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on Microeconomic European Issues |
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Issue of 2022‒10‒10
29 papers chosen by Giuseppe Marotta Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia |
| By: | Gabriel, José Mesquita; dos Santos, João Pereira; Tavares, José |
| Abstract: | Expanding regional eligibility in the access to grants can have important consequences for the performance of firms. We examine a quasi-natural experiment that consisted of a redrawing of administrative areas intended to increase accessibility to European Union (EU) funds using a rich administrative dataset that covers the universe of Portuguese private firms between 2003 and 2010. Our results uncover a positive causal impact of increased eligibility on firms' sales. In contrast, employment and labour productivity do not seem to be significantly impacted by the reform. The effects are heterogeneous: while sales of firms in the services and non-tradable sectors are positively impacted, sales of firms in more competitive sectors are not affected. |
| Keywords: | Grants,regional policy,private firm,municipalities,Portugal |
| JEL: | C21 R10 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:rwirep:966&r= |
| By: | Emanuela Ghignoni Vincenzo Salvucci; Marilena Giannetti; Vincenzo Salvucci |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the evolution of wage gaps in Italy by gender and citizenship. Using Labour Force Survey (LFS) data over the period 2009-2020 we apply two different matching comparison methodologies, the Nopo decomposition and the Inverse Probability Weighted Regression Adjustment (IPWRA) technique, that allow "like for like" comparisons between individuals and are able to take into account how gender interacts with citizenship in shaping wages. Our findings show that the general gender wage gap in Italy is rather low This gap is largely explained by workers' observable characteristics. Conversely, the citizenship wage gap appears to be much larger. Moreover, most of the reported wage gaps seem to be explained by unobservable characteristics. We finally estimate the double-negative effect of being both a woman and a foreigner. Non-Italian women earned on average 44.3% per hour less than Italian men in 2009 and 46.5% less than Italian men in 2020. |
| Keywords: | Gender wage gap; Immigrant/Native wage gap; Double discrimination; Matching; Inverse Probability Regression Adjustment Estimator |
| JEL: | J16 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp225&r= |
| By: | Drechsel-Grau, Moritz (University of Zurich); Peichl, Andreas (ifo Institute and LMU Munich); Schmieder, Johannes (Boston University); Schmid, Kai D. (Heilbronn University of Applied Sciences); Walz, Hannes (FAU and IAB); Wolter, Stefanie (IAB) |
| Abstract: | We provide a comprehensive analysis of income inequality and income dynamics for Germany over the last two decades. Combining personal income tax and social security data allows us – for the first time – to offer a complete picture of the distribution of annual earnings in Germany. We find that cross-sectional inequality rose until 2009 for men and women. After the Great Recession inequality continued to rise at a slower rate for men and fell slightly for women due to compression at the lower tail. We further document substantial gender differences in average earnings and inequality over the life-cycle. While for men earnings rise and inequality falls as they grow older, many women reduce working hours when starting a family such that average earnings fall and inequality increases. Men’s earnings changes are on average smaller than women’s but are substantially more affected by the business cycle. During the Great Recession, men’s earnings losses become magnified and gains are attenuated. Apart from recession years, earnings changes are significantly right-skewed reflecting the good overall state of the German labor market and increasing labor supply. In the second part of the paper, we study the distribution of total income including incomes of self-employed, business owners, and landlords. We find that total inequality increased significantly more than earnings inequality. Regarding income dynamics, entrepreneurs’ income changes are more dispersed, less skewed, less leptokurtic and less dependent on average past income than workers’ income changes. Finally, we find that top income earners have become less likely to fall out of the top 1 and 0.1 percent. |
| Keywords: | inequality; income dynamics; mobility; non-labor income; |
| JEL: | D31 E24 E31 J31 |
| Date: | 2022–03–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:321&r= |
| By: | Filippo Maria D’Arcangelo (OECD); Giulia Pavan (Compass Lexecon); Sara Calligaris |
