Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages http://lists.repec.org/mailman/listinfo/nep-lma Labor Markets - Supply, Demand, and Wages 2026-03-09 Minimum Wages and Work Pressure https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18398&r=&r=lma A large literature investigates the employment effects of minimum wages, with comparatively little evidence on other adjustment margins. In this paper, we analyze the impact of a nationwide introduction of minimum wages in Germany on employer-induced work pressure, using detailed worker-level survey data. Applying a difference-in-differences approach, we show that the introduction of minimum wages increased work pressure in occupations more exposed to the minimum wage. The increase in work pressure cannot be explained by compositional changes in terms of demographics, job complexity, or hours worked. Nagler, Markus Winkler, Erwin minimum wage, work pressure, non-wage amenities, working conditions, compensating differentials 2026-03 A Wartime Labour Market: The Case of Ukraine https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18363&r=&r=lma Wars disrupt labor markets, yet systematic evidence on how markets for labor services operate during conflicts is almost entirely absent. Ukraine is a rare exception: despite the full-scale Russian invasion, timely data on workers and vacancies, in both stocks and flows, remain available. We use these data to document one of the largest labor supply and reallocation shocks in recent history and to estimate the impact on job matching, showing how labor markets adapt under extreme stress. The labor force shrank by about one fourth, yet vacancy filling rates and matching efficiency declined modestly. Only along the frontline and in occupied regions there is evidence of labor market shutdowns. Wage flexibility, adaptability of recruitment policies of firms, and remote working help explain the resiliency of labor outcomes. Recovering longer-term human capital losses suffered by Ukraine will require a mix of tools going well beyond labor policies and should be a priority for the reconstruction phase. Anastasia, Giacomo Boeri, Tito Zholud, Oleksandr labor supply shock, reallocation, vacancy filling rate, wartime economy 2026-02 Subsidy for the first hires and firm performance https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2026001&r=&r=lma This paper studies how employment subsidies for start-ups shape their performance. We exploit an unexpected policy reform in Belgium that permanently exempted start-ups hiring their first employee from payroll taxes for that employee. Using firm-level administrative data and a regression-discontinuity-in-time design, we find that subsidized post-reform start-ups employed fewer workers and generated lower output, value added, and profits compared to pre-reform start-ups. However, post-reform start-ups were more likely to survive as employers. These effects emerged within the first year after hiring and remained stable over a medium horizon of three years. Our findings indicate a compositional shift: the subsidy primarily induced low-productivity firms to enter the market. As most firms nowadays are nonemployers, our results meaningfully generalize the theoretical implications of standard neoclassical entrepreneurship models (employee–employer margin) and fill the important gap of the nonemployer–employer margin. Deng, Haotian Desiere, Sam Cockx, Bart Bijnens, Gert entrepreneurship, start-up, employment subsidy, tax reduction, labor de-mand;, Small firms 2026-02-24 Pension Wealth and the Timing of Retirement https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12386&r=&r=lma We analyze how pension wealth influences retirement timing using 25 years of Danish administrative panel data on wealth and labor market status. Exploiting early-career variation in firm-specific mandatory pension contribution rates, we study labor supply decisions from age 55 onward. Greater pension wealth accelerates labor market exit: at age 63, the elasticity is about 0.3 — an additional 100, 000 DKK (15, 000 USD) at age 55 reduces earnings by 1% at age 63. Effects intensify near statutory retirement age, driven by self-support and early occupational pension withdrawals. Mandatory savings raise retirement wealth but induce earlier exit, underscoring key behavioral responses for pension policy design. Torben M. Andersen Anne Katrine Borgbjerg Jonas Maibom pension wealth, retirement, labor supply, mandated savings 2026 The relationship between green and digital skill supply and industrial dynamics https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:srt:wpaper:0726&r=&r=lma We contribute to the literature on the green, digital and twin transitions by providing novel evidence on their implications for industrial dynamics. In particular, we investigate whether the local supply of skills in the green, digital and twin domains is related to firm entry and exit at the NUTS3 level in Italy. We exploit a recently created dataset on the near-universe of Italian university programme descriptions to capture the skills provided through higher education. We find that the supply of green, digital and twin skills enhances opportunities for firm entry. We rule out the possibility that this effect simply reflects the supply of high-skilled labour in general. The supply of green skills may induce higher industrial renewal, being it also correlated with higher exit rates. Kateryna Tkach Alberto Marzucchi Ugo Rizzo Michela Borghesi skill supply; university graduates; industrial dynamics; local economic performance 2026-02 Marginal Admission to Elite High Schools: Long-run Effects on Labor Market Outcomes https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18369&r=&r=lma We estimate the long-run effects of marginal admission to elite public high schools on students' labor supply in the context of Mexico City's centralized high school admission system. