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on Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages |
| By: | Anna Salomons; Cäcilia vom Baur; Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage |
| Abstract: | Does educational content respond to technological advances, and do such changes enable workers to acquire new valuable expertise? We construct a novel database of legally binding training curricula spanning the near universe of vocational training in Germany over five decades, and link curriculum updates to breakthrough technologies using Natural Language Processing. We trace a causal chain from technological change to curriculum content to worker outcomes. Technological change spurs curriculum updates, and training content shifts toward less routine-intensive tasks. This shift occurs predominantly through the emergence of new skills related to social, digital, and problem-solving competencies, rather than the removal of old ones. This within-occupation margin is quantitatively important: curriculum updates account for two-thirds of the overall deroutinization in vocational skill supply over this period. Using administrative employer-employee data and a stacked difference-in-differences design, we show that new-skilled workers earn higher wages, especially in technology-exposed occupations, and are more likely to remain employed in their trained occupation. In contrast, older occupational incumbents experience wage declines, indicating skill obsolescence. These findings highlight the central role of within-occupation skill supply adjustments — not just educational attainment — in meeting evolving labor market demands. |
| Keywords: | technological change, skill updating, skill obsolescence, vocational training, educational content |
| JEL: | J23 J24 J31 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13059 |
| By: | Pauline Carry; Claire Montialoux; Elio Nimier-David; Alexandra Roulet; Nina Roussille |
| Abstract: | Do shorter workweeks generate work-sharing and productivity gains, as intended by policymakers? We study France’s pay-preserving reduction in the workweek from 39 to 35 hours, bundled with employer payroll tax cuts. We first exploit the staggered implementation by firm size to identify the impact of the reform package. We then use differential exposure to the hours cut and tax cut to separate their effects. We combine matched employer-employee, balance-sheet, and survey data to study worker, firm, and local labor market effects. The reform package left employment unchanged. This zero masks large offsetting effects: absent the tax cuts, the shorter workweek would have reduced employment by 3.8%. The effects are skill-biased, raising employment among managers and professionals while reducing it among other employees. Finally, shorter hours raised total factor productivity by 2%, limiting the output decline to 1% despite a 6% fall in total hours. Surveys point to work intensification and organizational changes as potential drivers of productivity gains. |
| JEL: | J08 J22 J23 J38 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35917 |
| By: | Gert Bijnens (National Bank of Belgium); Anders Humlum (The University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, and NBER); Stijn Vanormelingen (KU Leuven) |
| Abstract: | New machinery has long been argued to raise the relative demand for skilled labor, yet firm-level evidence finds no such shift at investing firms. We resolve this puzzle by looking beyond firm boundaries. Linking Belgian data on capital investments, buyer–supplier transactions, and worker skills, we show that the skill bias of new machinery arises entirely at external suppliers. Following machinery investment spikes, purchases from suppliers raise firms’ total demand for high-STEM workers by 45%, three times the rise for other skill groups, while in-house hiring raises it by less than 5%, evenly across skill groups. This external demand comes first from machine integrators and later from complementary services such as software, and is stronger for smaller firms, lumpier investments, and rapidly advancing capital, consistent with fixed and adjustment costs of hiring high-STEM workers in-house. In a general-equilibrium model estimated on our event studies, the rise in machinery per worker from 2003 to 2021 raises relative demand for high-STEM workers by 8.8 log points and their wage premium by 3.1. Measured on payrolls alone, both would fall. |
| JEL: | E22 J23 J24 J31 L24 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-132 |
| By: | Hellsten, Mark (The Ratio Institute) |
| Abstract: | Despite growing policy interest in AI workforce development, surprisingly little is known about what defines these workers, or indeed if they differ from their occupational peers. Using a novel matched vacancy-hire dataset linking Swedish job postings to the individuals hired to fill them, drawn from register data on the entire Swedish population, I study the characteristics of workers who develop and apply AI. Observable traits including high cognitive ability, a tertiary degree in STEM subjects, and a recent migrant background largely explain occupational sorting. Of these, only higher education, prior AI experience, and a science degree set them apart within occupation. I then use earnings as a window onto unobservable differences: AI workers earn approximately 5% more than their peers, entirely explained by firm-level wages. However, AI workers with a doctorate degree stand out sharply in both traits and earnings, indicating that AI workers split into segments that differ by the complexity of their skills and tasks. Taken together, these results point to two distinct policy levers: the supply of average AI workers, termed AI integrators, can be expanded via STEM education participation, while the elite AI developers are supplied by researchers moving to the private sector. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence; Wage premium; Labor demand; Skills; Technology diffusion |
| JEL: | D22 J24 M20 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–10–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ratioi:0393 |
| By: | Wookun Kim; Fernanda da Silva |
| Abstract: | We study how industrial robots affect human capital investment during high school. Using Texas administrative records and an instrument based on European robot adoption, we find that exposure reduces dropout, raises observed completion, and shifts coursework toward college preparation and away from vocational subjects. Advanced coursework increases across grades, while dropout reductions and gains in quantitative coursework are concentrated in upper grades. Boys reduce vocational coursework more, narrowing gender differences in course taking, whereas girls increase advanced coursework more, widening their advantage in college preparation. Adjustment to automation is already underway in high school, through continued schooling and curricular choices. |
| Keywords: | industrial robots and automation, human capital investment, high school education, course choice, gender differences |
| JEL: | I21 J24 J16 O33 R23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13057 |
| By: | Hanna Brosch; Christina Langer; Philipp Lergetporer; Sandra Mueller; Harald Pfeifer; Nele Tschoepe |
