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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Giacomin Favre |
| Abstract: | This paper explores a variety of potential issues one has to address when estimating intergenerational mobility with historical data. Many studies are potentially affected by bias originating from individuals emigrating and thus dropping out of the sample, missing information on the life-cycle, and imperfectly linking data sets. Unique panel data on Zurich’s citizenry between 1799 and 1926 entail information on true intergenerational links, and allow to follow individuals across the globe and time. This information enables me to explore how father-son mobility estimates are affected by excluding emigrating individuals, occupational patterns over the life-cycle, and linking procedures. The results suggest that focusing on geographically immobile individuals might decrease the estimated level of social mobility. The estimated level of mobility depends on both the father’s and the son’s age at classification but does not exhibit a monotone trend in the direction of the bias. Most recent linking procedures do not generate significant bias in the sample of Zurich citizens due to the high level of detail of the data combined with a small population size. |
| Keywords: | Social mobility, geographic mobility, life-cycle, matching, historical data |
| JEL: | J62 J61 N33 N34 |
| Date: | 2019–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zur:econwp:329&r=all |
| By: | Fenge, Robert; Friese, Max |
| Abstract: | Our study compares the efficiency of centralized and decentralized unemployment insurance programs in a state union. We use a model of two countries with collective bargaining for regional gross wages. The labor force and the firms are partially mobile across the member states of the state union, which gives rise to distortive migration incentives. If unemployment insurance is organized centrally, trade unions negotiate inefficiently high wages due to a vertical fiscal externality. The central government generally cannot provide the second-best unemployment insurance as long as migration is costly. In contrast, decentralized unemployment insurance in the member states is second-best irrespective of the degree of mobility and regional asymmetries. Furthermore, efficiency depends on the federal context. If the wage bargaining process on the labor markets is decentralized, then decisions about unemployment insurance made at the state level are superior to centralized public insurance. For the efficiency of a centralized unemployment insurance, it matters whether decisions in related institutions like cooperative wage bargaining are also centralized. |
| Keywords: | unemployment insurance,imperfect labor markets,federal state union,centralization,migration,vertical fiscal externality |
| JEL: | F22 H77 J65 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:roswps:162&r=all |
| By: | Leduc, Sylvain (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco); Liu, Zheng (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) |
| Abstract: | We study the implications of automation for labor market fluctuations in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) framework that is generalized to incorporate automation decisions. If a job opening is not filled with a worker, a firm can choose to automate that position and use a robot instead of a worker to produce output. The threat of automation strengthens the firm's bargaining power against job seekers in wage negotiations, depressing equilibrium real wages in a business cycle boom. The option of automation also increases the value of a vacancy, raising the incentive for job creation, and thereby amplifying fluctuations in vacancies and unemployment relative to the standard DMP framework. Since automation improves labor productivity while muting wage increases, it implies a countercyclical labor income share, as observed in the data. |
| JEL: | E32 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2019–07–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2019-17&r=all |
| By: | Laetitia Dillenseger; Martijn Burger; Francis Munier |
| Abstract: | There is extensive literature on ambiguous effects of having children on life satisfaction. Although parenthood can provide a meaning of life, parenting may increase the amount of obligations and decrease leisure time, which in turn reduce life satisfaction. In the Netherlands, parental leave is a part-time work arrangement which allows parents with young children to reconcile better work and family commitments. Using data from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS), we analyzed the impact of taking parental leave on the life satisfaction of parents with young children. We found that the legal framework of Dutch parental leave offering job protected leave and fiscal benefits is crucial to enhance parents’ life satisfaction. Further, we estimated that short parental leave schemes are more conducive to life satisfaction than long parental leave schemes. |
| Keywords: | Parental Leave scheme, Children, Happiness, Satisfaction, Work-life balance, the Netherlands. |