| Abstract: | The European Union Emissions Trading System has raised concerns about possible detrimental effects on firms production through an increase in polluting costs, unless firms change inputs or increase the efficiency in the way they produce. We provide evidence of the causal impact of this policy on firms’ input choices and on total factor productivity on Italian manufacturing firms. Our empirical strategy combines structural estimation of firms’ production function and techniques for policy evaluation. Moreover, we argue that a commonly used strategy in this literature, consisting in using propensity score matching on the productivity obtained from estimating the production function, does not provide valid inference. We rely instead on an innovative structural approach. We find that the policy has a small negative effect on productivity that is heterogeneous across industries. We show that these findings are consistent with firms switching fuels in production, rather than undergoing a substantial process change. |
| Keywords: | Emission trading, EU ETS, Environmental Policy, Manufacturing, Productivity, Production Function |
| JEL: | Q58 L23 L26 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fem:femwpa:2022.24&r= |
| By: | Alena Bicakova; Klara Kaliskova |
| Abstract: | We study the impact of an extension of paid family leave from 3 to 4 years on child long-term outcomes. Using a difference-in-differences design and comparing the first-affected with the last-unaffected cohorts of children, we find that an additional year of maternal care at the age of 3, which primarily crowded out enrollment into public kindergartens, had an adverse effect for children of loweducated mothers on human capital investments and labor-market attachment in early adulthood. The affected children were 12 p.p. more likely not to be in education, employment, or training (NEET) at the age of 21-22. The impact on daughters was larger and driven by a lower probability of attending college and higher probability of home production. Sons of low-educated mothers, on the other hand, were less likely to be employed. The results suggest that exposure to formal childcare may be more beneficial than all-day maternal care at the age of 3, especially for children with a lower socio-economic background. |
| Keywords: | family leave; maternal care; subsidized childcare; child outcomes; human capital; labor-market attachment; |
| JEL: | J13 J18 J21 J24 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cer:papers:wp732&r= |
| By: | Andrea Albanesea; Bart Cockx; Muriel Dejemeppe (-) |
| Abstract: | We use (donut) regression discontinuity design and difference-in-differences estimators to estimate the impact of a one-shot hiring subsidy targeted at low-educated unemployed youths during the Great Recession recovery in Belgium. The subsidy increases job-finding in the private sector by 10 percentage points within one year of unemployment. Six years later, high school graduates accumulated 2.8 quarters more private employment. However, because they substitute private for public and self-employment, overall employment does not increase but is still better paid. For high school dropouts, no persistent gains emerge. Moreover, the neighboring attraction pole of Luxembourg induces a complete deadweight near the border. |
| Keywords: | Hiring subsidies, youth unemployment, cross-border employment, regression, discontinuity design, difference-in-differences, spillover effects, displacement |
| JEL: | C21 J08 J23 J24 J64 J68 J61 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:22/1053&r= |
| By: | Dobbelaere, Sabien; Hirsch, Boris; Müller, Steffen; Neuschäffer, Georg |
| Abstract: | This paper examines how collective bargaining through unions and workplace codetermination through works councils shape labour market imperfections and how labour market imperfections matter for employer wage premia. Based on representative German plant data for the years 1999-2016, we document that employer monopsony involving below competitive wages is far more prevalent than the contrary worker monopoly. We further find a smaller prevalence and intensity of employer monopsony when unions or works councils are present and the opposite for worker monopoly. Finally, we document a close link between labour market imperfections and employer wage premia. The presence and intensity of employer monopsony are associated with a lower level and larger dispersion of premia, whereas more intense worker monopoly is accompanied by a higher level only. |
| Keywords: | collective wage agreements,employer monopsony,employer wage premia,worker monopoly,works councils |
| JEL: | D22 J31 J42 J50 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:202022&r= |
| By: | Peeters, Thomas (Erasmus University Rotterdam); van Ours, Jan C. (Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Abstract: | We investigate whether national borders within Europe hinder the assortative matching of workers to firms in a high skilled labor market. We characterize worker productivity as the ability to contribute to physical output and define firm productivity as the capacity to transform physical output into revenues. We rank workers and firms according to their individual productivity estimates and study the ensuing rank correlation to gauge the degree of assortative matching within and across countries. We find strong evidence for positive assortative matching at the national level, and even more so at the international level. This suggests national borders do not prevent workers and firm from pursuing profitable complementarities in production. |
