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on Unemployment, Inequality and Poverty |
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Issue of 2022‒07‒18
ten papers chosen by |
| By: | Georgellis, Yannis (University of Kent); Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); Apergis, Emmanuel (University of Huddersfield); Robinson, Catherine (University of Kent) |
| Abstract: | We use British panel data to explore the link between occupational status and life satisfaction. We find puzzling evidence, for men, of a U-shaped relationship in cross-section data: employees in medium-status occupations report lower life satisfaction scores than that of employees in either low- or high-status occupations. This puzzle disappears in panel data: the satisfaction of any man rises as he moves up the status ladder. The culprit seems to be immobility: the miserable middle is caused by men who (in our data) have always been in medium-status occupations. There is overall little evidence of a link between occupational status and life satisfaction for women. |
| Keywords: | occupational status, life satisfaction, occupational mobility |
| JEL: | I31 J24 Z13 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15360&r= |
| By: | Pierre Cahuc (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Francis Kramarz (ENSAE Paris - École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique); Sandra Nevoux (Banque de France - Banque de France - Banque de France) |
| Abstract: | To understand which firms take-up short-time work and which workers they enroll in this program, we provide a model which shows that short-time work may save jobs in firms hit by strong negative revenue shocks, but not in less severely-hit firms, where hours worked are reduced, without saving jobs. Using detailed data on the administration of the program covering the universe of French establishments in the 2008-2009 Great Recession, we find that short-time work did indeed save jobs and increase hours of work in firms faced with large negative shocks. These firms have been able to recover rapidly in the aftermath of the Recession thanks to short-time work. We also provide evidence of large windfall effects which significantly increased the cost of the policy per job saved; yet we also find that short-time work remains more cost-efficient at saving jobs than wage subsidies. |
| Keywords: | Short-time Work,Unemployement,Hours of work |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03602410&r= |
| By: | Baranowska-Rataj, Anna; Barclay, Kieron; Costa-Font, Joan; Myrskylä, Mikko; Özcan, Berkay |
| Abstract: | Although preterm births are the leading cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality in advanced economies, evidence about the consequences of such births later in life is limited. Using Swedish register data on cohorts born 1982-1994 (N=1,087,750), we examine the effects of preterm births on school grades measured at age 16 using sibling fixed-effect models. We further examine how preterm births are affected by the degree of prematurity and the compensating role of family socioeconomic resources and characteristics of school districts. Our results show that the negative effects of preterm births are confined to children born extremely preterm ( |
| Keywords: | premature births; school districts; educational disadvantage; parental effects |
| JEL: | N0 |
| Date: | 2022–06–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:113330&r= |
| By: | Daniel S. Hamermesh; Jeff Biddle |
| Abstract: | We examine patterns of work in the U.S. from 1973-2018 with the novel focus on days per week, using intermittent CPS samples and one ATUS sample. Among full-time workers the incidence of four-day work tripled during this period, with over 8 million more full-time workers on four-day weeks. The same growth occurred in the Netherlands, Germany, and South Korea. The rise was not due to changes in demographics or industrial structure. Four-day full-time work is more common among less educated, younger, and white non-Hispanic workers, among men, natives, and people with young children; and among police and firefighters, health-care workers, and in eating/drinking places. Based on an equilibrium model of its prevalence, we show that it results more from workers’ preferences and/or daily fixed costs of working than from employers' production costs. We verify the implication that the wage penalty for four-day work is greater where such work is more prevalent, and we show that the penalty has diminished over time. |
| JEL: | J11 J22 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30106&r= |
| By: | Ekaterina Oparina; Caspar Kaiser; Niccol\`o Gentile; Alexandre Tkatchenko; Andrew E. Clark; Jan-Emmanuel De Neve; Conchita D'Ambrosio |
| Abstract: | There is a vast literature on the determinants of subjective wellbeing. International organisations and statistical offices are now collecting such survey data at scale. However, standard regression models explain surprisingly little of the variation in wellbeing, limiting our ability to predict it. In response, we here assess the potential of Machine Learning (ML) to help us better understand wellbeing. We analyse wellbeing data on over a million respondents from Germany, the UK, and the United States. In terms of predictive power, our ML approaches do perform better than traditional models. Although the size of the improvement is small in absolute terms, it turns out to be substantial when compared to that of key variables like health. We moreover find that drastically expanding the set of explanatory variables doubles the predictive power of both OLS and the ML approaches on unseen data. The variables identified as important by our ML algorithms - $i.e.$ material conditions, health, and meaningful social relations - are similar to those that have already been identified in the literature. In that sense, our data-driven ML results validate the findings from conventional approaches. |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2206.00574&r= |