| JEL: | C10 H53 I31 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ulp:sbbeta:2019-26&r=all |
| By: | Shin, Geiguen |
| Abstract: | Many studies suggest that stringent labor protection and higher labor costs in host countries can limit foreign direct investment. This implies that foreign firms are sensitive to the flexibility of the labor market in the U.S. The U.S. has experienced increasing immigrants, which have preserved the stable labor supply in the U.S. market. The U.S. is a good case to test the relationship between immigration and FDI because the U.S. is not only the largest host and home country of FDI but also the country that has one of the highest immigrant populations and experiences a significant reduction in labor supply and an increase in the minimum cost of labor. Utilizing a time-series analysis from 1970 to 2016, this study suggests that the expansive immigration policies directly increase FDI inflows in the U.S., and indirectly increase FDI inflows throughout lowering potential labor costs and securing a stable labor supply. |
| Keywords: | foreign direct investment,immigration policy,labor cost |
| JEL: | F16 J15 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201942&r=all |
| By: | González-Chapela, Jorge; Ortega-Lapiedra, Raquel |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether, and to what extent, the internal mobility of the unemployed in Spain was affected by a reform of the personal income tax that introduced a mobility incentive targeted at this group. The reform introduced a distinct change in the incentives to move for work for unemployed workers living in certain regions of Spain. The reform’s effectiveness is assessed by means of a difference-in-differences econometric approach, combined with nationally representative administrative data. Results suggest that the reform led, at most, to relatively few new migration flows, and account for the existence of differential migration trends between the regions that adopted the reform and those that did not. |
| Keywords: | Personal income tax, mobility, unemployed, Spain |
| JEL: | H24 J61 R23 |
| Date: | 2019–07–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95308&r=all |
| By: | Becker, Sascha O. (university of warwick; warwick); Fernandes, Ana (bern university); Weichselbaumer, Doris (university of linz) |
| Abstract: | Due to conventional gender norms, women are more likely to be in charge of childcare than men. From an employer’s perspective, in their fertile age they are also at “risk” of pregnancy. Both factors potentially affect hiring practices of firms. We conduct a large-scale correspondence test in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, sending out approx. 9,000 job applications, varying job candidate’s personal characteristics such as marital status and age of children. We find evidence that, for part-time jobs, married women with older kids, who likely finished their childbearing cycle and have more projectable childcare chores than women with very young kids, are at a significant advantage vis-à-vis other groups of women. At the same time, married, but childless applicants, who have a higher likelihood to become pregnant, are at a disadvantage compared to single, but childless applicants to part-time jobs. Such effects are not present for full-time jobs, presumably, because by applying to these in contrast to part-time jobs, women signal that they have arranged for external childcare. |
| Keywords: | fertility, discrimination, experimental economics |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J71 |
| Date: | 2019–05–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umagsb:2019015&r=all |
| By: | Dhamija, Nidhi |
| Abstract: | The study empirically examines the relationship between trade liberalization and unemployment for the Indian economy using data for Indian states (separately for rural and urban areas). This study provides support to the argument that effects of trade liberalization have been different for the states in India. The results find evidence for the negative relationship unemployment and trade openness. The relationship is significant for rural parts of the states which also drive results for the total state; though for urban part of the states, relationship is not found to be significant. The results also indicate that this effect is higher and stronger for more flexible states. The results hence, confirm to the theory that in developing countries trade openness leads to increase in the employment of labour; but more so of unskilled workers and leads to a movement away from the agriculture and hence rural sector of the economy. This is substantiated by internal migration trends for India which showed an increase in population mobility during post reform period. The data also corroborated the shift from rural agricultural to rural non-agricultural and urban sectors of the economy. |
| Keywords: | Trade Liberalization, Unemployment, Labour market institutions, Panel data |
| JEL: | E24 F14 F16 |
| Date: | 2019–07–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:95001&r=all |