| Abstract: | Does generative artificial intelligence (AI) expand the set of tasks that middle-skilled, early-career workers can successfully perform? In a field experiment with 673 final-year IT apprentices at twelve German vocational schools, we randomly assign access to AI for completing occupation-specific tasks. To identify task expansion, we study tasks both within the apprenticeship curriculum and deliberately beyond it. AI raises productivity substantially across all task types, with gains tending to be larger on tasks where performance without AI is lowest. Crucially, productivity increases by 26–31 percentage points on tasks beyond apprentices’ formal training, providing direct evidence of AI-enabled task expansion. These productivity gains do not come at the cost of reduced immediate task comprehension. Treatment effects are generally larger among apprentices with above-median AI literacy. |
| Keywords: | generative artificial intelligence, field experiment, productivity, task expansion, middle-skilled workers, apprenticeships |
| JEL: | J24 O33 C93 I21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13045 |
| By: | David J. Deming; Raffaella Sadun; Christopher T. Stanton |
| Abstract: | Some firms are more likely than others to invest in workers’ skills. We document this phenomenon and discuss its implications in light of models of firm-sponsored skills training. The data show that better managed firms, even in the same industries and labor markets, are more likely to train, while training clusters around either managerial or frontline worker development. We argue that organizational differences provide incentives for firms to train beyond traditional explanations that focus on labor market frictions. We illustrate how organizational heterogeneity can generate training investments through a knowledge hierarchy framework where top managers with different skills build bespoke organizations tailored to their unique needs. This in turn makes general skill firm-specific, allowing firms to capture returns on training investment. |
| JEL: | J2 J24 M5 M51 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35920 |
| By: | Daniel J. Wilson; Xiaoqing Zhou |
| Abstract: | From early 2021 through early 2024, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented boom in unauthorized immigration, with substantial heterogeneity across local economies. Using administrative microdata, we construct new measures of national and local unauthorized immigration flows and exploit exogenous variation using multiple empirical designs. Unauthorized immigrant worker flows increased local employment approximately one-for-one, with mixed evidence of wage depression. They also raised house prices and rents without expanding housing supply. Finally, these flows reduced labor income per capita and government transfers. These findings help inform debates surrounding how unauthorized immigration impacts labor and housing markets and public finances in the U.S. |
| Keywords: | immigration; labor markets; housing markets; post-pandemic |
| JEL: | E24 H53 J11 J21 J22 J23 J31 J61 R31 |
| Date: | 2026–10–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:103940 |
| By: | Edoardo M Accabi (University of Mannheim); Andrea Alati (Bank of England); Luca Mazzone (University of Montreal); Marta Morazzoni (University College London and CEPR) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how entrepreneurs sort into founding teams and how team composition shapes the firm distribution. We develop a theory of career choice and team formation in which skill complementarities make team entrepreneurship attractive for agents with unbalanced skill profiles, while talent similarity makes teaming preferable to other career options. Using matched employer-employee and balance-sheet data from Portugal, we show that teams combining similar talent with diverse specializations create larger, more productive, and longer-lived firms; yet founders with dissimilar skills are less likely to start firms together. We calibrate the model to reproduce these patterns and use it to quantify the cost of imperfect founder matching. Counterfactuals show that reducing founders’ biased exposure reallocates activity from low-productivity solo firms toward more productive teams. An optimal-assignment benchmark reveals that even unbiased random search leaves substantial gains unrealized because high-surplus matches fail to form. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship;sorting;search frictions. |
| JEL: | L26 J24 L25 |
| Date: | 2026–10–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:boe:boeewp:023785 |
| By: | Michael Andrews; Ryan Hill; Joseph Price; Riley Wilson |
| Abstract: | We study how childhood neighbors influence occupational choices and later-life earnings. Using linked census records for over 10 million children and historic census sheet microgeography, we find that growing up next door to someone in a given occupation increases the probability of being in that occupation as an adult by 10 percent relative to other children on the same street. The transmission effect is higher with more intense exposure, more connected neighborhoods, and between more similar families. Exposure to high-income or highly educated neighbors has lasting economic effects, leading to significant gains in adult income and education. |
| Keywords: | neighborhood networks, peer effects, occupational transmission |
| JEL: | J24 J62 N32 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13051 |
| By: | Johannes Geyer; Peter Haan; Lukas Harder |
| Abstract: | Progressive pension supplements mechanically reduce the gender pension gap because women receive lower pensions on average. However, labor supply responses may offset these gains and create fiscal externalities. Using German administrative data, we analyze the distributional and welfare effects of a progressive pension supplement. We find no labor supply responses during working life, but small effects on women’s employment and earnings in retirement. The supplement reduces the gender income gap by about two percent, with sizable heterogeneity across pension levels. The marginal value of public funds is 0.83. Means-testing based on household income improves welfare even with low redistributive preferences. |
| Keywords: | gender, pensions, retirement, labor supply, redistribution |
| JEL: | H55 H23 J16 J26 J22 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2185 |
| By: | Andrew Smith; Alfonso Flores-Lagunes; Maria Zhu |
| Abstract: | Over 15 percent of college graduates in the United States graduate with more than one major. While much research exists on the returns to different individual majors, less is known about the causal effects of double majoring. This study provides novel estimates on the returns to those who choose to double major as an undergraduate. We improve on previous studies that rely on controls for observable characteristics by addressing selection concerns in two notable ways. First, we control for institution-specific differences that may influence both the decision to double major and subsequent earnings using proprietary data by including institution fixed effects. Second, we adopt a partial identification approach to address non-random selection into double majoring within institutions. Results broadly align with estimates from prior studies at the aggregate level, but reveal notable gender differences not previously detected. Women experience an earnings return to double majoring of approximately 5 percent, while the return for men is statistically negligible. Our analysis suggests that this discrepancy is consistent with double majors serving as a signaling effect in the labor market, which may help offset the gender pay gap. |
| Keywords: | double majoring; returns to education; gender wage gap; labor market signaling; human capital; college major choice |
| JEL: | I26 J16 J31 I23 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-60 |
| By: | Cody Orr; Lee C. Tucker; Lawrence Warren |