| Keywords: | assortative matching, international worker mobility, football managers |
| JEL: | M51 J63 J24 Z22 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15521&r= |
| By: | Catarina Branco; Dirk C. Dohse; João Pereira Santos; José Tavares |
| Abstract: | This paper uses micro-level data encompassing the universe of Portuguese private firms for the period 2006-2016 to analyse the effect of the introduction of tolls on previously toll-free highways. To establish causality, we rely on a natural experiment which resulted from Portuguese authorities being forced to in- crease these transportation costs in some highways during the sovereign debt crisis. Difference-in-differences results show a 10.7% decrease of turnover in firms located in affected municipalities vis-Ã -vis firms in the remaining areas, on average. Firm profits were also severely hit and reduced by more than 15%. Both sales and purchases to/from the internal market and abroad (especially to/from EU countries) were affected. Furthermore, employment reduced 2% in treated areas. Importantly, our findings do not uncover induced inter-regional firm migration, suggesting that the tolls have induced a substantial net loss to the Portuguese economy. |
| Keywords: | Road tolls, Turnover, Expenses, Value Added, Exports, Imports, Competitiveness, Portugal |
| JEL: | R48 L25 R12 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mde:wpaper:0167&r= |
| By: | Lergetporer, Philipp (TU Munich and ifo Institute); Woessmann, Ludger (LMU Munich and ifo Institute) |
| Abstract: | We show that the electorate’s preferences for using tuition to finance higher education strongly depend on the design of the payment scheme. In representative surveys of the German electorate (N>18,000), experimentally replacing regular upfront by deferred income-contingent payments increases public support for tuition by 18 percentage points. The treatment turns a plurality opposed to tuition into a strong majority of 62 percent in favor. Additional experiments reveal that the treatment effect similarly shows when framed as loan repayments, when answers carry political consequences, and in a survey of adolescents. Reduced fairness concerns and improved student situations act as strong mediators. |
| Keywords: | tuition; higher education finance; income-contingent loans; voting; |
| JEL: | H52 I22 D72 |
| Date: | 2022–01–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:311&r= |
| By: | Maciej Albinowski; Piotr Lewandowski |
| Abstract: | We study the age- and gender-specific labour market effects of two key modern technologies – Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and robots – in 14 European countries between 2010-2018. To identify the causal effects of technology adoption, we utilize the variation of technology adoption between industries and apply the instrumental variables strategy proposed by Acemoglu and Restrepo (2020). We find that the adoption of ICT and robots increased the shares of young and prime-aged women in employment and wage bill of particular sectors, but reduced the shares of older women and prime-aged men. The negative effects were particularly pronounced for older women in cognitive occupations – who tend to have low ICT-related skills – and for young men in routine manual occupations who experienced substitution by robots. Between 2010 and 2018, the growth of ICT capital played a visibly larger role than robot adoption in explaining changes in labour market outcomes of demographic groups. |
| Keywords: | technological change, labour market outcomes, demographic groups, Europe |
| JEL: | J24 O33 J23 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ibt:wpaper:wp042022&r= |
| By: | Arold, Benjamin W. (ifo Institute and LMU Munich); Woessmann, Ludger (ifo Institute and LMU Munich); Zierow, Larissa (ifo Institute and LMU Munich) |
| Abstract: | We study whether compulsory religious education in schools affects students’ religiosity as adults. We exploit the staggered termination of compulsory religious education across German states in models with state and cohort fixed effects. Using three different datasets, we find that abolishing compulsory religious education significantly reduced religiosity of affected students in adulthood. It also reduced the religious actions of personal prayer, church-going, and church membership. Beyond religious attitudes, the reform led to more equalized gender roles, fewer marriages and children, and higher labor-market participation and earnings. The reform did not affect ethical and political values or non-religious school outcomes. |
| Keywords: | religious education; religiosity; school reforms; |
| JEL: | Z12 I28 H75 |
| Date: | 2022–01–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rco:dpaper:309&r= |
