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on Labour Economics |
| By: | Fariha Kamal; Asha Sundaram; Cristina J. Tello-Trillo |
| Abstract: | We study the role of family-leave mandates in shaping the gender composition at U.S. firms that experience a negative demand shock. In a regression discontinuity framework, we compare firms mandated to provide job-protected leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and firms that are exempt from the law (non-FMLA) following the post-2001 surge in Chinese imports. Using confidential microdata on matched employers and employees in the U.S. non-farm private sector, we find that between 2000 and 2003, an increase in import competition decreases the share of female workers at FMLA compared to non-FMLA firms. The negative differential effect is driven by female workers in prime childbearing years, with less than college education, and is strongest at firms with all male managers. We find similar patterns in changes in the female share of earnings and promotions. These results suggest that, when traditional gender norms prevail, adverse shocks may exacerbate gender inequalities in the presence of job-protected leave mandates. |
| Keywords: | FMLA, job-protected leave, gender gap, regression discontinuity, China shock, gender norms |
| JEL: | F16 J08 J16 J18 J23 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cen:wpaper:20-25&r=all |
| By: | Haefke, Christian (New York University, Abu Dhabi); Reiter, Michael (IHS - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna) |
| Abstract: | We reassess the role of vacancies in a Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides style search and matching model. In the absence of free entry long lived vacancies and endogenous separations give rise to a vacancy depletion channel which we identify via joint unemployment and vacancy dynamics. We show conditions for constrained efficiency and discuss important implications of vacancy longevity for modeling and calibration, in particular regarding match cyclicality and wages. When calibrated to the postwar US economy, the model explains not only standard deviations and autocorrelations of labor market variables, but also their dynamic correlations with only one shock. |
| Keywords: | Beveridge curve, business cycles, job destruction, random matching, separations, unemployment volatility, wage determination |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13666&r=all |
| By: | Bertheau, Antoine (University of Copenhagen); Bunzel, Henning (Aarhus University); Vejlin, Rune Majlund (Aarhus University) |
| Abstract: | We present new evidence on how employment growth varies across firm types (size, productivity, and wage) and over the business cycle using Danish data covering almost 30 years. We decompose net employment growth into two recruitment margins: net hirings from/to employment (poaching) and net hirings from nonemployment. High-productivity firms are the most growing firms due to poaching. High wage firms poach almost as many workers, but shed an almost equal amount to non-employment. Large firms do not poach workers from smaller firms. In terms of employment cyclicality, we find that low-productive and low-wage firms shed proportionally more jobs in recessions. We relate our findings to recent models of employment fluctuations that jointly analyze worker and firm dynamics. |
| Keywords: | worker flows, firm heterogeneity, matched employer-employee data, business cycle, equilibrium search models |
| JEL: | E24 E32 J63 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13681&r=all |
| By: | Sparber, Chad (Colgate University); Zavodny, Madeline (University of North Florida) |
| Abstract: | The large inflow of less-educated immigrants that the United States has received in recent decades can worsen or improve U.S. natives' labor market opportunities. Although there is a general consensus that low-skilled immigrants tend to hold "worse" jobs than U.S. natives, the impact of immigration on U.S. natives' working conditions has received little attention. This study examines how immigration affected U.S. natives' occupational exposure to workplace hazards and the return to such exposure over 1990 to 2018. The results indicate that immigration causes less-educated U.S. natives' exposure to workplace hazards to fall, and instrumental variables results show a larger impact among women than among men. The compensating differential paid for hazard exposure appears to fall as well, but not after accounting for immigration-induced changes in the returns to occupational skills. |
| Keywords: | immigration, hazardous jobs, compensating differentials, risk premium |
| JEL: | J81 J31 F22 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13663&r=all |
| By: | Herault, Nicolas (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research); Vu, Ha (Deakin University); Wilkins, Roger (Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research) |
| Abstract: | Many countries impose job search requirements on unemployment benefit recipients. Existing studies have evaluated only incremental changes to requirements. Australian reforms in 1995 saw groups of welfare recipients newly subjected to job search requirements, allowing us to produce the first causal estimates of the total effects of such requirements on welfare receipt. Using a quasi-experimental design and administrative data, we find large negative effects on welfare receipt for the mature-age partnered women targeted by the reforms. We also find large negative effects on welfare receipt of their partners, suggesting family labour supply decisions were considerably affected. |