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we compare students whose placement exam scores are just above and just below the elite admission threshold. We find that five and ten years after the admission exam, marginally admitted students are less likely to be employed in the formal private sector, and, if employed, they earn lower wages. However, these employment and wage gaps close after 15 years. Moreover, we find that marginal admission to elite high schools leads to delayed entry into the formal labor market, and, at least in the short run, students in elite high schools seem to sort into lower-productivity firms and industries. Cabrera-Hernández, Francisco Dustan, Andrew Osuna-Gomez, Daniel Padilla-Romo, María returns to education, human capital, education in developing countries, formal employment 2026-02 Worker reciprocity and the returns to training: evidence from a field experiment https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_003&r=&r=lma Do reciprocal workers have higher returns to employer-sponsored training? Using a field experiment with random assignment to training combined with survey information on workers’ reciprocal inclinations, the results show that reciprocal workers reciprocate employers’ training investments by higher post-training performance. This result, which is robust to controlling for observed personality traits and worker fixed effects, suggests that individuals reciprocate the firm’s human capital investment with higher effort, in line with theoretical models on gift exchange in the workplace. This finding provides an alternative rationale to explain firm training investments even with risk of poaching. Sauermann, Jan on-the-job training; reciprocity; worker performance; field experiment 2026-02-17 Generative AI and Career Choices https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iso:educat:0251&r=&r=lma The economic impact of technological change will critically depend on how future workers invest in their human capital. Yet, little is known about how future workers themselves evaluate and choose their educational and occupational paths in light of emerging technologies. This paper examines how adolescents currently at the school-to-work transition stage value working with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in their future occupations, and how automation risk and opportunities for continuing education shape these preferences. We field a discrete-choice experiment among a nationally representative sample of over 7, 000 Swiss adolescents aged around 15. We find that adolescents generally exhibit an aversion to collaborating with GenAI at work, with females consistently more averse than males. However, preferences are nuanced: adolescents welcome greater GenAI collaboration, provided that GenAI usage levels remain moderate and that it is not accompanied by increases in job-automation risk. Finally, continuing education opportunities in occupations improve attitudes towards working with GenAI across genders. Our results challenge simple narratives of technology acceptance or rejection, revealing that adolescents' willingness to work with GenAI depends on how it is implemented — its intensity, associated displacement risks, and accompanying skill development - rather than the technology itself. Our findings suggest that the way future workers value GenAI collaboration in their career choices critically depends on its intensity and on the interplay with automation risk and AI-related educational opportunities. Christian Gschwendt Martina Viarengo Thea S. Zoellner occupational choice, gender gaps, GenAI, choice experiment, continuing education, automation risk 2026-02 Do Firms Share their Profits Equally with Women and Men? The Role of Human Capital, Managerial Positions and Unions https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18388&r=&r=lma While rent-sharing is known to vary according to worker characteristics, the impact of profits on the gender wage gap warrants closer examination. Most studies adopt a single-gender view, neglecting factors tied to bargaining power. Our paper aims to fill this gap using Belgian matched employer-employee data from 1999 to 2016 and by examining whether the relationship between rent-sharing and gender depends on variables reflecting bargaining power, i.e. education, study field, tenure, occupation and wage agreement. Accounting for many covariates and addressing potential endogeneity issues, we find a wage-profit elasticity of 2.8%, which does not differ statistically between women and men. Our results further indicate that firms share more of their profits with workers who have greater bargaining power, as assessed by our moderators. This result holds overall for both women and men, so that the price effect associated with rent-sharing is generally insignificant in explaining the gender wage gap. Conversely, given that women, regardless of their bargaining power, tend to be employed in less profitable firms than their male counterparts, the quantity effect associated with rent-sharing appears to play a non-negligible role. Pineda-Hernández, Kevin Rycx, François Volral, Mélanie Waroquier, Alexandre rent-sharing, linked employer-employee data, wage decompositions, instrumental variables, gender wage gap, bargaining power 2026-03 Life-Cycle Effects of Public Childcare: Evidence on Children and Their Parents https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12372&r=&r=lma This paper provides large-scale evidence linking the economic effects of childcare programs to social skills measured in adulthood. We examine Finland's first national public childcare program, and document that it increased parental labor supply - through retirement - while reducing the intergenerational persistence of income. Critically, we leverage Finnish Defence Forces data on the near population of males to show that effects on children's adult income are underlied by lasting effects on social skills. Further, we show that life-cycle cost-effectiveness estimates based on the assumption of constant effects after typical observation windows can considerably overestimate the net costs of public childcare. Mikko Silliman Juuso Mäkinen early childhood, social skills, parental labor supply 2026 When Algorithms Rate Performance: Do Large Language Models Replicate Human Evaluation Biases? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18371&r=&r=lma A large body of research across management, psychology, accounting, and economics shows that subjective performance evaluations are systematically biased: ratings cluster near the midpoint of scales and are often excessively lenient. As organizations increasingly adopt large language models (LLMs) for evaluative tasks, little is known about how these systems perform when assessing human performance. We document that, in the absence of clear objective standards and when individuals are rated independently, LLMs reproduce the familiar patterns of human raters. However, LLMs generate greater dispersion and accuracy when evaluating multiple individuals simultaneously. With noisy but objective performance signals, LLMs provide substantially more accurate evaluations than human raters, as they (i) are less subject to biases arising from concern for the evaluated employee and (ii) make fewer mistakes in information processing closely approximating rational Bayesian benchmarks. Rilke, Rainer Sliwka, Dirk performance evaluation, large language models, signal objectivity, algorithmic judgment, Gen-AI 2026-02 When Organized Crime Moves In: Economic and Human Capital Disruption https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2026_002&r=&r=lma This paper studies how organized crime presence transforms local communities and human capital formation. Identifying these effects is challenging, as crime is endogenous to local conditions. We address this by leveraging the recent case of Ecuador, where criminal organizations from neighboring countries have rapidly established a new cocaine export route. This externally driven shock generated sharp increases in violent crime, allowing us to estimate causal effects using a difference-in-differences design based on proximity to areas prone to cocaine smuggling. Crime-affected areas experienced higher dropout rates among children at grades characterized by weak school attachment, the end of primary education and the first years of secondary school. While we do not find evidence of increased dropout among older students aged 15-18, individuals in this age group already out of education at the time of the crime surge exhibited a marked rise in risky behaviors, reflected in higher homicide victimization and earlier pregnancies. We also document severe economic disruption: household income fell by nearly 30%, driven mainly by a decline in informal employment. Declining earnings are a key mechanism linking crime exposure to school dropout. These findings show that the externalities of organized crime impose persistent social costs, deepening inequality and undermining human capital development. Bocchino, Andrea Povea, Erika education; children; human capital; organized crime; labor markets 2026-02-23 Match Effects and the Gains from Alternative Job Assignments: Evidence from a Teacher Labor Market https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18397&r=&r=lma This paper studies the relative importance of teacher-student match effects and general teacher effectiveness in producing student learning, and quantifies gains from alternative teacher assignments. We estimate a framework that separates these components, allowing match quality to vary with observable student characteristics and unobservable teacher-school factors. Using more than a decade of administrative data from a large urban district, we address endogenous sorting with quasi-random assignment variation induced by differences in driving time between teachers and schools. Match effects are similar in magnitude to general effectiveness. Teacher-acceptable reassignments can raise average test scores by about 0.13 standard deviations. Laverde, Mariana Mykerezi, Elton Sojourner, Aaron Sood, Aradhya teacher effectiveness, teacher–student match effects, assignment and sorting, education production, labor markets in education 2026-03 Developing Math Talent Worldwide: Evidence from a Global RCT https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18381&r=&r=lma Exceptional talent accounts for a disproportionate share of innovation, yet many individuals with exceptional ability may never realize their potential. Whether expanding access to advanced training generates learning gains remains an open question. We study this using a randomized controlled trial with 620 highly gifted students from 44 countries, nominated by national Olympiad organizations. Participants were randomly assigned either to an 18-week advanced combinatorics course by Art of Problem Solving or to independent study using equivalent materials. Assignment to the course increased final-exam performance by 0.16 standard deviations. Engagement varied widely: roughly half of assigned students participated minimally, and baseline characteristics explain little of this variation (R² ≈ 0.10). Using random assignment as an instrument for engagement, we estimate learning gains of 0.66 standard deviations among fully engaged students. Among those who later competed in the International Mathematical Olympiad, students assigned to the course performed better on combinatorics problems. Overall, access to advanced training yields large gains when engagement is sustained, but access alone does not reliably induce engagement. Agarwal, Ruchir Gaule, Patrick exceptional talent, gifted education, randomized controlled trial, student engagement, human capital, mathematics education, olympiad training 2026-03 Gender Gaps Under Comparable Tasks: Evidence from Quasi-Random Assignment https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18379&r=&r=lma Gender gaps in earnings persist even among high-skilled workers, partly because men and women often perform different tasks within and across jobs. We study a rare setting in which high-skilled men and women perform the same tasks under