| Abstract: | How are new college graduates affected by the rise of artificial intelligence, and what can this tell us about the mechanisms behind AI's overall labor market effects? We use administrative records on college graduates to observe how economic outcomes among college majors with differing levels of labor market AI exposure have evolved since large language models became available. We find that post-graduation employment, earnings, and job switching patterns among the most AI-exposed college majors began to diverge immediately following the introduction of ChatGPT in late 2022. In regression-adjusted estimates, the most AI-exposed decile of college majors saw their likelihood of initial employment decline by five percentage points, while full-quarter initial earnings declined by thirteen percent. This earnings decline is comparable in magnitude to the earnings losses associated with graduating into a large recession. Roughly half of the decline in earnings is attributable to lower earnings within the industry sectors that employ these graduates, with the remainder resulting from a shift in the industry mix into lower-wage sectors such as restaurants and retail. The effects attenuate as graduates move further from labor market entry but remain substantial for the most exposed majors. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence, College major, Postsecondary employment outcomes |
| JEL: | J23 J24 I26 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-56 |
| By: | Matthew Dey; Emin Dinlersoz; Lucia Foster; Cheryl Grim; John Haltiwanger; Peter B. Meyer; Sabrina Wulff Pabilonia; Aditya Pande; Martha Stinson; Sean Wang; Zoltan Wolf |
| Abstract: | Measures of exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) are widely used to study where AI is likely to affect firm and worker outcomes, yet limited evidence exists on how closely exposure relates to realized AI adoption at the firm level. We examine this relationship by linking 14 firm-level exposure measures, constructed from occupational exposure estimates in the literature and occupational employment shares from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, to direct measures of firm AI adoption from the Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey. Exposure is positively and statistically significantly associated with adoption, but explains only a modest share of its variation. The strength of the relationship varies considerably across standardized exposure measures: a one-standard-deviation increase in firm-level exposure is associated with a 4–11 percentage point higher firm adoption probability, falling to 1–8 percentage points after controlling for year and sub-sector fixed effects. The exposure–adoption relationship is also heterogeneous across firm-size classes and sectors. Exposure is thus an informative but incomplete signal of adoption. More broadly, the results have implications for the interpretation of exposure-based measures in studies of the economic effects of AI. |
| Keywords: | Artificial Intelligence, AI adoption, AI exposure, firm-level data, occupational mix |
| JEL: | O33 D22 J23 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-61 |
| By: | Maria Karantali (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, Greece.); Theologos Pantelidis (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, Greece.); Theodore Panagiotidis (Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, Greece.) |
| Abstract: | This study examines the evolution of overqualification across 28 European countries and investigates the macroeconomic and labour market factors shaping its persistence and cross-country differences. Using the Phillips–Sul club convergence methodology, we show that young workers in Europe exhibit multiple convergence paths, while experienced workers tend to converge towards a common equilibrium. We then identify the characteristics associated with convergence club membership using an ordered probit model and examine the short-run determinants of overqualification through a System GMM dynamic panel framework with regional interactions. The results highlight substantial heterogeneity across European labour markets: overqualification is persistent over time, and the effects of unemployment and unemployment benefits on skill mismatch vary between northern and peripheral European economies. These findings suggest that overqualification is shaped not only by individual characteristics but also by labour market institutions and macroeconomic conditions, with important implications for education, employment, and skills-matching policies in Europe. |
| Keywords: | overqualification, European labour markets, unemployment, club convergence, system GMM estimation |
| JEL: | J24 J21 I28 C23 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mcd:mcddps:2026_13 |
| By: | Rajashri Chakrabarti (Federal Reserve Bank of New York); Philippe d'Astous (HEC Montreal); Kory Kroft (University of Toronto Department of Economics and NBER); Sheisha Kulkarni (University of Virginia); Vyacheslav Mikhed (Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia); Matthew J. Notowidigdo (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and NBER); Sahil Raina (University of Alberta); Barry Scholnick (University of Alberta) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the causal effects of a financial windfall on consumption, savings, and wage earnings using linked administrative data on a large sample of Canadian lottery winners. Using separate linkages of lottery winners to income tax records and credit bureau data, we estimate how lottery winnings affect consumption measured through credit card spending, savings through financial asset accumulation and debt repayment, and wage earnings from tax records. We then examine how these responses vary across the income distribution. We find that high-income individuals allocated a larger share of lottery winnings to savings and leisure, while low-income individuals spent a larger share on consumption. We illustrate the policy relevance of these heterogeneous responses through three applications: designing fiscal stimulus programs, evaluating a Universal Basic Income (UBI), and determining optimal top tax rates on wage earnings and savings. |
| JEL: | D15 H2 J22 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-130 |
| By: | Subhrasil Chingri (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Debasis Mondal (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi); Klaus Prettner (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business) |
| Abstract: | This paper studies optimal robot taxation in a static model with routine and non-routine workers. Robots substitute for routine workers and complement non-routine workers. In addition, robots are produced in a monopolistic sector that charges a markup over marginal cost. In the absence of monopoly power, the optimal robot tax rate is zero. When robot producers have monopoly power, the optimal policy corrects the markup distortion by aligning the effective robot price with marginal cost, conditional on the labor supply induced by the income tax system. The wage premium rises with the expansion of the tasks that robots can perform and declines with higher robot production costs. The results clarify the conditions under which robot taxation serves as a corrective instrument. |
| Keywords: | Robot taxation, automation, optimal taxation, corrective subsidies, monopoly markups, wage inequality |
| JEL: | H21 H23 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp399 |
| By: | Harshita Bhatia (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic an Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Australia); Inga Laß (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic an Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Australia); Mark Wooden (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic an Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Australia) |
