. We use the microdata of a pooled sample of household surveys in Colombia from 2008 to 2019. **** RESUMEN: En Colombia, el 50% de los ingresos laborales son más bajos que el salario mínimo (SM). En este contexto, analizamos el efecto del aumento del SM relativo al ingreso mediano sobre la distribución del ingreso laboral y su desigualdad, la distribución del ingreso de los hogares y su desigualdad, y sobre la prevalencia de pobreza monetaria. Específicamente, estudiamos los cuantiles incondicionales para establecer si existen efectos diferenciales para los cuantiles bajos, para los más cercanos al SM y para los cuantiles superiores. Realizamos este análisis para diferentes grupos ocupacionales. También evaluamos los efectos de incrementos en el SM relativo al mediano sobre la desigualdad de ingresos, medida por su coeficiente de Gini, y sobre la prevalencia de pobreza monetaria. Encontramos que los aumentos en el SM relativo incrementan el valor de los cuantiles de la distribución de los ingresos laborales para la mayoría de los grupos ocupacionales, excepto para el cuantil 10 de esas distribuciones. Para este cuantil, los efectos son en su mayoría no estadísticamente significativos. Con respecto al ingreso per cápita de los hogares, encontramos que el aumento del SM relativo incrementa todos los cuantiles de la distribución de estos ingresos, excepto el 10% más bajo. El efecto para el cuantil 10 es negativo. En concordancia con estos resultados, encontramos que incrementos del SM cuando éste es alto relativo al ingreso mediano incrementa la desigualdad medida por el coeficiente de Gini, así como la prevalencia de pobreza monetaria. Para nuestro análisis, utilizamos regresiones cuantílicas incondicionales. Usamos los microdatos de una muestra agrupada de encuestas de hogares en Colombia de 2008 a 2019. |
| Keywords: | minimum wage, wage inequality, income inequality, poverty, salario mínimo, desigualdad salarial, desigualdad de ingresos, pobreza |
| JEL: | J39 J31 C31 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:borrec:1279 |
| By: | Frohnweiler, Sarah; Adongo, Charles A.; Beber, Bernd; Lakemann, Tabea; Priebe, Jan; Lay, Jann |
| Abstract: | We use a randomized controlled trial to examine the short- and mid-term impacts of a best-practice training program on (non-)employment outcomes in Ghana. Overall the program did not affect core labor market outcomes at the extensive (employment) and intensive (hours of work, income) margin, but it (i) induced occupational sorting, with treated individuals more likely to work in their field of specialization, (ii) partially improved job quality (written contracts, medical benefits), and (iii) led to better outcomes on a variety of non-labor market indicators (mental health, delayed marriages, access to finance). We also explore policy stakeholders' expectations and perceptions of program success. We find that stakeholders (i) have overly optimistic prior beliefs about the program's impact on core outcomes and (ii) do not update their beliefs as we would expect from Bayes' rule when presented with information about the program's circumscribed effectiveness. We speculate that this result suggests an obstacle for adaptive programming in development cooperation and could help explain the persistence of some suboptimal labor market interventions. |
| Abstract: | Anhand einer randomisierten kontrollierten Studie untersuchen wir die kurz- und mittelfristigen Auswirkungen eines Best-Practice-Ausbildungsprogramms auf Beschäftigung und Lebensbedingungen in Ghana. Insgesamt hatte das Programm keine Auswirkungen auf die zentralen Beschäftigungsindikatoren, weder extensiv (Beschäftigung) noch intensiv (Arbeitsstunden, Einkommen). Allerdings führte das Programm (i) zu einer Verschiebung der Beschäftigung hin zu Berufen, in denen die Ausbildung absolviert wurd, (ii) einer teilweisen Verbesserung der Arbeitsplatzqualität (schriftliche Verträge, medizinische Versoorgung) und (iii) einer Verbesserung einer Reihe von Indikatoren der Lebensqualität (psychische Gesundheit, spätere Eheschließungen, Zugang zu Finanzen). Darüber hinaus untersuchen wir die Erwartungen und Wahrnehmungen der politischen Akteure in Bezug auf den Erfolg des Programms. Wir stellen fest, dass die Akteure (i) a priori zu optimistische Vorstellungen über die Auswirkungen des Programms auf die wichtigsten Indikatoren haben und (ii) ihre Vorstellungen nicht gemäß der Bayes'schen-Regel aktualisieren, wenn sie Informationen über die begrenzte Wirksamkeit des Programms erhalten. Diese Ergebnisse weisen auf ein potenzielles Hindernis für eine adaptive Programmgestaltung in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit hin und könnten das Fortbestehen einiger suboptimaler Arbeitsmarktinterventionen erklären. |
| Keywords: | Vocational training, labor markets, skills, youth, women, impact evaluation, Ghana |
