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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Rasmus Lentz; Nicolas Roys |
| Abstract: | The paper studies human capital accumulation over workers' careers in an on the job search setting with heterogenous firms. In renegotiation proof employment contracts, more productive firms provide more training. Both general and specific training induce higher wages within jobs, and with future employers, even conditional on the future employer type. Because matches do not internalize the specific capital loss from employer changes, specific human capital can be over-accumulated, more so in low type firms. While validating the Acemoglu and Pischke (1999) mechanisms, the analysis nevertheless arrives at the opposite conclusion: That increased labor market friction reduces training in equilibrium. |
| JEL: | D21 D43 D83 E24 J24 J31 J33 J41 J62 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21702&r=lab |
| By: | Alan L. Gustman; Thomas L. Steinmeier; Nahid Tabatabai |
| Abstract: | The composition, wealth and employment of male veterans and nonveterans are analyzed for four cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study, ages 51 to 56 in 1992, 1998, 2004 and 2010. Half of the men in the two oldest cohorts served in the military. Only 16 percent of the men in the youngest cohort, the only cohort subject to the All-Volunteer Military, served. One fifth to one third of the members of each cohort who served saw combat, mainly in Viet Nam and in the First Gulf War. Among those 51 to 56 in 1992, veterans were better educated, healthier, wealthier, and more likely to be working than nonveterans. By the 2010 cohort, 51 to 56 year old veterans had lost their educational advantage over nonveterans, were less healthy, less wealthy and less likely to be working. After standardizing in multiple regressions for the influence of major observable characteristics, for the original 1992 HRS cohort the wealth of veterans is no longer higher than the wealth of nonveterans. In contrast, the wealth of veterans from the youngest cohort, those 51 to 56 in 2010, remains about 10 to 13 percent below the wealth of nonveterans from that cohort. There also is a decline from older to younger cohorts of veterans compared to nonveterans in the probability of being not retired, of working more than 35 hours per week, and in the likelihood of holding a job for more than 10 years. Comparisons are made within the group of veterans by years of service, officer rank and other covariates. |
| JEL: | D31 E21 H55 J14 J26 J32 J45 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21736&r=lab |
| By: | Ioana Marinescu |
| Abstract: | Learning about marriage quality has been proposed as a key mechanism for explaining how the probability of divorce evolves with marriage duration, and why people often cohabit before getting married. I develop four theoretical models of divorce, three of which include learning. I use data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation to test reduced form implications of these models. The data is inconsistent with models including a substantial amount of learning. On the other hand, the data is consistent with a model without any learning, but where marriage quality changes over time. |
| JEL: | J12 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21761&r=lab |
| By: | Francine D. Blau |
| Abstract: | This paper examines evidence on the role of assimilation versus source country culture in influencing immigrant women’s behavior in the United States—looking both over time with immigrants’ residence in the United States and across immigrant generations. It focuses particularly on labor supply but, for the second generation, also examines fertility and education. We find considerable evidence that immigrant source country gender roles influence immigrant and second generation women’s behavior in the United States. This conclusion is robust to various efforts to rule out the effect of other unobservables and to distinguish the effect of culture from that of social capital. These results support a growing literature that suggests that culture matters for economic behavior. At the same time, the results suggest considerable evidence of assimilation of immigrants. Immigrant women narrow the labor supply gap with native-born women with time in the United States, and, while our results suggest an important role for intergenerational transmission, they also indicate considerable convergence of immigrants to native levels of schooling, fertility, and labor supply across generations. |
| JEL: | J13 J16 J22 J24 J61 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21756&r=lab |
| By: | Matteo Cacciatore; Romain Duval; Giuseppe Fiori; Fabio Ghironi |
| Abstract: | This paper explores the effects of labor and product market reforms in a New Keynesian, small open economy model with labor market frictions and endogenous producer entry. We show that it takes time for reforms to pay off, typically at least a couple of years. This is partly because the benefits materialize through firm entry and increased hiring, both of which are gradual processes, while any reform-driven layoffs are immediate. Some reforms—such as reductions in employment protection—increase unemployment temporarily. Implementing a broad package of labor and product market reforms minimizes transition costs. Importantly, reforms do not have noticeable deflationary effects, suggesting that the inability of monetary policy to deliver large interest rate cuts in their aftermath—either because of the zero bound on policy rates or because of membership in a monetary union—may not be a relevant obstacle to reform. Alternative simple monetary policy rules do not have a large effect on transition costs. |
| JEL: | E24 E32 E52 F41 J64 L51 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21784&r=lab |