| By: | Bonev, Petyo; Soederberg, Magnus; Unternährer, Maria |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the effect of working from home on waste generated by individuals both at and away from their homes. To that end, we collect a unique dataset that matches administrative household-level waste data from Sweden with survey data on how many hours individuals work from home. A novel identification approach allows us to link waste generated away from home to the choice of location of work. Our results suggest that working from home reduces organic and residual waste by 20% and 12%, respectively. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Policy, Working from home, Waste |
| JEL: | D12 O33 Q53 Q58 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usg:econwp:2022:10&r= |
| By: | Sylvain Chareyron (ERUDITE - Equipe de Recherche sur l’Utilisation des Données Individuelles en lien avec la Théorie Economique - UPEC UP12 - Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 - Université Gustave Eiffel, TEPP - Travail, Emploi et Politiques Publiques - UPEM - Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Florence Goffette-Nagot (GATE Lyon Saint-Étienne - Groupe d'analyse et de théorie économique - ENS Lyon - École normale supérieure - Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UCBL - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet [Saint-Étienne] - Université de Lyon - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Lucie Letrouit (AME-SPLOTT - Systèmes Productifs, Logistique, Organisation des Transports et Travail - Université Gustave Eiffel) |
| Abstract: | We contribute to the evaluation of urban renewal policies based on a large-scale program launched in France in 2004. Using an estimator aimed at avoiding bias in the estimation of treatment effects that are heterogeneous across treatment groups or time periods, and complementing its results with a more precise double fixed effects difference-indifferences estimator, we find no significant aggregate impact of the program on housing prices. We identify four dampening factors that can explain this lack of aggregate impact: a sometimes insufficient level of funding per neighborhood, a stigma effect in the most deprived neighborhoods, the isolation of some neighborhoods located far from city centers, and the concentration of the program's funding on types of operations associated with small impacts on housing prices. |
| Keywords: | Place-based policies,urban renewal,housing prices,housing spillovers,differencein-differences |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-03753046&r= |
| By: | Luca De Angelis (Department of Economics, University of Bologna); J. James Reade (Department of Economics, University of Reading) |
| Abstract: | Several recent studies suggest that the home advantage, that is, the benefit competitors accrue from performing in familiar surroundings, was — at least temporarily — reduced in games played without spectators during the COVID-19 Pandemic. These games played without fans during the Pandemic have been dubbed ‘ghost games’. However, the majority of the research to date focuses on soccer and no contributions have been provided for indoor sports, where the effect of the support of the fans might have a stronger impact than in outdoor arenas. In this paper, we fill this gap by investigating the effect of ghost games in basketball. In particular, we test (i) for the reduction of the home advantage in basketball, (ii) whether such reduction tends to disappear over time, (iii) if the bookmakers promptly adapt to such structural change or whether mispricing was created on the betting market. The results from a large data set covering all seasons since 2004 for the ten most popular basketball leagues in Europe show an overall significant reduction of the home advantage of around 5% and no evidence that suggests that this effect has been reduced at as teams became more accustomed to playing without fans. At the same time, bookmakers appear to have anticipated such an effect and priced home wins in basketball matches accordingly, thus avoiding any mispricing on betting markets. |
| Keywords: | Sports forecasting, Market efficiency, Home advantage, Betting markets, COVID-19 |
| JEL: | Z2 |
| Date: | 2022–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2022-01&r= |
| By: | Sarah Cattan (Institute for Fiscal Studies); Kjell Salvanes (Norges Handelshøyskole); Emma Tominey (University of York) |
| Abstract: | Intergenerational persistence in studying for elite education is high across the world. We study the role that exposure to high school peers from elite educated families (`elite peers') plays in driving such a phenomenon in Norway. Using register data on ten cohorts of high school students and exploiting within school, between cohort variation, we identify the causal impact of elite peers on the probability of enrolling in elite education for students from different socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds. We show that exposure to elite peers in high school does drive enrolment into elite degree programmes, but the effect for low SES students is a third of the size than for high SES students. We explore mechanisms behind this pattern – finding that elite peers have a complex effect on students’ GPA which is a key part of the story. Elite peers increase the