| JEL: | C93 I21 J08 J24 J28 O12 O15 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:302181 |
| By: | Serena Canaan (Simon Fraser University) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how the type of education pursued at an early age affects family formation. I focus on a French reform that delayed the age of which students were tracked into either general or vocational education from age 11 to age 13. For the most part, tracking was replaced with grouping students into classrooms based on ability, but within a common general education curriculum. Using a regression discontinuity design, I show that the reform increased the likelihood of attaining a technical rather than a vocational degree, especially for individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This indicates that the reform led to an increase in the quality of education. I further find that the reform increased completed fertility for individuals from low socioeconomic backgrounds, particularly women. In the marriage market, the reform changed the characteristics of women’s partners without impacting marriage, cohabitation, or divorce rates. Specifically, women were more likely to have partners who were in high-skilled occupations and who were closer to their own ages. Taken together, these findings highlight that delaying early school tracking has significant consequences for family formation. |
| Keywords: | tracking, returns to education, fertility, marriage |
| JEL: | I21 I28 J24 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:24-403 |
| By: | Mateo Hoyos (Division of Economics, CIDE) |
| Abstract: | This paper documents that the relationship between tariffs and growth varies significantly with economic structure. Using a panel of 161 countries from 1960 to 2019 and employing a local projections difference-in-differences strategy, I show that tariff reductions are associated with higher GDP per capita in manufacturer countries but lower GDP per capita in nonmanufacturer ones. I then reveal that these results are consistent with, and possibly explained by, heterogeneous changes in productivity, capital accumulation, and the manufacturing share of GDP. The heterogeneity is further confirmed by a comprehensive set of robustness checks. The findings suggest that the recent rise in protectionism in manufacturer countries might end up being harmful, and that existing calls for further liberalization in nonmanufacturers could have unintended consequences. |
| Keywords: | tariffs, trade liberalization, trade policy, growth, economic structure |
| JEL: | F14 F63 O24 O47 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emc:wpaper:dte638 |
| By: | Maia, Alexandre Gori; Lu, Yao |
| Abstract: | We investigate differences in earnings penalties associated with working from home (WFH) between groups of gender and race before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Using a large and nationally representative longitudinal dataset, we show that the earnings penalty associated with WFH diminished for White and Black men during the pandemic while remaining high for White and Black women. We further examine three mechanisms explaining these changes: i) the equilibrium between supply and demand, as more women than men transitioned to WFH during the pandemic; ii) labor productivity, as the effective working hours of Black women were more affected by WFH; and ii) visibility and promotion, as White women became less likely than White men to be promoted when WFH during the pandemic. |
| Keywords: | Gender and race disparities;Telework;remote work;Labor market inequalities;Wage penalty |
| JEL: | J16 J21 J31 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13674 |
| By: | Hernan Winkler (World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice); Vincenzo Di Maro (World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice); Kelly Montoya (World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice); Sergio Olivieri (World Bank Poverty and Equity Global Practice); Emmanuel Vazquez (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP) |
| Abstract: | A growing body of literature investigates the labor market implications of scaling up “green†policies. Since most of this literature is focused on developed economies, little is known about the labor market consequences for developing countries. This paper contributes to filling this gap by providing new stylized facts on the prevalence of green occupations and sectors across countries at varying levels of economic development. Green occupations are defined using the Occupational Information Network, and green sectors are those with relatively lower greenhouse gas emissions per worker. The paper offers an initial assessment of how the implementation of green policies—aimed at expanding green sectors and strengthening the relative demand for