| By: | Clark, Andrew E. (Paris School of Economics); Lepinteur, Anthony (University of Luxembourg) |
| Abstract: | We here use the employment-history data from the British Cohort Study to calculate an individual's total experience of unemployment from the time they left school up to age 30. We show that this experience is negatively correlated with the life satisfaction that the individual reports at age 30, so that past unemployment scars. We also identify the childhood circumstances and family background that predict this adult unemployment experience. Educational achievement and good behaviour at age 16 both reduce adult unemployment experience, and emotional health at age 16 is a particularly strong predictor of unemployment experience for women. Both boys and girls reproduce on average their parents' unemployment, so that adult unemployment experience is transmitted between generations. We uncover evidence of a social-norm effect: children from less-advantaged backgrounds both experience more adult unemployment but are less affected by it in well-being. |
| Keywords: | unemployment, life satisfaction, habituation |
| JEL: | J21 J63 I31 |
| Date: | 2019–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12430&r=all |
| By: | Chen, Siyan; Desiderio, Saul |
| Abstract: | As suggested by recent empirical evidence, one of the causes behind the widespread rise of inequality experienced by OECD countries in the last few decades may have been the increased flexibility of labor markets. The authors explore this hypothesis through the analysis of a stock-flow consistent agent-based macroeconomic model able to reproduce with good statistical precision several empirical regularities. To this scope they employ three different sensitivity analysis techniques, which indicate that increasing job contract duration (i.e. decreasing flexibility) has the effect of reducing income and wealth inequality. However, the authors also find that this effect is diminished by tight monetary policy and low credit supply. This result suggests that the final outcome of structural reforms aimed at changing labor flexibility can depend on the macroeconomic environment in which these are implemented. |
| Keywords: | economic inequality,labor market flexibility,monetary policy,agent-basedmodels,sensitivity analysis |
| JEL: | C15 C63 D31 E50 J01 J41 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201944&r=all |
| By: | Non, Arjan (General Economics 2 (Macro)); Rohde, Ingrid (iza university of bonn); de Grip, Andries (Research Centre for Educ and Labour Mark); Dohmen, Thomas (General Economics 2 (Macro)) |
| Abstract: | We conduct a discrete choice experiment to investigate how the mission of high-tech companies affects job attractiveness and induces self-selection of science and engineering graduates with respect to their prosocial attitudes. We characterize mission by whether or not the company combines its profit motive with a mission on innovation or corporate social responsibility (CSR). Furthermore, we vary job design (e.g. autonomy) and contractible job attributes (e.g. job security). We find that companies with a mission on innovation or CSR are considered more attractive. Women and individuals who are more altruistic and less competitive feel particularly attracted to such companies. |
| Keywords: | mission of the company, sorting, discrete choice experiment, job characteristics, social preferences |
| JEL: | J81 J82 M52 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:umaror:2019006&r=all |
| By: | Filippo Belloc |
| Abstract: | Thanks to algorithmic management, the digital platform sector does not require sophisticated governance structures and labour intensity tends to be higher than in traditional sectors. So, why aren’t usually digital labour platforms worker cooperatives? We develop a simple model to study the comparative viability of a worker-managed (WM) via-app labour platform firm vis-à-vis a capital-managed (CM) counterpart. Firms compete over workers by choosing the optimal size and (CM firms only) the pay policy. Given the size of the market, we show that WM platforms maximize per-capita incomes over a middle range interval of firm size. At the equilibrium size, viability of WM firms may be impeded by the costs of the external capital, no matter how low, which enable CM firms to pay a wage premium. The worker payoff in CM firms is higher in the presence of higher unit revenues and network effects (which improve the ability to pay of WM firms, thereby stimulating pay competition between platforms) and lower when WM platforms need to charge new members a fee to overcome free-riding problems faced by those who fund the initial investment. The model also shows that the conditions for worker buyouts are weaker than those required for WM platform creation from scratch, and that group incentive mechanisms allow WM platforms to better pursue quality improvements than CM firms, when digital techniques make the cost of effort relatively low. |
| Keywords: | labour platforms, via-app work, worker-managed firms |
| JEL: | J54 L22 P13 |
| Date: | 2019 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7708&r=all |