effort of both low and high SES students, but they also push the rank of other students down and trigger a change in teacher behaviour which disadvantages low SES students. To quantify the contribution of this mechanism, we perform a causal mediation analysis exploiting a lottery in the assessment system in Norway to instrument GPA. We find that the indirect effect of elite peers on enrolment through GPA explains just less than half of the total peer effect. Our concluding analysis shows that elite peers in high school raises intergenerational mobility for poor students, but increases persistence for rich students, thereby simultaneously facilitating first generation elite whilst contributing to the high intergenerational persistence at the top of the education and income distribution. |
| Keywords: | peers, elite university, subject choice, social mobility, teacher bias |
| JEL: | I24 J24 J62 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2022-028&r= |
| By: | Mertens, Matthias; Müller, Steffen; Neuschäffer, Georg |
| Abstract: | We present causal evidence on the rent-sharing elasticity of German manufacturing firms. We develop a new firm-level Bartik instrument for firm rents that combines the firms' predetermined energy input mix with national energy carrier price changes. Reduced-form evidence shows that higher energy prices depress wages. Instrumental variable estimation yields a rent-sharing elasticity of approximately 0.20. Rent-sharing induced by energy price variation is asymmetric and driven by energy price increases, implying that workers do not benefit from energy price reductions but are harmed by price increases. The rent-sharing elasticity is substantially larger in small (0.26) than in large (0.17) firms. |
| Keywords: | Bartik instrument,energy prices,rent-sharing,wage inequality |
| JEL: | C26 J30 P18 |
| Date: | 2022 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:iwhdps:192022&r= |
| By: | Marco Guerzoni; Massimiliano Nuccio; Federico Tamagni |
| Abstract: | Innovation studies have largely recognized the role of knowledge in fostering innovation and growth of entrants. Previous literature has focused on entrepreneurial and managerial capabilities and education and knowledge incorporated in material and immaterial resources. We assume that new firms need to possess different pieces of knowledge, but beyond diversity, business performance relies also on knowledge distinctiveness. In other words, the complexity of a knowledge base is not simply the recombination of homogeneous pieces of knowledge but it also depends on the specific nature of each of them. This paper develops a new complexity indicator able to capture the complexity of the knowledge base by applying a topic modeling approach to the analysis of patent text. We explore the empirical relation between pre-entry complexity of knowledge, as measured by our complexity index, and post-entry growth performance of a sample of Italian firms entering the market in 2009-2011, which we then follow over the period 2012-2021. Baseline results show a significant and positive association between knowledge complexity and growth, even after controlling for firm characteristics and year, sector and region fixed-effects. Robustness analysis reveal this positive effect is stronger in the medium-long run while relatively weaker for innovative SMEs. |
| Keywords: | pre-entry knowledge base; complexity; text analysis; patents; firm growth; post-entry performance. |
| Date: | 2022–09–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2022/25&r= |
| By: | José De Sousa; Muriel Niederle |
| Abstract: | The introduction of a quota in the French chess Club Championship in 1990, an activity many players engage in next to playing in individual tournaments, provides a quite unique environment to study its effects on three levels. We find that women selected by the quota improve their performance. We show large spillover and trickle-down effects: There are more and better qualified women. International comparisons confirm that the results are unique to France and that there are no substantial adverse effects on French male players. We discuss the properties of this quota and how to implement it in other environments. |
| JEL: | J16 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30367&r= |
| By: | Martins, Pedro S. (Nova School of Business and Economics); Thomas, Jonathan P. (University of Edinburgh) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a new model of firms' decisions on training in a context of potential worker mobility. Such worker mobility can be influenced by employers coordination, namely through the operation of no-poach agreements and employers' associations (EAs). We then present supporting evidence from rich matched panel data, including firms' EA affiliation and workers' training levels. We find that workers' mobility between firms in the same EA is considerably lower than mobility between equivalent firms not in the same EA. We also find that training provision by EA firms is considerably higher. |
| Keywords: | employers organisations, no-poach agreements, worker mobility |
