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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Venhorst V.; Cörvers F. (ROA) |
| Abstract: | We estimate the impact of spatial mobility on job match quality by using a data set of recent Dutch university and college graduates We find positive wage returns related to spatial mobility. However, after controlling for the self-selection of migrants with an IV approach, this effect is no longer significant. We also find that, for our alternative job-match measures, where there is evidence of migrant self-selection, controlling for self-selection strongly reduces the effect of spatial mobility on job match quality. In some cases, the returns on spatial mobility are found to be negative, which may signal forced spatial mobility. |
| Keywords: | Education and Inequality; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics; |
| JEL: | I24 J24 J31 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2015003&r=lab |
| By: | Fitzenberger, Bernd; Licklederer, Stefanie; Zwiener, Hanna |
| Abstract: | Distinguishing carefully between mobility across firms and across occupations, this study provides causal estimates of the wage effects of mobility among graduates from apprenticeship in Germany. Our instrumental variables approach exploits variation in regional labor market characteristics. Pure firm changes and occupation-and-job changes after graduation from apprenticeship result in average wage losses, whereas an occupation change within the training firm results in persistent wage gains. For the majority of cases a change of occupation involves a career progression. In contrast, for job switches the wage loss dominates. |
| Keywords: | Apprenticeship Training,Job Mobility,Occupational Mobility,Wages |
| JEL: | J62 J24 J30 J31 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:15022&r=lab |
| By: | Nekoei, Arash; Weber, Andrea |
| Abstract: | Contrary to standard search model predictions, prior studies failed to estimate a positive effect of unemployment insurance (UI) on reemployment wages. This paper estimates a positive UI wage effect exploiting an age-based regression discontinuity in Austrian administrative data. A search model incorporating duration dependence determines the UI wage effect as the balance between two offsetting forces: UI causes agents to seek higher-wage jobs, but also reduces wages by lengthening unemployment. This implies a negative relationship between the UI unemployment duration and wage effects, which holds empirically both in our sample and across studies, reconciling disparate wage-effect estimates. Empirically, UI raises wages by improving reemployment firms’ quality and attenuating wage drops. |
| Keywords: | job search; regression discontinuity design; unemployment insurance; wages |
| JEL: | H5 J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10568&r=lab |
| By: | Määttänen, Niku; Salminen, Tomi |
| Abstract: | We consider a reform that would replace the current Finnish unemployment insurance (UI) scheme with individual unemployment accounts. The reform would provide additional pensions for individuals who end up with a positive account balance at retirement age without restricting unemployment benefits relative to the current system. At the same time, the reform is likely to improve labour supply incentives, at least for some individuals. The question is whether such a reform would be self-financing. The fiscal effects of the reform depend crucially on the distribution of lifetime unemployment and the extent to which the reform would increase labour supply. We use a micro panel comprising a representative sample of 1/3 of the Finnish population and covering the period 1988-2010 to estimate the distribution of lifetime unemployment and to simulate how the unemployment accounts would evolve. We assume that the reform improves labour supply incentives only via the extensive margin and find that it is likely to be self-financing if the labour supply elasticity at the extensive margin is about 0.16 or higher. We also experiment with integrating UI with the pension system. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance, unemployment accounts, lifetime unemployment |
| JEL: | H53 H55 J65 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rif:wpaper:29&r=lab |
| By: | Etienne Lalé |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the secular behavior of worker reallocation across occupations in the US labor market. In the empirical analysis, we use 45 years of microdata to construct consistent time-series and document that the fraction of employment reallocated annually across occupations is remarkably stable in the long run. We go beyond description and use an equilibrium model to uncover potential changes in the factors that affect worker reallocation, namely productivity shocks and mobility costs. We uncover their joint evolution by deriving a simple mapping between data and the model. We find little changes overall, except in the period surrounding the Great Recession where both the volatility of productivity shocks and the cost of switching occupations are found to increase. |
| Keywords: | Occupations, Reallocation, Wages, Equilibrium Search. |