comparable conditions, allowing us to assess gender differences in productivity and pay without confounding from task or client allocation. Using administrative data from the Swedish Public Employment Service, we exploit a rotation scheme that quasi-randomly assigns job seekers to employment caseworkers. We find that productivity differences are small: job seekers assigned to female and male caseworkers exit unemployment at similar rates, and hourly wages—conditional on productivity—are nearly identical across genders. Despite this, female caseworkers earn about 8 percent less per year, entirely due to differences in contracted and actual hours worked. We also find suggestive evidence that male caseworkers are more likely to be promoted than equally productive female colleagues. When tasks are standardized and performance is measured objectively, gender differences in productivity and hourly pay are minimal, while gaps in annual earnings and career progression persist. Khaliliaraghi, Negar Lundborg, Petter Vikström, Johan gender gaps, productivity, wages, task allocation 2026-02 The Economics of Age at School Entry: Insights from Evidence and Methods https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18373&r=&r=lma This article reviews the growing literature on age at school entry and its effects over the life course. Age at school entry affects a broad range of outcomes, including education, labor-market performance, health, social relationships, and family formation. We synthesize the evidence using a conceptual framework that distinguishes four empirically intertwined components of age at school entry: starting age, age at outcome, relative age, and time in school. Within this framework, we highlight six key channels through which age at school entry operates. While the effects of age at school entry are often substantial and persistent, many studies estimate bundled impacts without isolating specific components or directly measuring underlying mechanisms. We explain how different research designs capture distinct combinations of these components. We also highlight how institutional heterogeneity and behavioral responses can complicate the interpretation of results. We conclude by outlining directions for future research and policy design. Cavallo, Mariagrazia Dhuey, Elizabeth Fumarco, Luca Halewyck, Levi ter Meulen, Simon age at school entry, starting age, age at outcome, relative age, time in school, institutional mechanisms, quasi-experimental methods 2026-02 Delayed Retirement: Effects on Health and Healthcare Utilization https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18390&r=&r=lma This paper estimates the effect of a reform-induced increase in the early retirement age (ERA) on labor supply, health, and healthcare utilization using detailed Danish administrative data and a regression discontinuity design. We show that while raising the ERA successfully increased employment, it also led to spillovers into other public transfers and increased the number of self-supporting individuals. We find that the increased ERA led to small and insignificant effects on GP visits and the use of painkillers, as well as borderline significant, small positive effects on the use of antidepressants and CVD medicine. Further analysis shows that individuals who were employed due to the reform had lower pre-reform income and wealth, while the individuals who were not employed despite being affected by the reform were characterized by worse health before the reform announcement. We argue that possibilities for exiting employment serve as a potentially important mitigating mechanism for health and healthcare utilization effects by sorting vulnerable individuals out of employment. Borgbjerg, Anne Katrine Sigaard, Hans Svarer, Michael Vejlin, Rune retirement reforms, health, healthcare utilization 2026-03 Why Female Professors Earn Less: The Role of Retention Negotiations and Performance Bonuses https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18376&r=&r=lma How large is the gender pay gap among university professors, and how do institutional pay-setting mechanisms shape this disparity? This paper provides novel empirical evidence on the gender pay gap among professors at a renowned German university. Using detailed human resources data for the time span 2013 to 2021, we document a statistically significant conditional gender pay gap in professorial salaries of 5.2%, after controlling for employment characteristics, socio-demographics, performance measures, and faculty and year fixed effects. Our findings show that these differentials can be attributed mainly to lower returns from retention negotiations, which have a particularly strong impact during the earlier stages of academic careers. These results highlight the importance of pay system designs in promoting gender equity in academia. Cieply, Isea Barros, Laura Silbersdorff, Alexander Kneib, Thomas Kis-Katos, Krisztina gender pay gap, gender economics, wage differentials, wage negotiations, professorial salaries 2026-02 Disparate Impacts of Teacher Certification Exams https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34860&r=&r=lma We use Texas administrative data to assess the long-standing claim that teacher certification exams discriminate against underrepresented minority (URM) candidates. In a regression discontinuity design, we find that failing a certification exam delays entry into teaching and costs the average candidate $10, 000 in forgone earnings. These costs fall disproportionately on URM candidates both because they are more likely to fail and because their earnings losses from failing are 50 percent larger on average. To examine whether these disparities are justified by racial/ethnic differences in teaching quality, we develop a new measure of disparate impact and estimate it using a policy change that increased the difficulty of Texas' elementary certification exam. The harder exam reduced the URM share of new teachers but had no significant benefits for teaching quality or student achievement. Taken