| Abstract: | Weekend work is a pervasive feature of labor markets that comes with both potential benefits (e.g., higher pay, flexible schedules) and drawbacks (e.g., less social time). Nevertheless, robust evidence on weekend workers’ job satisfaction is lacking. Longitudinal data from 21 waves of the annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey (n=211, 077; i=26, 273) are used to estimate the association between weekend work and several dimensions of job satisfaction. Estimates from fixed effects models reveal that weekend work is associated with significantly lower levels of satisfaction with working hours and flexibility, but this does not translate into lower levels of overall job satisfaction. Additional analyses were conducted to test whether results varied with employment status, occupation and parental status. In general, the main finding applied to all groups examined. There were, however, marked differences across sub-groups in satisfaction with other job domains. Overall, the results suggest that, for most workers, the benefits of working weekends offset its disadvantages. |
| Keywords: | job satisfaction, weekend work, work-life balance, compensating differentials, penalty rates, working time, HILDA Survey |
| JEL: | J28 J22 J81 C23 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2026n16 |
| By: | White, Justin (Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, Boston University); Xu, Ziyue (Department of Health Law, Policy & Management, Boston University); Hamad, Rita (Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health); Parolin, Zachary (The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford) |
| Abstract: | States increasingly supplement the federal Child Tax Credit (CTC) with credits that vary in generosity, refundability, and earnings requirements. We examine changes in parental employment, labor force participation, and work hours following state CTC adoption using the Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS-ASEC), 2004–2026. Our preferred stacked difference-in-differences design includes 12 adopting states with complete event-time support and compares them with never-treated states and states that adopted after our evaluation window. Averaging over the first three post-adoption survey years, the estimated effect is 0.05 percentage points (SE 1.03) for employment and −0.46 points (0.82) for labor force participation; estimates for work hours are also close to zero. Across secondary specifications and CPS Basic Monthly analyses, extensive-margin estimates were similarly small. Larger simulated benefits are associated with fewer hours among employed parents, but the relationship is also evident before adoption and may partly reflect how benefits depend on earnings. Overall, the estimates provide little indication that state CTC adoption has substantially reduced parental employment, although meaningful effects in either direction cannot be ruled out under moderate departures from parallel trends. |
| Keywords: | Child Tax Credit, labor supply, employment, state policy, difference-in-differences, tax credits |
| JEL: | H24 I38 J22 H75 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:amz:wpaper:2026-28 |
| By: | Løken, Katrine V. (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Silliman, Mikko (Dept. of Economics, Aalto University); Willén, Alexander (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Xu, Yaling (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) |
| Abstract: | The division of labor is fundamental to how firms organize production. Since Adam Smith, economists have recognized that dividing tasks more finely increases productivity through specialization but also raises coordination costs—a tradeoff formalized by Becker and Murphy (1992). Yet we have little systematic evidence on how this tradeoff operates within firms. Moreover, this classical perspective overlooks a second, dynamic tradeoff: firms not only produce output, but also develop a central input into future production—their workers’ human capital. A finer division of labor allows workers to develop greater expertise through repeated performance of narrowly defined tasks, but may also reduce opportunities to learn from coworkers by limiting interactions and knowledge exchange. We study both tradeoffs using population-wide Norwegian employer–employee records, linked workplace surveys, quasi-experimental variation in coworker availability, and randomized experiments with workers and managers. We find that more specialized firms exhibit higher productivity but also greater coordination costs. Their workers report more learning-by-doing but substantially less coworker learning, resulting in lower overall learning and slower wage growth. To establish the importance of coworker learning for human capital accumulation, we exploit extended coworker absences and show that losing access to colleagues reduces subsequent wage growth, particularly in occupations characterized by greater task overlap and coworker learning. To isolate the role of the division of labor from other workplace characteristics, we conduct randomized experiments that vary task allocation in otherwise identical workplaces. Workers and managers anticipate greater coordination demands, weaker coworker interactions, and lower skill accumulation under greater specialization. The experiments then ask workers to choose their preferred workplace and managers how they would organize production. Both favor greater task overlap, citing coworker interactions and learning opportunities as key reasons for their choices. Together, our findings show that the division of labor shapes not only the efficiency of current production but also the accumulation of human capital and future productive capacity. |
| Keywords: | division of labor; learning; firm organization |
| JEL: | D21 J24 L25 |
| Date: | 2026–10–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2026_016 |
| By: | Alberto Ortega; Pietro Pellerito; Patrick S. Turner |
| Abstract: | More than 23 million adults in the United States lack a high school diploma, and most who return to school drop out before graduating. We evaluate a randomized intervention of adult high school students in which coaches delivered text messages that encouraged persistence. We find that assignment to treatment increased graduation by 4.9 percentage points, and the effect of message receipt among compliers is 9.3 percentage points, a 41 percent increase relative to the control mean. The intervention operated on the intensive margin by increasing the number of courses completed, but did not affect student enrollment. The effects of the intervention are concentrated among students assigned to experienced coaches, who customized their messages more extensively. We contextualize the economic impact of the low-cost intervention by comparing labor market earnings of graduates to non-graduates, which implies an earnings benefit of $149 per treated student over four years. |
| JEL: | C93 D91 I21 I26 J24 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35923 |