| By: | Lídia Farré (Universitat de Barcelona, IAE (CSIC) and MOVE); Francesco Fasani (Queen Mary University of London, IAE (CSIC) and MOVE); Hannes Mueller (IAE (CSIC), Barcelona GSE and MOVE) |
| Abstract: | This article documents a strong connection between unemployment and mental disorders using data from the Spanish National Health Survey. We exploit the collapse of the construction sector to identify the causal effect of job loss. Our results suggest that an increase of the unemployment rate by 10 percent due to collapse of the sector raised mental disorders in the affected population by 3 percent. We argue that the large size of this effect responds to the fact that the construction sector was at the centre of the macroeconomic shock. As a result, workers exposed to the negative employment shock faced very low chances of re-entering employment. We show that this led to long unemployment spells, hopelessness and feelings of uselessness. |
| Keywords: | Mental health, Great recession, Unemployment, Spain |
| JEL: | I10 J60 C26 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:wp774&r=lab |
| By: | Sneha Elango; Jorge Luis García; James J. Heckman; Andrés Hojman |
| Abstract: | This paper organizes and synthesizes the literature on early childhood education and childcare. In it, we go beyond meta-analysis and reanalyze primary data sources in a common framework. We consider the evidence from means-tested demonstration programs, large-scale means-tested programs and universal programs without means testing. We discuss which programs are beneficial and whether they are cost-effective for certain populations. The evidence from high-quality demonstration programs targeted toward disadvantaged children shows beneficial effects. Returns exceed costs, even accounting for the deadweight loss of collecting taxes. When proper policy counterfactuals are constructed, Head Start has beneficial effects on disadvantaged children compared to home alternatives. Universal programs benefit disadvantaged children. |
| JEL: | C93 I28 J13 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21766&r=lab |
| By: | Alexandra Killewald (Harvard University); Xiaolin Zhou (Harvard University) |
| Abstract: | Previous research on maternal employment has disproportionately focused on married, college-educated mothers and examined either current employment status or postpartum return to employment. Following the life course perspective, we instead conceptualize maternal careers as long-term life course patterns. Using data from the NLSY79 and optimal matching, we document four common employment patterns of American mothers over the first 18 years of maternity. About two-thirds follow steady patterns, either full-time employment (38 percent) or steady nonemployment (24 percent). The rest experience "mixed" patterns: long-term part-time employment (20 percent), or a multiyear period of nonemployment following maternity, then a return to employment (18 percent). Consistent employment following maternity, either full-time or part-time, is characteristic of women with more economic advantages. Women who experience consistent nonemployment disproportionately lack a high school degree, while women with return to employment following a long break tend to be younger with lower wages prior to maternity. Race is one of the few predictors of whether a mother is consistently employed full time versus part time: consistent part-time labor is distinctive to white women. Our results support studying maternal employment across the economic spectrum, considering motherhood as a long-term characteristic, and employing research approaches that reveal the qualitative distinctness of particular employment patterns. |
| Keywords: | motherhood, employment, optimal matching, life course |
| JEL: | D13 J13 J22 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:upj:weupjo:15-247&r=lab |
| By: | Divounguy Nding, Orphe |
| Abstract: | In this paper,we construct an equilibrium search model of the labor market augmented to include lump sum taxes that finance government expenditures. Using the model, we can decompose the decline in labor force participation (LFP) into the policy effect and that of other factors such as declining economic output. Using census data for the state of Ohio, we learn that declining LFP and the increase in public assistance spending were caused by weaker economic output that led to an increase in the claimant count. Our results indicate that if the economy resembled the pre-crisis period, the Kasich administration would have led to an increase in LFP of approximately 0.6 percentage points. This effect goes up to 2% if all inactive workers are assumed to claim welfare income. |
| Keywords: | Government Spending, Taxation, Unemployment Insurance, Search Theory |
| JEL: | H2 H30 J0 J01 |
| Date: | 2015–12–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:68446&r=lab |
| By: | Jessamyn Schaller; Mariana Zerpa |
| Abstract: | Recent research suggests that parental job loss has negative effects on children's outcomes, including their academic achievement and long-run educational and labor market outcomes. In this paper we turn our attention to the effects of parental job loss on children's health. We combine health data from 16 waves of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which allows us to use a fixed effects specification and still have a large sample of parental job displacements. We find that paternal job loss is detrimental to the physical and mental health of children in low-socioeconomic status (SES) families, increasing their incidence of injuries and mental disorders. We separately find that maternal job loss leads to reductions in the incidence of infectious illness among children in high-SES families, possibly resulting from substitution of maternal care for market-based childcare services. Increases in public health insurance coverage compensate for a large share of the loss in private coverage that follows parental displacement, and we find no significant changes in routine or diagnostic medical care. |