together, our findings show that certification exams have a disparate impact in the sense that they impose much larger economic costs on URM teaching candidates than on white candidates with similar potential teaching quality. Christa Deneault Evan Riehl Jian Zou 2026-02 What explains the East–West gap in part-time employment in Europe? https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp012026&r=&r=lma I investigate differences in the incidence of part-time employment between Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries that have joined the EU since 2004 and Western European countries. I estimate employees’ probabilities of working part time based on observable characteristics, including capital income and market hourly wages. While labour force structure and economic development help explain more than half of the East-West gap in voluntary part-time employment, the remaining unexplained gap amounts to 10.6 percentage points for women and 1.0 percentage point for men. I find that progressivity in personal income taxation is a significant predictor of voluntary part-time employment, but has a limited impact on the unexplained East-West gap, reducing it by 0.7 percentage points for women and by 0.3 percentage points for men. The perceived importance of work and leisure time also have predictive power overall, but these social values do not explain the East-West gap. Moreover, full-time employees in CEE countries do not report stronger preferences for part-time employment than their Western European counterparts, suggesting that differences in working hours norms may play a more important role than hours constraints imposed by firms. Finally, evidence from German reunification supports the view that informal institutions may play a more important role than formal institutions, as the unexplained East-West gap in voluntary part-time employment gradually narrowed over time. Maciej Albinowski Part-time employment, Labour supply, Working hours, Working hours norms 2026-02 Does AI Cheapen Talk? Theory and Evidence From Global Entrepreneurship and Hiring https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12508&r=&r=lma Screening human capital based on signals such as job applications or entrepreneurial pitches is crucial for organizations. Signals are often informative insofar as they require differential knowledge and effort to produce. Generative AI (GAI) complicates screening by lowering the cost of producing impressive signals. We model the informational effects of GAI, showing that applicants' access to GAI can increase - but also decrease - an evaluator's screening mistakes. This result depends on how GAI affects experts' signals compared to non-experts'. Using experiments in hiring and startup investing, we estimate that senders' access to GAI (ChatGPT) lowers screening accuracy by 4-9% for employers and startup investors. Consistent with our model, senders' access to GAI also improves screening accuracy in some settings - in our case, among senders from non-English-speaking countries. These results show that GAI can profoundly shape screening accuracy. Bo Cowgill Pablo Hernandez-Lagos Nataliya Langburd Wright screening, artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, human capital 2026 Ethnocultural identity and hiring decisions: The role of social desirability and employer bias https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18372&r=&r=lma This study examines how professional recruiters evaluate fictitious job applicants with profiles that systematically vary in signals that form ethnocultural identity rather than isolated minority markers. Using a preregistered factorial survey experiment true to recruiters’ organisational context, we assess how greater perceived distance from the ethnocultural majority is associated with hiring intentions. Structural equation modelling shows that lower perceived ethnocultural alignment is strongly and negatively associated with the likelihood of a candidate being considered for a job interview. This bias is also reflected in the extent to which recruiters identify with a candidate, as well as in taste-based expectations and competence assessments related to communication, efficiency, and leadership. Methodologically, we reinforce the credibility of the experimental findings by explicitly addressing socially desirable responses using three complementary approaches. Across all specifications, perceived alignment with the ethnocultural majority emerges as a robust and consistent correlate of hiring intentions. Devos, Louise du Bois, Kristen Baert, Stijn Lippens, Louis factorial survey experiment, social desirability, identity, hiring, discrimination 2026-02 Can workers switch it up? - Organizational forms in the Swedish preschool sector https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2026_004&r=&r=lma The Swedish preschool sector, which is heavily dominated by a female workforce, is marked by low wages and poor health outcomes. Our study shows that preschools’ organizational form is significantly associated with hiring practices, wage-setting, and worker health outcomes. For-profit preschools tend to hire younger, less qualified, and less experienced workers, and pay lower wages even after controlling for observable and unobservable worker characteristics. Non-profit providers hire fewer preschool teachers and younger workers, similarly to the for-profits, but on the other hand tend to hire workers with more experience and higher upper secondary school grades. Wages in non-profits are, on average, higher than in for-profit and municipal preschools. Worker health outcomes are better in non-profit and for-profit preschools compared to municipal preschools. Overall, the results suggest that worker composition, wages and health outcomes differ between employer types. Whether these differences matter for preschool quality is a relevant topic for future research. Edmark, Karin Persson, Lovisa preschool workforce; organizational form; private provision 2026-02-24 Globalization and Temporary Worker