green skills—may affect workers in developing economies. It finds that the share of green jobs is strongly correlated with the level of gross domestic product per capita across countries. When controlling for unobserved heterogeneity, a 1 percent increase in gross domestic product per capita is associated with 0.4 and 4.1 percentage point increases in the shares of new and emerging, and enhanced skills green jobs, respectively. The paper then focuses on Latin America and finds that only 9 percent of workers have a green job with respect to both occupation and sector. The findings show that within countries, workers with low levels of income and education are more likely to be employed in non-green sectors and occupations, and to lack the skills for a greener economy. This evidence suggests that complementary policies are needed to mitigate the potential role of green policiesin widening income inequality between and within countries. |
| JEL: | Q5 Q52 Q56 J01 J21 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0335 |
| By: | Emilia Soldani; Orsetta Causa; Maxime Nguyen; Tomasz Kozluk |
| Abstract: | Over the past decades, productivity growth and technology diffusion have slowed down, and business dynamism has declined in many advanced and emerging economies. Meanwhile, inequalities in economic outcomes, such as in income and wealth, and in opportunities, such as access to quality education and training, are pervasive. By hampering social mobility and the efficient allocation of talents, inequality of opportunities may trigger slower growth and even higher inequalities in outcomes. Policies to boost growth and make it more inclusive should focus on (i) ensuring broad access to quality education, from childhood onwards, and upskilling throughout working lives; (ii) addressing labour market insecurity and informality and improving job quality; (iii) curbing market power in products and labour markets to boost business dynamism; (iv) enhancing the efficiency and progressivity of taxes and transfer systems; and (v) fostering international cooperation, for instance in trade and taxation. |
| Keywords: | economic growth, inequality, productivity |
| JEL: | H10 H2 I28 I38 J38 J48 K2 L1 L5 O38 O4 |
| Date: | 2024–09–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1819-en |
| By: | Jule Hodok; Tomasz Kozluk |
| Abstract: | This report reviews the literature on the distributional consequences of climate change and mitigation and transition pathways. The heterogeneous levels of exposure and vulnerability to climate change across countries, regions, households, and workers hint at the significant distributional costs of inaction. Climate policies will likely trigger a reallocation from “high-polluting” sectors to “green” sectors, disproportionately affecting certain regions and low-skilled workers. Price-based policies, such as carbon taxation, show varied effects across countries: they tend to be more regressive in developed countries and more progressive in developing countries where energy affordability and energy poverty are major concerns. Non-market-based policies are often regressive and can result in equity issues. Effective climate action requires balancing distributional outcomes, ensuring political acceptability, and understanding the link between policy perceptions and support. |
| Keywords: | climate change, distributional impacts, environmental policy, inequality |
| JEL: | D30 H23 J23 Q52 Q58 |
| Date: | 2024–09–05 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1820-en |
| By: | Fang, Francis Haoyu; Vlaicu, Razvan |
| Abstract: | Private firms establish relationships with banks in local markets to obtain adequate financing for their operations through credit and loans. As major banks reduced their branch networks in recent years, many firms have lost access to their local bank. We evaluate the impact of a large number of branch closures on firm operations, wages and employment, and economic output in Brazil from 2011 to 2021. We adopt a difference-in-differences strategy with staggered treatment timing, employing both two-way fixed effects and Callaway-Sant'Anna estimators. Our study finds that bank branch closures result in a reduction in establishments with active operations from 1.2% initially to 8.1% within 4-7 years, a 0.5 decline in weekly hours of formal employment, and a compression in the real wage distribution. Micro firms, trade and service firms, and agricultural firms are found to be the most vulnerable. Our study highlights the importance of physical bank branches that provide financial access and meet the localized financial demand of several types of firms. |
| Keywords: | Bank branch closures;Employment;Firm activity;Economic Impact;Financial Access;Brazil;Firm operations |
| JEL: | G21 J21 R11 |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:brikps:13645 |