| By: | Emre Kurt (University of Insubria); Hao Wei (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether migrants and native-born workers respond differently to pension reforms that encourage longer working lives. Using longitudinal data from SHARE Waves 4–9 for Germany and Spain, we construct individual reform exposure based on country-specific reform timing, birth-cohort eligibility, and proximity to retirement age, and estimate models with individual and survey-wave fixed effects. Reform exposure is associated with a lower probability of retirement, with suggestive evidence of an additional decline among migrants. This migrant differential is particularly pronounced in Spain, while the corresponding estimate is small and statistically insignificant in Germany, although formal cross-country tests do not establish a statistically significant difference between the two countries. Complementary analyses indicate that adjustment is concentrated around retirement ages rather than reflecting a broad increase in employment, while evidence for effects on mental health and generalized trust is limited. Overall, the findings suggest that migrants may respond differently to pension reform, but that these differences are concentrated at specific retirement margins and depend on the institutional context |
| Keywords: | Migration, Retirement, Mental Health, Generalized Trust, SHARE |
| JEL: | J14 J15 J26 H55 |
| Date: | 2026–10–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2026-013 |
| By: | Sasiwimon Warunsiri Paweenawat; Lusi Liao |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the private and social return to higher education in Thailand. First, we analyze the individual return to higher education by using Socio-Economic Survey (SES) panel data and employing three treatment effects including propensity score matching (PSM), endogenous switching (ES) regression and endogenous binary treatment using probit two stage least square (Probit-2SLS) model. Then, we estimate the social return to higher education using Labor Force Survey (LFS). We identify the social return by estimating the effect of share of higher educated workers living in each province on individual wage and provincial wage gap using instrumental variable (IV) and pseudo panel approach at provincial level accounting for cohort effects. The results show that obtaining higher education increases wage by around 0.98 to 1.78 log points, and the increase in the provincial share of higher education raises individual’s wage and reduce the wage inequality among different provinces. The findings suggest that investment in higher education will improve the income distribution as it contributes more to workers with less education and in lower wage occupations. |
| Keywords: | Private returns to education; Social returns to education; Endogenous switching; Pseudo-panel approach; Thailand |
| JEL: | I20 J24 J30 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pui:dpaper:266 |
| By: | Jonas Maibom; Trine Schack; Rune Vejlin |
| Abstract: | Using Danish administrative data from 1980–2023, we analyze lifetime income (both earnings and net-income) inequality and its evolution across cohorts. Earnings inequality rises with age from midlife onward and is highest among the low educated and lowest among those with medium education. Differences in employment attachment — such as non-employment and part-time work — account for 30–60 percent of lifetime earnings dispersion, and are particularly important among the low educated. Weak employment attachment is a key driver of lifetime earnings inequality and is closely linked to exposure to adverse shocks such as unemployment and health-related events. Lifetime earnings inequality has risen across cohorts among the low educated, partly through growing dispersion in employment attachment. In moving from earnings to net-income, transfers account for roughly five times as much of the inequality reduction as taxes, but this equalizing effect has weakened over time. Our results highlight the role of employment dynamics and social insurance for lifetime inequality. |
| Keywords: | lifetime earnings inequality, employment attachment, income redistribution, tax and transfer system |
| JEL: | D31 J31 J64 H24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13072 |
| By: | Morien El Haj; Jana Decuyper; Eline Moens; Stijn Baert; Elsy Verhofstadt |
| Abstract: | Menstruation, maternity, and menopause, collectively referred to as the three M’s, affect many employees as a growing number of women participate in the labour force. However, their implications for these women’s working lives have received limited and fragmented attention in the literature. This study therefore provides the first systematic literature review integrating evidence on the impact of the three M’s on work performance and attendance. Following the SPIDER framework and PRISMA guidelines, this study systematically reviews 57 articles. Across all three M’s, findings consistently show reduced work performance, increased presenteeism, and higher absenteeism, explained by interacting biological, psychological, and contextual factors. This study also identifies important limitations in the existing literature, including the dominance of crosssectional designs, the reliance on subjective measures, and the lack of attention to workplace solutions that address the three M’s collectively. |
| Keywords: | menstruation, maternity, menopause, work performance, work attendance |
| JEL: | J16 J24 J22 J28 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:26/1154 |
| By: | Antonio Minniti (Department of Economics, University of Bologna); Klaus Prettner (Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business); Francesco Venturini (Department of Economics, University of Urbino) |
| Abstract: | We study whether AI innovation changes labor-market polarization by weakening the relative position of high-skilled workers. We develop a CES production framework showing how AI affects the wage-cost ratio between high- and low skilled workers through wage and employment margins. We test the model's predictions using European regional labor-market data and find that AI reduces the relative wage-cost ratio by nearly 7 percent on average, with effects broadly split between wage and employment adjustments. These results are primarily driven by regions in countries highly specialized in AI technologies. Overall, our evidence suggests that AI may counteract the polarization effects associated with over two centuries of technological change. |
| Keywords: | AI, Wage-cost ratio, Employment, CES, DiD |
| JEL: | O3 R1 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wiwwuw:wuwp400 |
| By: | David Card; Jesse Rothstein; Moises Yi |
| Abstract: | We use data on 44, 000 twin pairs observed as adolescents in the 2000 Census, linked to their earnings 20 years later, to study the heritability of labor market outcomes. We extend the Classical Twins Design (CTD), which identifies heritability from contrasts between monozygotic and dizygotic twins, to settings where an analyst does not observe zygosity but can measure outcomes for same-sex and opposite-sex twins. We also allow for the presence of a family- and sex-specific component affecting same-sex siblings but only partly shared by opposite-sex siblings. Our extended model identifies heritability from the difference-in-differences of same-sex vs. opposite-sex twins vs. siblings. The estimates indicate strong heritability (h2 » 0.36) of log earnings. Using an AKM (Abowd et al., 1999) decomposition that separates the person-specific component of earnings from employer-specific pay premiums, we find that both components are heritable. The heritability of employer pay premiums, however, is mainly driven by same-sex twins who work at the same firm, suggesting that social interactions may lead to an over-estimate of the genetic component in earnings. Excluding siblings who work together leads to estimates of the heritability of log earnings that are 15% lower. Similar biases may be present in CTD-based estimates of heritability for other social outcomes like education. |
| JEL: | C31 D31 J24 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-57 |