Employment in Vietnam https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wes:weswpa:2026-004&r=&r=lma Many concerns surround the continuing globalization of commerce and employment, including the concern that these processes have led to unstable working conditions, including more use of temporary workers. Despite these public fears, the trade literature to date has found little evidence that either exporting or importing leads to hiring a higher share of temporary workers. We analyze whether increased engagement in international trade has led to changes in the use of temporary workers in Vietnam, a country that has recently rapidly integrated into the world economy. Using data from two six-year balanced panels of the Vietnamese Enterprise Survey, covering 2010-2015 and 2017-2022, we utilize propensity score matching techniques to look for the effect of engaging in international trade on labor force composition in the manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and services sectors. We find during both time spans that firms newly engaging in international trade make lower use of temporary workers, both relative to non-traders, and overall, even as they maintain their overall employment and raise their wages. Alicia H. Dang Joyce P. Jacobsen Sooyoung A. Lee Ngoc Q. Pham Vietnam, trade, temporary workers 2026-02 Wage Dispersion, On-the-Job Search, and Stochastic Match Productivity: A Mean Field Game Approach https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18358&r=&r=lma Wage dispersion and job-to-job mobility are central features of modern labour markets, yet canonical equilibrium search models with exogenous job ladders struggle to account for both facts and the magnitude of frictional wage inequality. We develop a continuous-time equilibrium search model in which match surplus follows a diffusion, workers choose on-the-job search and separation, firms post state-contingent wages, and the cross-sectional distribution of match states endogenously pins down outside options and the job ladder. The problem is formulated as a stationary mean field game with a one-dimensional surplus state. We establish existence and uniqueness of stationary equilibrium under standard regularity and monotonicity conditions, and show that separation is governed by a free-boundary rule. Quantitatively, we solve the coupled Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman & Kolmogorov system with monotone finite-difference methods, calibrate the model to micro evidence on match productivity and mobility, and use it to decompose wage dispersion and to study how firing costs, search subsidies, and volatility shape mobility, the job ladder, and the wage distribution. Buhai, Ioan-Sebastian wage dispersion, on-the-job search, job ladders, stochastic match productivity, mean field games 2026-02 Managers and the Cultural Transmission of Gender Norms https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bfi:wpaper:2026-22&r=&r=lma This paper studies how managers’ gender attitudes shape workplace culture and gender inequality. Using data from a multinational firm operating in over 100 countries, we leverage cross-country manager rotations to identify the effects of male managers’ gender attitudes on gender pay gaps within a team. Managers from countries with one standard deviation more progressive gender attitudes reduce the pay gap by 5 percentage points (18%), largely through higher promotion rates for women. These effects persist after managers rotate out and are strongest in more conservative countries. Managers with progressive attitudes also influence the local office culture, as local managers who interact with but are not under the purview of the foreign manager begin to have smaller pay gaps in their teams. Our evidence points to individual managers as critical in shaping corporate culture. Virginia Minni Kieu-Trang Nguyen Heather Sarsons Carla Srebot managers, gender gaps, corporate culture, multinationals 2026 Labor Market Dynamics and Public Assistance Programs: Evidence from an Estimated Model of SNAP Participation. https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18392&r=&r=lma We develop and estimate a dynamic model of household labor supply and SNAP participation that explains two empirical puzzles: incomplete program take-up despite substantial benefits, and minimal employment effects of SNAP work requirements despite the constraints they impose. Our model incorporates detailed program rules, labor market frictions, and heterogeneous participation costs, revealing that eligible households may rationally forgo benefits when facing administrative barriers to participation and uncertain future employment. Exploiting our model estimates, we perform policy experiments finding that more stringent work requirements lead to dramatic reductions in participation (from 10% to 2.3%) without increasing employment levels or participants' self-sufficiency. While more stringent work requirements do not seem to be effective in our population, other policies do. An increase in benefits would lead to better labor market outcomes, while a lower benefit reduction rate would be one of the most effective policies to increase take-up. Abrahams, Scott Flabbi, Luca Mabli, James search and matching, SNAP, work requirements, structural estimation, household labor supply, administrative costs, means-tested programs 2026-03 Local effects of industrial complexes https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:337492&r=&r=lma We examine the local effects of South Korea's large-scale place-based industrial policy of constructing industrial complexes in left-behind regions. We compile a novel dataset on industrial complex designations dating back to the 1960s and link it to administrative establishment surveys. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design, we estimate the causal effects of industrial complex designation on local economic outcomes. We find that industrial complex designation increases aggregate local employment by approximately 15 percent ten years after designation and raises manufacturing output by roughly 40 percent. Employment growth occurs not only in the subsidized manufacturing sector but also in the services and construction sectors, which are not directly targeted by the policy. We find that each additional job in an industrial complex generates 1.3 to 1.9 jobs in the local economy, including the original job, with the 0.3 to 0.9 additional jobs being created primarily in the service sector. Nearly three quarters of the additional manufacturing employment results from the expansion of establishments that existed prior to the construction of the complex. While we find no evidence that industrial complexes increase manufacturing establishments' productivity, they increase investment, consistent with the policy primarily alleviating capital constraints. Palm, Lennart Perl, Maximilian Yesilbayraktar, Ugur place-based policy, industrial policy, migration, South Korea, Korea 2026 How Absolute and Relative Payoffs Shape Dishonesty https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12481&r=&r=lma We examine how absolute and relative gains within reward schemes influence dishonesty. In our online experiment, we vary two payoff dimensions in a cheating mind game: the payoff level and the absolute payoff difference between being successful or not. A higher payoff level has a negative impact on dishonesty, while a greater absolute payoff difference has a positive impact. Variations in these dimensions also affect the relative payoff difference: we observe the largest decrease in dishonesty when moving from the highest to the lowest relative gain. A potential implication is that reward schemes with a reasonable amount from low performance and a relatively small bonus from high performance are least prone to cheating, and this can be achieved in a cost-neutral way. Sarah Necker Benoit Le Maux dishonesty, mind game, cheating, payoffs, incentive schemes, bonus 2026 Historical social tables: advantages, methodology, and problems https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0296&r=&r=lma This paper provides a methodological contribution to the study of historical income inequality by examining the construction and use of social tables for the nineteenth century. In a period when modern household surveys were absent, social tables represent one of the only feasible approaches for providing distributional evidence for the entire population. At the same time, existing studies rely on a wide range of assumptions, classifications, and data treatments, which makes comparisons across countries and over time difficult. The paper reviews the main methodological challenges involved in constructing social tables, including class definitions, within-group inequality, units of analysis, and the external validation of income levels and subsistence benchmarks. Using simulations and historical examples, it shows how alternative methodological choices can generate substantial differences in inequality estimates. It finally proposes a set of guiding principles and template structures aimed at improving comparability, while still preserving the country-specific nature of historical evidence. Philipp Erfurth María Gómez León Giacomo Gabbuti Branko Milanović Inequality, social tables, nineteenth century, global inequality 2026-02 Integration or Isolation? The Impact of Retirement on Social Capital https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18396&r=&r=lma This paper examines the causal impact of retirement on social capital using nationally representative Australian panel data. Exploiting the eligibility age for the Age Pension, we find that retirement significantly enhances social capital by increasing social connectedness and community involvement. These gains improve physical and mental health, with effects comparable to those of physical activity. However, older individuals’ perceptions of social relationships remain unchanged. Our findings highlight a key policy trade-off: while raising the retirement age may boost labor force participation, it may reduce opportunities for meaningful social engagement and, in turn, undermine the health of older adults. Atalay, Kadir Staneva, Anita Zhu, Rong retirement, social capital, hHealth, public pension 2026-03 Technological Change, Labour Markets and Family Behaviours in Sweden https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2026-5&r=&r=lma This study examines whether long-term structural labour market change, driven by industrial robotization, has influenced family formation and union stability in Sweden. Linking Swedish population register data (1994–2017) with sector-level measures of robot penetration, we analyse transitions into first marriage, first, second, and third births, and divorce. We distinguish between current exposure to robotization among employed workers and residual exposure among individuals who exited employment in robotizing sectors. Event-history models are complemented by an instrumental-variable approach that exploits cross-national variation in robot adoption to strengthen causal interpretation. On average, we find only weak associations between robotization and family transitions. However, substantial heterogeneity emerges by educational attainment. Among low- and medium-educated women and men, higher exposure to automation is linked to lower birth risks, weaker marriage formation, and higher divorce risks. In contrast, highly educated individuals experience neutral or positive associations between automation and family formation, alongside greater union stability. We conclude that the aggregate contribution of structural labour market change caused by industrial automation to Sweden’s post-recession fertility decline appears limited, automation contributes to widening educational disparities in family trajectories and reinforces cumulative disadvantage across labour market and family domains. Anna Matysiak Linus Andersson Wojciech Hardy labour market, technology, industrial robots, family, fertility 2026 State and Local Tax Policy