| JEL: | I1 I12 I13 J0 J6 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21745&r=lab |
| By: | Janina Nemitz |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes the effect of all-day (AD) primary school programs on maternal labor supply. To account for AD school selectivity and selection into AD primary school programs I estimate bivariate probit models. To identify these models I exploit variation in the allocation of investments to AD primary schools across time and counties. This variation results from the public investment program "Future Education and Care" (IZBB) which was introduced by the German federal government in 2003. My results indicate for mothers with primary school-aged children in Germany (excluding Bavaria) a significantly positive effect of AD primary school programs on labor supply at the extensive margin. On average, mothers who make use of AD primary school programs are 26 ppts more likely to be employed than mothers who do not make use of these programs. This large effect is robust to alternative specifications and estimation methods and mainly concentrated in states with AD primary school student shares of up to 20%. On the contrary, there is no evidence for an impact of these programs on maternal labor supply at the intensive margin (full-time vs. part-time). |
| Keywords: | All-day school programs, after-school care, maternal labor supply |
| JEL: | J13 J21 J22 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:213&r=lab |
| By: | Atila Abdulkadiroglu; Joshua D. Angrist; Yusuke Narita; Parag A. Pathak |
| Abstract: | A growing number of school districts use centralized assignment mechanisms to allocate school seats in a manner that reflects student preferences and school priorities. Many of these assignment schemes use lotteries to ration seats when schools are oversubscribed. The resulting random assignment opens the door to credible quasi-experimental research designs for the evaluation of school effectiveness. Yet the question of how best to separate the lottery-generated variation integral to such designs from non-random preferences and priorities remains open. This paper develops easily-implemented empirical strategies that fully exploit the random assignment embedded in the widely-used deferred acceptance mechanism and its variants. We use these methods to evaluate charter schools in Denver, one of a growing number of districts that integrate charter and traditional public schools in a unified assignment system. The resulting estimates show large achievement gains from charter school attendance. Our approach expands the scope for impact evaluation by maximizing the number of students and schools that can be studied using random assignment. We also show how to use DA to identify causal effects in models with multiple school sectors. |
| JEL: | C26 I20 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21705&r=lab |
| By: | Mahesh Karra (Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health); David Canning (Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard School of Public Health); Joshua Wilde (Department of Economics, University of South Florida) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the effects of a decline in fertility on economic growth and development outcomes using a macrosimulation model. We incorporate three fertility effects that have previously not been included in such models: the effect of fertility on child health and later worker productivity; the effect of fertility on savings; and a feedback mechanism from female education to fertility, in which changes in female education that are induced by declining fertility in turn alter subsequent fertility. We also improve the model of the economy by incorporating a more realistic three-sector framework and by allowing for labor market imperfections. Using data from Nigeria, we find that adding these channels roughly doubles the effect of an initial fertility decline on income per capita after 50 years when compared to previous simulation results. |
| Keywords: | Fertility, Family Planning, Economic Growth, Macrosimulation |
| JEL: | I15 I18 J11 J13 O11 |
| Date: | 2015–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usf:wpaper:0315&r=lab |
| By: | Ann Bartel; Maya Rossin-Slater; Christopher Ruhm; Jenna Stearns; Jane Waldfogel |
| Abstract: | This paper provides quasi-experimental evidence on the impact of paid leave legislation on fathers’ leave-taking, as well as on the division of leave between mothers and fathers in dual-earner households. Using difference-in-difference and difference-in-difference-in-difference designs, we study California’s Paid Family Leave (CA-PFL) program, which is the first source of government-provided paid parental leave available to fathers in the United States. Our results show that fathers in California are 0.9 percentage points—or 46 percent relative to the pre-treatment mean—more likely to take leave in the first year of their children’s lives when CA-PFL is available. We also examine how parents allocate leave in households where both parents work. We find that CA-PFL increases father-only leave-taking (i.e., father on leave while mother is at work) by 50 percent and joint leave-taking (i.e., both parents on leave at the same time) by 28 percent. These effects are much larger for fathers of sons than for fathers of daughters, and almost entirely driven by fathers of first-born children and fathers in occupations with a high share of female workers. |
| JEL: | J08 J13 J18 J2 |
| Date: | 2015–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21747&r=lab |