| JEL: | J53 J62 L40 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15488&r= |
| By: | Mauro Mastrogiacomo; Yue Li; Rik Dillingh |
| Abstract: | We show heterogenous displacement effects of mandatory occupational pension savings on private household wealth for different groups. This contributes to explaining why empirical studies often come with different estimates of this effect. We study the case of the Netherlands, where wage employed and self-employed are differently exposed to compulsory pension savings, and the institutional setting provides exogenous variation in pension wealth that can be used as instrument in the analysis. We use rich administrative data on (pension) wealth and income combined for the first time to supervisory data of pension funds. Our results show a displacement effect of -31% for wage employed and of -61% for self-employed. The higher displacement effect we find for self-employed might be explained by the fact that self-employed are arguably more aware of their pension accrual, or lack thereof, because there is no employer who pays their pension premiums or adds an employer contribution. |
| Keywords: | Displacement effect; pension wealth; savings |
| JEL: | D14 H31 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:747&r= |
| By: | Elena Dalla Chiara; Federico Perali |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:awm:wpaper:6&r= |
| By: | Mauro Mastrogiacomo; Cindy Biesenbeek |
| Abstract: | Investing in housing could be an attractive alternative to privately saving for a pension, definitely so for those who are not obliged to save for an occupational pension, the self-employed for instance. But access to the housing market requires a down payment. Macroprudential measures, such as loan to value (LTV) norms could hamper access to the housing market for young buyers and require additional saving for this purpose. We study the effect of the introduction and sharpening of the LTV limit in The Netherlands on the probability of self-employed and wage employed to become homeowners. We construct a treatment and control group using parental wealth as a proxy for being liquidity constrained. We show that during the period in which the LTV limit was introduced, self-employed were 47% less likely to purchase their first home, relative to wage employed and relative to periods without LTV being limited. However we show that this was not caused by lowering the LTV limit, but by contemporaneous cofounding factors. Sharpening the LTV limit has not reduced the probability to become home owners for self-employed. We also show some evidence suggesting that their status put self-employed workers at a disadvantage when the policy was enacted, possibly inducing dynamic selection out of self-employment. |
| Keywords: | LTV limit; self-employed pension savings |
| JEL: | G51 R21 |
| Date: | 2022–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:746&r= |
| By: | Jessica Birkholz |
| Abstract: | This study explores the regional innovation system characteristics that build the basis for the regional absorptive capacity of entrepreneurial knowledge. Regionalized patent data is combined with firm level and regional information for German regions over the period 1995 until 2015. Network analysis is applied to identify regional innovation system characteristics on three different layers: 1) cooperation between incumbent firms, 2) learning regimes, and 3) the technological knowledge base. Random forest analyses on basis of conditional inference classification trees are used to identify the most important characteristics for the regional absorption of entrepreneurial knowledge in general and on different efficiency levels. It is shown that characteristics on all three layers impact the regional absorption of entrepreneurial knowledge. Further, the direction and magnitude of the effect regional innovation system characteristics have on the regional knowledge absorption vary across different levels of absorption rates. It is concluded that for a successful implementation of policies to increase the impact of entrepreneurial knowledge on regional development, the regional innovation system needs to be monitored and adapted continuously. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, Regional absorptive capacity, Smart specialization |
| JEL: | L26 O33 D85 |
| Date: | 2022–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:atv:wpaper:2205&r= |
| By: | Hintermann, Beat (University of Basel); Thommen, Christoph |
| Abstract: | Using data from a field experiment, we provide estimates for the own-price elasticity of train travel in Switzerland. Our estimates are based on exogenous changes to the level of discounts for long-distance trains and thus avoid the usual endogeneity problem between demand-dependent discounts. Besides the price, we also vary the length of the pre-sale period during the experiment, which allows us to recover the relative effectiveness of pricing and timing measures. We compute own-price elasticities of around -0.7. Extending the pre-sale deadline by one hour leads to an increase in the pre-sale of discount tickets by 2.1%, which is equivalent to a price decrease by 3.1%. Reducing the price by 10% causes customers to purchase the discount ticket 7 hours earlier. Our results help design measures for peak-shifting in transport at least societal cost. |