in a Time of Telework https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12422&r=&r=lma The taxing authority of subnational governments is limited by the geographic location of individuals and economic activity. The rise of telework decouples a worker's residence from the employer's location, creating challenges for personal income taxes, corporate income taxes, and unemployment insurance. Using Census data, we show that teleworkers are more likely than non-teleworkers to move interstate and realize larger reductions in their state tax burdens from a move. Motivated by this evidence, we evaluate alternative principles for sourcing labor income to the state of residence, the employer, or work and discuss how remote work reshapes subnational tax bases. David R. Agrawal Xinyu Chen telework, work-from-home, income tax, sales tax, property tax, sourcing rules, migration 2026 Overconfidence, Knowledge of the Retirement Income System, and Retirement Planning https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:22&r=&r=lma Previous research shows that the level of confidence in one’s financial ability is important for decision-making, especially in the realm of retirement planning. We expand on this literature by using survey responses to objective and subjective measures of financial literacy and retirement knowledge. We find that even though overconfident individuals are more likely to state that they have a retirement plan, they are less likely to have registered retirement savings, and when they do, they hold lower balances. Our findings highlight a potential mechanism in which overconfidence in one’s knowledge of the retirement system raises expected income replacement rates, which—consistent with a standard consumption–saving model—reduces private saving. Overconfident individuals also have biased inflation perceptions but take fewer protective actions to mitigate the effect of inflation. Finally, we find that overconfident individuals decrease their scores with repeated participation in different waves of the survey. These results suggest that calibrating confidence about one’s knowledge of the retirement system and of macroeconomic factors may be important for improving private retirement saving. Philippe d’Astous Franca Glenzer Overconfidence, Financial literacy, Retirement, Inflation 2026 (Male) wages in Switzerland, 1750-1860 https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:486&r=&r=lma We estimate daily wage rates for skilled and unskilled construction workers and agricultural laborers in Switzerland from 1750 to 1860, a period of profound political and economic transformations. Our analysis is based on 17, 700 newly collected wage quotes from primary sources and 23, 300 price quotes from primary and secondary sources. We find that wages and prices were remarkably similar among different Swiss regions. We therefore construct price and wage series for the entire territory. Nominal wages remained largely unchanged during the second half of the eighteenth century, rose markedly around 1800 and then held at that level until 1850. Real wages stagnated as a result of rising price levels. Contrary to earlier claims of low Swiss wages, wages in the construction sector were similar to those in neighboring European regions, in particular France and Germany. We quantify the uncertainty in our wage estimates that arises from sampling uncertainty and potentially undocumented in-kind benefits. Michael Baltensperger Cédric Chambru Jakob Metzler Ulrich Woitek Real wages, consumer price index, standards of living, Switzerland, 18th Century, 19th century 2026-02 Fertility and Family Leave Policies in Germany: Optimal Policy Design in a Dynamic FrameworK https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12416&r=&r=lma I develop and estimate a life-cycle discrete-choice model of fertility and female labor supply to study the optimal design of a range of child-related policies. First, I examine two German reforms that introduced wage-contingent parental leave payments and expanded access to low-cost public childcare. I find that both reforms raised completed fertility, with the parental leave reform having a particularly strong impact on highly educated women. Second, I solve for a budget-neutral optimal policy portfolio that maximizes either aggregate welfare or fertility, while ensuring that welfare and fertility do not decline for any education group. I consider four prominent child subsidies as well as the degree of tax jointness. My results show that optimal policy has the potential to increase welfare by 0.5% or fertility by 5.7%. While the solutions are qualitatively similar, they prioritize different policy instruments depending on the specific objective being targeted. Hanna Wang fertility, parental leave, childcare subsidies, optimal policy 2026 Fundamentally reforming the DI system: Evidence from Germany https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:337485&r=&r=lma In 2001, Germany abolished public occupational disability insurance (ODI)-the second tier of its public DI system-for cohorts born after 1960. Using administrative data, we first document that, in the long run, overall DI inflows declined by roughly one-third. Second, using representative survey data, we document at best modest ODI insurance take-up responses in the private individual, risk-rated market, which lacks guaranteed issue. Third, an equilibrium model incorporating interactions between the public safety net, the first-tier public DI, and the private market reveals that coverage denials and weak insurance demand, driven by complementary social insurance, can explain the modest private ODI take-up response. Coverage gradients by income and health are thus substantial. Finally, counterfactual simulations highlight the limited scope of incremental reforms. Cao, Yaming Fischer-Weckemann, Björn Geyer, Johannes Ziebarth, Nicolas R. occupational disability insurance, individual private DI, coverage denials, risk rating, private information, adverse selection, social safety net 2026