| By: | Forsberg, Erika (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Nybom, Martin (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Stuhler, Jan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | How does worker-firm sorting contribute to intergenerational persistence? Firm pay premia account for 36% of the intergenerational earnings elasticity in Sweden, rising to 50% with dynamic returns to firm-specific experience. Large pay gaps already open atlabor market entry, as children from privileged backgrounds find more favorable entry points; they then climb the firm pay ladder faster, switching firms more often and gaining more per switch. Skill sorting explains this widening but not the initial gaps, consistent with networks and employer learning. Privileged children’s firms are also more desirable overall, a gap that keeps widening after pay gaps stabilize. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; firm pay; worker sorting |
| JEL: | D31 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2026–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_021 |
| By: | Chiaiese, Dario (University of Siena, Department of Economics); Missiaia, Anna (Unit for Economic History, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University); Sandgren, Fredrik (Uppsala University, Department of Economic History) |
| Abstract: | This paper reconstructs the occupational structure of 1720 Swedish pseudo-parishes between 1749 and 1855 using the data contained in Tabellverket, a unique collection of population and occupational records covering the country from the mid-eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century. The original Tabellverket records are characterized by an unsystematic coverage in time and space and across occupational categories, changes in parish and pastorate boundaries, and missing observations that have so far inhibited its use at the parish level. We develop a procedure for transforming these records into a balanced panel data. The resulting dataset provides for the first time parish-level estimates of employment for 11 categories for the entire period 1749-1855 and 43 more detailed categories for the period 1805-1855 for both genders for 27 benchmarks, establishing a new empirical basis for studying long-run structural change in pre-industrial Sweden. |
| Keywords: | Occupational; structure; ·; Sweden; ·; Economic; history; ·; Historical; demography; ·; Parish-level; data |
| JEL: | C81 J21 N33 N93 |
| Date: | 2026–10–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:gunhis:0043 |
| By: | Beata Smarzynska Javorcik; Alessia Lo Turco; Daniela Maggioni; Gianluca Santoni |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether and how foreign acquisitions improve occupational safety. Using linked administrative data on French manufacturing plants over 2003-2017 and event studies on a matched sample, we find that foreign acquisitions reduce accident rates and workdays lost. Safety gains coincide with expanded managerial hierarchies, greater technical-manager presence, foreign manager hiring, and worker training. We find little evidence supporting automation, task reallocation, or outsourcing as alternative explanations. Moreover, domestic acquisitions do not generate comparable improvements. Our findings are consistent with foreign acquisitions improving workplace safety through the transfer of managerial and organisational practices, highlighting a benefit of multinational activity beyond conventional measures of firm performance. |
| Keywords: | multinationals, workplace safety, work accidents, organisational changes |
| JEL: | F23 F61 I10 J21 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13071 |
| By: | Schmitt, Maximilian L. (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Microeconomics & Public Economics); Rusch, Hannes (Microeconomics & Public Economics, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research) |
| Abstract: | Exploitative employers damage the very labor force on which they depend. Accordingly, this paper models exploitation and labor-force quality as a coupled dynamical system: exploiters spread when high-quality labor makes extraction profitable, but their success degrades the labor environment that sustains those profits. We show that this coupling generates persistent cycles rather than convergence toastable level of exploitation. Our policy extension shows that responsive enforcement can dampen these cycles, induce convergence, and improve welfare. We contribute by elucidating exploitation dynamics and demonstrating how eco-evolutionary methods can be applied to study labor markets on which employers compete with exploiters. |
| Keywords: | exploitation, labor-force quality, persistent cycles |
| JEL: | C73 J21 J47 |
| Date: | 2026–10–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2026011 |
| By: | Ana Melissa Ferreira; Pedro Brinca; João Duarte; João Pereira; Pedro Martins |
| Abstract: | While pay transparency is an increasingly popular policy to reduce the gender wage gap (GWG), its effectiveness is still unclear. We evaluate the impact of a 2018 law in Portugal that required firms to assess their potential gender wage disparities, while imposing penalties to firms of 250 or more employees that did not correct or justify gender gaps. Using difference-in-difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, and difference-in-discontinuity methods, together with detailed matched data, we find that the transparency reform had a minimal impact to reduced the GWG by around 1 percentage point (p.p.). These effects are particularly strong in firms that employ high-skilled females, and for employees that are not covered by collective bargaining, where the impacts rise to 1.5 p.p.. This effect is not associated with employment effects. |
| JEL: | J16 J31 J78 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w202610 |
| By: | Alina Ermolaeva; Hannah Magdalena Seidl |
| Abstract: | Does artificial intelligence (AI) change the transmission of monetary policy? We develop a two-sector heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian model with task-based production, in which AI automates part of the work in one exposed sector and leaves the other shielded. In the AI steady state, the economy holds more capital, and labor income shifts from the exposed workers, who lose through hours, to the shielded workers, who gain through higher wages. We then compare the same rate cut across the two economies. It stimulates macroeconomic aggregates more in the AI economy. The deeper capital stock delivers a larger initial stimulus. Investment responds as strongly as without AI, but on a permanently larger base, so the same response means more demand. Machines absorb part of the exposed sector’s share of that demand. The shielded sector’s share becomes labor income, which is spent in turn. It matters who gets automated: the amplification of monetary policy in an AI economy runs through the workers AI does not replace. |
| Keywords: | Artificial intelligence, automation, task-based production, HANK, monetary transmission, labor share, sectoral incidence |
| JEL: | E21 E24 E32 E52 J23 O33 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp2184 |
| By: | Federico Esposito; Saverio Simonelli |
| Abstract: | We show that natural disasters generate persistent declines in U.S. county employment and net job creation. We then examine whether emergency credit can mitigate these effects. Linking the universe of SBA disaster-loan applications to Census Bureau records, we exploit a credit-score screening rule introduced in 2016 and implement a fuzzy regression discontinuity design around the score cutoff. Firms just above the threshold are substantially more likely to receive government-backed loans, and approval increases employment relative to declined applicants, with effects persisting over subsequent years. The adjustment operates primarily through lower job destruction, while reduced firm exit and stronger job creation also contribute. Overall, SBA lending preserved an estimated 9.8% of the jobs that would otherwise have been lost in disaster-affected counties. |