| Keywords: | Field Experiments, Public Transport Systems, Train, Dynamic Pricing, Switzerland |
| JEL: | L92 R41 L11 C93 |
| Date: | 2022–07–15 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bsl:wpaper:2022/05&r= |
| By: | Andrea F.M. Martinangeli; Biljana Meiske |
| Abstract: | The transmission of adaptively valuable behaviours requires successful individuals to exert greater influence on others’ actions. Hierarchical social organisations ease the recognition of successful, higher ranked individuals in a group, and hence facilitate this process. We investigate whether purely monetary rank, defined exclusively in terms of the amount of resources held by an individual, is capable, in isolation of any other intervening mechanism, to grant greater influence over others’ choices. Among a representative sample of the German population, we find that high monetary rank grants individuals greater influence over others’ actions. |
| Keywords: | Inequality status social influence ability |
| JEL: | C91 D02 D31 |
| Date: | 2022–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mpi:wpaper:tax-mpg-rps-2022-08&r= |
| By: | Braakmann, Nils (Newcastle University); Chevalier, Arnaud (Royal Holloway, University of London); Wilson, Tanya (University of Glasgow) |
| Abstract: | We provide first evidence that temporal variations in the expected returns to crime affect the location of property crime. Our identification strategy relies on the widely-held perception in the UK that households of South Asian descent store gold jewellery at home. Price movements on the international market for gold exogenously affect the expected gains from burgling these households, which become relatively more lucrative targets as the gold price increases. Using a neighbourhood-level panel on reported crime and difference-in-differences, we find that burglaries in South Asian neighbourhoods are more sensitive to variations in the gold price than other neighbourhoods in the same municipality, confirming that burglars react rationally to variations in the expected returns to their activities. We conduct a battery of tests on neighbourhood and individual data to eliminate alternative explanations. |
| Keywords: | crime, gold prices, returns to crime, Becker-model, optimal foraging theory, criminal behaviour, crime location |
| JEL: | K42 J19 |
| Date: | 2022–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp15520&r= |
| By: | Francesco Zezza; Dario Guarascio |
| Abstract: | This work analyses the regional impact of public investments focusing on three domains that are key for the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP): green, digital and education/knowledge. Relying on a unique database ('Conti Pubblici Territoriali'), we perform a P-SVAR model showing that fiscal policy shocks have positive and long-lasting effects on GDP and private investments. A relevant heterogeneity is detected, though. In particular, shocks to digital spending only timidly crowd-in private investment while a stronger effect is found concerning the green sector. Second, public investments have a significant impact on regions' ‘structural upgrading’, i.e., export competitiveness and share of high-tech manufacturing. Third, confirming previous findings, shocks to public spending are found to have larger effects in centre-north regions, in terms of both GDP and private investments. Nevertheless, public spending turns out to have a stronger structural effect in the south than in the centre-north, highlighting the relevant role that the NRRP may play in reducing the Italian north-south divide |
| Keywords: | Fiscal multipliers; Panel SVAR; Italian regions; North-South divide |
| JEL: | C33 E62 H70 R58 |
| Date: | 2022–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sap:wpaper:wp226&r= |
| By: | Sara Colella (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Frédéric Dufourt (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Vincent A Hildebrand (York University [Toronto], Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto); Rémi Vivès (York University [Toronto]) |
| Abstract: | We derive a mental health indicator measuring the frequency of words expressing anger, anxiety and sadness from a fixed population of Twitter users located in France. During the first COVID-19 lockdown, our indicator did not reveal a statistically significant mental health response, while the second lockdown triggered a sharp and persistent deterioration in all three emotions. In addition, DID and event study estimates show a more severe mental health deterioration among women and younger users during the second lockdown. Our results suggest that successive stay-at-home orders significantly worsen mental health across a large segment of the population. |
| Keywords: | COVID-19,lockdown,mental health,Twitter data,well-being |
| Date: | 2022–07–27 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03740701&r= |