| By: | Abdel Abdellaoui; Oana Borcan (University of East Anglia); Pierre-André Chiappori (Columbia University); David Hugh-Jones (University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | If socio-economic status (SES) and genetic variants are both assets in marriage markets, then the two will become associated in spouse pairs, and will be passed on together to future generations. This process provides a new explanation for the surprising persistence of inequality across generations, and for the genes-SES gradient: the genetic differences we observe between high- and low-income people. The gradient includes differences related to human capital and to physical and mental health, so understanding its origins is important for understanding inequality in general, and health inequalities in particular. We model social-genetic assortative mating (SGAM) and test for its existence in a large genetically-informed survey. We compare spouses of individuals with different birth order, which is known to affect socio-economic status and which is exogenous to own genetic endowments among siblings. Spouses of earlier-born individuals have genetic variants that predict higher educational attainment. We provide evidence that this effect is mediated by individuals’ own educational attainment and income. Thus, environmental shocks to socio-economic status are reflected in the DNA of subsequent generations. Our work uncovers a new channel by which economic institutions can affect long-run inequality; suggests that genes-SES gradients may be historically widespread; and shows that genetic variation is endogenous to social institutions. |
| Keywords: | intergenerational mobility, gene-SES gradient, birth order |
| JEL: | I14 J12 J13 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-018&r= |
| By: | Andrés César (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET); Guillermo Falcone (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET); Leonardo Gasparini (CEDLAS-IIE-FCE-UNLP & CONICET) |
| Abstract: | We study Chile’s labor market responses to trade shocks during 1996-2006, exploiting spatial and time variations in trade exposure arising from initial differences in industry specialization across local labor markets and the evolution of shocks across industries. We take advantage of China’s supply and demand’s worldwide shocks to instrument for Chinese import competition and demand for Chilean exports. Our main finding is that increasing manufacturing import competition implied a significant rise in labor informality in more exposed local markets, especially among young and unskilled workers. These groups also suffered significant relative wage losses. Meanwhile, locations that benefited most from the increased demand for primary products experienced a relative increase in employment, particularly among young individuals, and reallocation from self-employment towards salaried jobs in the formal sector, along with relative wage gains among old-age workers. Interestingly, these areas experienced a smaller increase in tertiary education enrollment rates than less exposed areas. |
| JEL: | F14 F16 J23 J31 L60 O17 Q02 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2022–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dls:wpaper:0300&r= |
| By: | Alberto Alesina; Marco Tabellini |
| Abstract: | We review the growing literature on the political economy of immigration. First, we discuss the effects of immigration on a wide range of political and social outcomes. The existing evidence suggests that immigrants often, but not always, trigger backlash, increasing support for anti-immigrant parties and lowering preferences for redistribution and diversity among natives. Next, we unpack the channels behind the political effects of immigration, distinguishing between economic and non-economic forces. In examining the mechanisms, we highlight important mediating factors, such as misperceptions, the media, and the conditions under which inter-group contact occurs. We also outline promising avenues for future research. |
| JEL: | D72 J15 J61 Z1 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30079&r= |
| By: | David Autor |
| Abstract: | This review considers the evolution of economic thinking on the relationship between digital technology and inequality across four decades, encompassing four related but intellectually distinct paradigms, which I refer to as the education race, the task polarization model, the automation-reinstatement race, and the era of Artificial Intelligence uncertainty. The nuance of economic understanding has improved across these epochs. Yet, traditional economic optimism about the beneficent effects of technology for productivity and welfare has eroded as understanding has advanced. Given this intellectual trajectory, it would be natural to forecast an even darker horizon ahead. I refrain from doing so because forecasting the “consequences” of technological change treats the future as a fate to be divined rather than an expedition to be undertaken. I conclude by discussing opportunities and challenges that we collectively face in shaping this future. |
| JEL: | J23 J24 O33 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30074&r= |
| By: | Hélène Benghalem (UNIL - Université de Lausanne); Pierre Cahuc (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research - CEPR); Pierre Villedieu (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) |
| Abstract: | We ran a large randomized controlled experiment among about 150,000 recipients of unemployment benefits insurance in France in order to evaluate the impact of part-time unemployment benefits. We took advantage of the lack of knowledge of job seekers regarding this program and sent emails presenting the program. The information provision had a significant positive impact on the propensity to work while on claim, but reduced the unemployment exit rate, showing important lock-in effects into unemployment associated with part-time unemployment benefits. The importance of these lock-in effects implies that increasing the marginal tax rate on earnings from work while on claim in the neighborhood of its current level would not decrease labor supply and would decrease the expenditure net of taxes of the unemployment insurance agency. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment insurance,Part-time unemployment benefits,Lock-in effects,Unemployment duration |
| Date: | 2021–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpspec:hal-03389159&r= |