| Keywords: | Natural disasters; disaster lending; small business finance; employment; job flows; firm exit; regression discontinuity |
| JEL: | Q54 G21 J21 J63 R11 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:26-58 |
| By: | Sofia Amaral; Girija Borker; Nishith Prakash; Maria Micaela Sviatschi |
| Abstract: | Frontline state agents exercise substantial discretion over citizens’ access to public services, yet little is known about whether the attitudes and beliefs shaping this discretion can be changed among incumbent bureaucrats. Partnering with the Bihar Police - one of India’s largest states that operates under comparatively severe policing capacity constraints, we conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial across 417 police stations and roughly 2, 500 active duty senior field police officers to evaluate a three-day expressive arts intervention, grounded in the Theatre of the Oppressed, designed to change police responses to gender-based violence (GBV). Approximately 7 months after baseline, treated officers exhibit more favorable attitudes toward GBV, greater empathy, and stronger legal knowledge. These changes translate into observed policing behavior: in standardized victim audits conducted one year later, officers in treated stations are 15 percentage points less likely to blame victims, dismiss fewer complaints, and provide more referrals, while administrative records show a 41 percent reduction in registration delays and, over a longer horizon, increased GBV reporting by citizens. Exploiting variation generated by officer transfers, we find suggestive evidence that these effects persist when treated officers relocate and diffuse to untreated officers working alongside treated colleagues. The effects also extend to the workplace: junior female officers working with treated senior officers report lower harassment and anxiety. These findings show that the attitudes shaping bureaucratic discretion are malleable and that changing how incumbent state agents exercise authority can improve both citizen-facing service delivery and the broader workplace environment. |
| Keywords: | police, gender-based violence, state capacity, bureaucratic discretion, gender attitudes, workplace spillovers |
| JEL: | J16 K42 J45 D73 D91 C93 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13050 |
| By: | Pyka, Vinzenz; Rieder, André |
| Abstract: | Employers in Germany argue that collective agreements restrict their flexibility concerning working hours. Using data from the IAB Establishment Panel for the years 2008 to 2024, we investigate working-time adjustments after exit from collective bargaining. We find that exit is associated with only a modest increase in weekly working hours of around 0.3 to 0.6 per cent using fixed-effects and event-study models, corresponding to eight to thirteen additional minutes per week. This adjustment occurs shortly after leaving collective bargaining coverage. We further find no evidence that other margins of working-time adjustment, such as Saturday or Sunday work, are used more extensively after exit. In contrast to previous survey evidence, our findings call into question that working-hours constraints are one of the main drivers of exit from collective bargaining coverage. |
| Abstract: | Arbeitgeber in Deutschland argumentieren häufig, dass tarifvertragliche Regelungen ihre Flexibilität bei der Festlegung der Arbeitszeitdauer einschränken. Auf Grundlage des IAB-Betriebspanels 2008-2024 untersuchen wir, wie Betriebe ihre Arbeitszeit nach dem Austritt aus der Tarifbindung anpassen. Fixed-Effectsund Event-Study-Schätzungen zeigen lediglich einen moderaten Anstieg der vereinbarten Wochenarbeitszeit um 0, 3 bis 0, 6 Prozent. Dies entspricht einer Verlängerung der wöchentlichen Arbeitszeit um etwa acht bis dreizehn Minuten. Bemerkenswert ist, dass die Anpassung trotz der Nachwirkung tarifvertraglicher Regelungen überwiegend kurz nach dem Austritt erfolgt. Für andere Anpassungen, etwa Samstags- oder Sonntagsarbeit, finden wir keine Hinweise. Damit stellen unsere Ergebnisse bisherige Befunde aus Unternehmensbefragungen infrage, wonach tarifvertragliche Arbeitszeitregelungen zu den Hauptgründen für einen Austritt aus der Tarifbindung zählen. |
| Keywords: | Collective bargaining, Working hours, Exit from collective bargaining |
| JEL: | J22 J51 J53 J81 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:faulre:344102 |
| By: | Levy Yeyati, Eduardo |
| Abstract: | Foreign-provided agentification can be understood as black-box offshoring: a domestic task is delegated to a technological system supplied from abroad rather than to a foreign workforce. As adoption spreads, firms may stop performing the task locally and gradually thin the shared pool of workers, training routes, routines, and complementary suppliers needed to bring it back. No individual buyer owns that pool or has much reason to preserve it for the sector. Under concentrated foreign provision, the weaker domestic fallback can raise future imported-agent payments. This is a dynamic terms-of-trade externality whose source is endogenous: today’s imports make tomorrow’s outside option worse. The broader macroeconomic implication is that agentification can raise productivity while tightening the external constraint. It replaces part of a domestic production bill with recurring foreign-currency payments, and capability erosion can make that bill more persistent or more expensive over time. This liquidity channel is not unique to AI, and it can reverse sign when agentification generates enough tradable earnings. Ex ante competition can redistribute lifecycle rents through introductory concessions, but early inflows and later foreign-currency outflows need not be socially equivalent when external liquidity is valued differently across states or dates. The policy implication is to preserve valuable reversibility, contestability, contractual protection, and external-liquidity buffers rather than to impose a general tax on AI. |
| Keywords: | Inteligencia artificial, Transferencia de tecnología, Liquidez internacional, Automatización, Artificial intelligence, Technology transfer, International liquidity, Automation |
| JEL: | F12 F32 F41 O33 J24 L13 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:udt:wpgobi:wp_gob_2026_13 |
| By: | Kotsadam, Andreas (Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research); Pieters, Janneke (Wageningen University); Rossi, Pauline (CREST-École Polytechnique); Villanger, Espen (Chr. Michelsen Institute); Zipfel, Céline (House of Sustainable Society (HoSS)); Getahun, Tigabu (EconInsight Center for Development Research) |
| Abstract: | We conducted an experiment with multiple factories in Ethiopia to test the widespread hypothesis that formal employment among women reduces fertility. Tracking respondents over eight years, we find that women who were randomly offered a job had more children than the control group. The effect on fertility emerged once the effect on wage employment faded away, around three years after baseline. There are clear effects on household income and savings, but not on bargaining power or marriage. These patterns are consistent with a Beckerian model in which the income effect dominates the substitution effect and households are credit constrained. |