| JEL: | E24 J21 J31 J62 |
| Date: | 2015–05–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:15/657&r=lab |
| By: | Gehringer, Agnieszka; Klasen, Stephan |
| Abstract: | We empirically study the role of different family policies in determining women´s labor market behavior in the countries of the European Union between 1997 and 2008. Women tend to assume more family duties than men and, consequently, often participate less in the labor market. At the same time, family policies are to provide support to families while also helping women to reconcile family duties with labor market participation. Their impact, however, is not clear, especially when it comes to different forms of labor market activity. We use a static and dynamic panel econometric framework examining the link between four types of family policies and labor force participation and (part-time and full-time) employment. The results suggest no stable significant impact of any on overall labor force, but higher spending on family allowance, cash benefits daycare benefits appears to promote part-time employment, whereas only spending on parental leave schemes is a significant determinant of women's full-time employment. |
| Keywords: | labor force participation,part-time employment,full-time employment,family policies,European Union |
| JEL: | H53 I38 J13 J21 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:cegedp:242&r=lab |
| By: | Andreas Beerli; Ronald Indergand |
| Abstract: | A pervasive, yet little acknowledged feature of international migration to developed countries is that newly arriving immigrants are increasingly highly skilled. This paper analyses the factors affecting the change in the skill composition of immigrants in Switzerland between 1980 and 2010 using a framework suggested by Grogger & Hanson (2011). Our findings suggest that improved schooling in origin countries of immigrants and a shift in the relative demand for highly educated workers in destinations stand out as the two most important drivers. Yet, while improved schooling would predict only a modest increase in the share of highly educated immigrants and a large increase of middle educated immigrants, we show that demand shifts associated with computerisation are crucial to understand why the share of highly educated immigrants increased sharply while the share of middle educated workers merely stabilised. Additionally, our framework allows evaluating the effect of changes in immigration policy. We find that the recent abolition of quotas for workers from European countries through a bilateral agreement with the EU in 2002 had a small but negative effect on the educational quality of immigrants. |
| Keywords: | International migration, self selection, migration policy, job polarisation |
| JEL: | F22 J61 J24 J31 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:uceswp:012&r=lab |
| By: | Barkowski, Scott |
| Abstract: | I study job lock and job push, the twin phenomena believed to be caused by employment-contingent health insurance (ECHI). Using variation in Medicaid eligibility among household members of male workers as a proxy for shifts in workers’ dependence on employment for health insurance, I estimate large job lock and job push effects. For married workers, Medicaid eligibility for one household member results in an increase in the likelihood of a voluntary job exit over a four-month period by approximately 34%. For job push, the transition rate into jobs with ECHI among all workers falls on average by 26%. |
| Keywords: | Job Lock; Job Push; Medicaid; Job Mobility |
| JEL: | I13 J6 |
| Date: | 2015–04–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:63991&r=lab |
| By: | Akcigit, Ufuk; Baslandze, Salomé; Stantcheva, Stefanie |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the effect of top tax rates on inventors' mobility since 1977. We put special emphasis on "superstar" inventors, those with the most and most valuable patents. We use panel data on inventors from the United States and European Patent Offices to track inventors' locations over time and combine it with international effective top tax rate data. We construct a detailed set of proxies for inventors' counterfactual incomes in each possible destination country including, among others, measures of patent quality and technological fit with each potential destination. We find that superstar top 1% inventors are significantly affected by top tax rates when deciding where to locate. The elasticity of the number of domestic inventors to the net-of-tax rate is relatively small, between 0.04 and 0.06, while the elasticity of the number of foreign inventors is much larger, around 1.3. The elasticities to top net-of-tax rates decline as one moves down the quality distribution of inventors. Inventors who work in multinational companies are more likely to take advantage of tax differentials. On the other hand, if the company of an inventor has a higher share of its research activity in a given country, the inventor is less sensitive to the tax rate in that country. |
| Keywords: | income taxes; innovation; inventors; migration; taxation |
| JEL: | F22 H24 H31 J44 J61 O31 O32 O33 |