| Keywords: | Female employment; fertility; industrialization; sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 O15 O55 |
| Date: | 2026–10–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:hamisu:2026_006 |
| By: | M. Rosso |
| Abstract: | Corruption opportunities attract people who would exploit them and repel people who anticipate the cost of resisting them. I study both margins in a model of occupational choice with self-control costs. Three results stand out. First, when temptation is strong, small corruption rents can shrink the pool of entrants. Second, the public sector can lose integrity while it shrinks, so a stable or falling headcount can conceal a deteriorating workforce. Third, at equal net corrupt surplus, removing corruption opportunities yields weakly lower corruption than deferred sanctions, both ata given wage and with a fixed number of posts. When rents rise with the share of corrupt incumbents, the ranking carries over to steady states, and prevention can eliminate a highcorruption equilibrium that an equivalent sanction preserves. |
| Keywords: | occupational selection, self-control and temptation, corruption, deterrence, public-sector labor markets, multiple equilibria |
| JEL: | D73 J45 D91 H83 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cns:cnscwp:202615 |
| By: | Giulia Bovini (Bank of Italy); Raffaella Nizzi (Bank of Italy); Gaetano Basso (Bank of Italy) |
| Abstract: | This paper describes the institutional framework for national collective bargaining and examines the trends in negotiated wages between 2000 and 2025, using Banca d'Italia's database on the 50 most representative collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in the non-farm private sector. The bargaining framework allows for substantial flexibility in sector-level negotiations, both in the timing of renewals and in determining wage increases and any adjustments for deviations between expected and actual inflation. Over the past 25 years, negotiated wages increased by 61.2 per cent overall in nominal terms, on average across sectors, but declined by 1.3 per cent in real terms, mainly owing to the high inflation recorded in 2021-23. The loss in the purchasing power of negotiated wages was more pronounced in private services, where delays in CBA renewals were longer. The analysis of the relationship between negotiated and actual wages suggests that second-level bargaining partly compensated workers during these delays. |
| Keywords: | collective bargaining, negotiated wages, wage dynamics, inflation |
| JEL: | J31 J52 E31 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdi:opques:qef_1070_26 |
| By: | Tim Ederer |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how career dynamics shape teacher spatial sorting using data on Peru's centralized teacher allocation. I develop a dynamic two-sided matching model and identify teacher and school preferences from observed assignments and schools' discretionary evaluations. I use the estimated model to correct teacher value-added estimates for two-sided endogenous selection. The analysis reveals the existence of a spatial job ladder that dynamically sorts more effective teachers into urban schools, contributing to spatial inequality in student achievement. Targeted mobility restrictions can reduce the urban-rural effectiveness gap by 76 percent, but avoiding adverse selection requires compensating teachers for the implied welfare loss, highlighting an inherent recruitment–retention trade-off. |
| Keywords: | teacher spatial sorting, dynamic matching, teacher value-added |
| JEL: | J45 J62 I24 R23 C78 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_13063 |
| By: | Liu, Kaiqi (RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research, Microeconomics & Public Economics); Rusch, Hannes (Microeconomics & Public Economics, RS: GSBE other - not theme-related research) |
| Abstract: | Slave-making and trading lastingly shaped global demographics. However, no quantitative studies of enslavement as a day-to-day business exist. We address this gap using a unique dataset coded from the surviving records kept by notorious slave raider Hamman Yaji (c. 1863–1929). Spanning fifteen years and over 300 events, the data reveal whom Yaji targeted, how he timed his raids, and how destructive they were. Panel regression analyses show how Yaji’s decisions were shaped by political, military, ecological, and economic constraints on profit maximization. Situated in colonial eastern Nigeria, our results provide unprecedented insight into the microeconomics of slave raiding |
| Keywords: | slavery, raiding, conflict, exploitation, Nigeria, Adamawa |
| JEL: | D74 J47 N47 |
| Date: | 2026–10–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2026010 |
| By: | Kevin André Pineda-Hernández; François Rycx; Mélanie Volral |
| Abstract: | Although an increasing body of literature has examined the relationship between firms’ profitability and wage inequality in the context of a diverse workforce, the role of rent sharing in explaining origin-based wage differentials has yet to be explored. Our paper aims to fill this gap using detailed Belgian matched employer-employee data from 1999 to 2016. After controlling for a wide range of covariates and addressing endogeneity issues, our estimates show that the wage-profit elasticity equals approximately 3% and does not differ statistically between native and immigrant workers, be they first or second generation. It therefore appears that firms share their profits equally with their employees, regardless of their origin. However, Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions suggest that rent sharing has a significant influence on immigrants’ wages through labour market segregation. Specifically, first-generation immigrants are found to earn lower wages than natives because of their higher concentration in firms with lower profit margins. The same is true for second-generation immigrants, but almost half as much. These findings, corroborated and refined by heterogeneity tests according to gender, educational attainment and level of collective bargaining, support the hypothesis of a segmented assimilation process for immigrants. |
| Keywords: | Rent sharing; natives; first- and second-generation immigrants; matched employer-employee data; wage decompositions; instrumental variables |
| JEL: | C26 J15 J16 J31 J61 |
| Date: | 2026–10–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/414982 |
| By: | Kirchmaier, Tom; Machin, Stephen; Sandi, Matteo; Witt, Robert |
| Abstract: | Whether working in a team or alone results in higher productivity has been extensively studied in many settings, often being a controversial issue. This is none more so than for the police. Whether single or double crewing enhances or diminishes police productivity remains a perennial, contentious debate, yet credible empirical evidence is scarce. This paper provides new, quasi-experimental evidence on the causal impact of crew size on officer performance. Rich administrative data show that a policy shift (known as the 'Banded Shift Pattern') increased double crewing by altering vehicle-to-officer allocation in response teams. Double crewing significantly enhances police performance through two primary mechanisms: it improves officer productivity and reduces officer injury risks by enhancing situational safety. A cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that the performance gains of double crewing outweigh its increased operational expenses, proving it can be an effective strategy for modern policing. |
| Keywords: | police;double crewing;productivity;safety |
| JEL: | J45 K42 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:141338 |