| Date: | 2015–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10565&r=lab |
| By: | Nitika Bagaria; Barbara Petrongolo; John Van Reenen |
| Abstract: | Disability rolls have escalated in developed nations over the last 40 years. The UK, however, stands out because the numbers on these benefits stopped rising when a welfare reform was introduced that integrated disability benefits with unemployment insurance (UI). This policy reform improved job information and sharpened bureaucratic incentives to find jobs for the disabled (relative to those on UI). We exploit the fact that policy was rolled-out a quasi-random across geographical areas. In the long-run the policy improved the outflows from disability benefits by 6% and had an (insignificant) 1% increase in unemployment outflows. This is consistent with a model where information helps both groups, but bureaucrats were given incentives to shift effort towards helping the disabled find jobs and away from helping the unemployed. Interestingly, in the short-run the policy had a negative impact for both groups suggesting important disruption effects. The policy passes a dynamic cost-benefit calculation, but the costs of the organizational disruption implies that benefits take about six years to exceed the one-off set-up costs making it unattractive for (myopic) policy-makers. |
| Keywords: | Incentives, public sector, unemployment benefits, performance standards |
| JEL: | H51 I13 J18 |
| Date: | 2015–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp1347&r=lab |
| By: | Caliendo, Lorenzo (Yale University and NBER); Dvorkin , Maximiliano (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis); Parro, Fernando (Federal Reserve Board.) |
| Abstract: | We develop a dynamic labor search model where production and consumption take place in spatially distinct labor markets with varying exposure to domestic and international trade. The model recognizes the role of labor mobility frictions, goods mobility frictions, geographic factors, and input-output linkages in determining equilibrium allocations. We show how to solve the equilibrium of the model without estimating productivities, reallocation frictions, or trade frictions, which are usually di¢ cult to identify. We use the model to study the dynamic labor market outcomes of aggregate trade shocks. We calibrate the model to 38 countries, 50 U.S. states and 22 sectors and use the rise in China’s import competition to quantify the aggregate and disaggregate employment and welfare effects on the U.S. economy. We find that China’s import competition growth resulted in 0.6 percentage point reduction in the share of manufacturing employment, approximately 1 million jobs lost, or about 60% of the change in the manufacturing employment share not explained by a secular trend. Overall, China’s shock increases U.S. welfare by 6.7% in the long-run and by 0.2% in the short-run with very heterogeneous effects across labor markets. |
| Keywords: | Migration; labor reallocation; dynamic discrete choice; manufacturing employment; intersectoral trade; interregional trade; international trade |
| JEL: | E24 F16 J62 R13 R23 |
| Date: | 2015–05–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2015-009&r=lab |
| By: | van Dalen, H.P. (Tilburg University, Center For Economic Research); Henkens, K. |
| Abstract: | Demotion – a reduction of an employee’s rank and salary - is often mentioned by managers and policy makers as a measure to increase the employability of older workers, but in practice demotion is rarely applied. This paper takes a fresh look at the question of demotion by first employing a survey among European employers and second the use of a survey and a vignette study among managers in the Netherlands (N = 355). The European survey shows that although demotion is not often applied a considerable percentage contemplates the application in the near future, especially those employers who encounter work staff aging. The vignette study offers insight in their stated preferences with respect to demotion for a particular employee, described by a number of possible causes of underperformance. The key question is whether these causes refer to internal or external causes and causes which the employee can or cannot control. By using background characteristics on the manager, obtained through survey questions, we can assess whether the decision to demote is also affected the expectations of managers on the wider consequences of making demotion standard practice. Internal causes such as not willing to participate in training, and not being motivated to work increase the likelihood of demotion, whereas external causes (financial situation of the firm) are of little importance. However, even when an employee scores low points on all possible causes, demotion still is hesitantly considered. Much of this hesitation is connected to the perceived negative externalities which managers expect to materialize once demotion becomes standard practice |
| Keywords: | older workers; demotion; productivity; wages |
| JEL: | M51 M54 J62 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tiu:tiucen:cef69d5e-bcc2-4082-b9fa-0d569fe41efd&r=lab |