| Keywords: | welfare receipt, unemployment benefit, job search requirements |
| JEL: | H31 D10 J65 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13684&r=all |
| By: | Lochner, Benjamin (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg); Merkl, Christian (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Stüber, Heiko (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg); Gürtzgen, Nicole (Institute for Employment Research (IAB), Nuremberg) |
| Abstract: | Using the German IAB Job Vacancy Survey, we look into the black box of recruiting intensity and hiring practices from the employers' perspective. Our paper evaluates three important channels for hiring —namely vacancy posting, the selectivity of hiring (labor selection), and the number of search channels— through the lens of an undirected search model. Vacancy posting and labor selection show a U-shape over the employment growth distribution. The number of search channels is also upward sloping for growing establishments, but relatively flat for shrinking establishments. We argue that growing establishments react to positive establishment-specific productivity shocks by using all three channels more actively. Furthermore, we connect the fact that shrinking establishments post more vacancies and are less selective than those with a constant workforce to churn triggered by employment-to-employment transitions. In line with our theoretical framework, all three hiring margins are procyclical over the business cycle. |
| Keywords: | administrative data, survey data, labor selection, vacancies, recruiting intensity |
| JEL: | E24 J63 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13678&r=all |
| By: | Johnsen, Julian Vedeler (Center for Applied Research); Willén, Alexander (Dept. of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration); Vaage, Kjell (University of Bergen) |
| Abstract: | Anticipating the labor market effects of welfare reforms is difficult due to public policy interactions across programs and among household members. Specifically, changes to one program may affect individual take-up of other programs, and individual participation in specific programs may generate labor market responses from other household members. This paper exploits an early retirement reform in Norway to provide new insights into these interactions. We first show that the reform had a substantial impact on the labor supply of those individuals who were directly affected by the reform, reducing the probability of employment by more than 30 percent. We then demonstrate that the increased take-up of early retirement had an offsetting effect on the take-up of alternative social security programs. Next, we reveal that the reform had a negative indirect impact on the labor supply of spouses of individuals directly affected by the reform, with an effect size of 5.5 percent. Finally, we show that the indirect effect on spousal labor force participation is accompanied by a significant increase in spousal take-up of disability insurance. We conclude that neglecting how public policies interact across both programs and household members can result in a miscalculation of the total impact of welfare reforms. |
| Keywords: | Public Policy; Welfare Reform; Early Retirement |
| JEL: | H55 J14 J18 J26 |
| Date: | 2020–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:nhheco:2020_020&r=all |
| By: | van den Berg, Gerard J. (University of Bristol); Kesternich, Iris (KU Leuven.); Müller, Gerrit (Institute for Employment Research); Siinger, Bettina M. (Tilburg University, Netspar) |
| Abstract: | We investigate how negatively reciprocal traits of unemployed individuals interact with "sticks" policies imposing constraints on individual job search effort in the context of the German welfare system. For this we merge survey data of long-term unemployed individuals, containing indicators of reciprocity as a personality trait, to a unique set of register data on all unemployed coached by the same team of caseworkers and their treatments. We find that the combination of a higher negative reciprocity and a stricter regime have a negative interaction effect on search effort exerted by the unemployed. The results are stronger for males than for females. Stricter regimes may therefore drive long-term unemployed males with certain types of social preferences further away from the labor market. |
| Keywords: | behavioral response; active labor market policy; monitoring; welfare; job search. |
| JEL: | D91 I38 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–09–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2020_013&r=all |
| By: | David G. Blanchflower; Alex Bryson |
| Abstract: | Although there is a substantial literature indicating that unemployment and joblessness have profound adverse impacts on individuals’ health and wellbeing, there is relatively little evidence of their impact on sleep. Using data for over 3.5 million individuals in the United States over the period 2006-2019 from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey series we show sleep disruption patterns that vary by labor market status. We look at sleep measured by hours in a day and days in a month and whether sleep is disturbed over a fortnight, as indicated by problems falling or staying asleep or staying asleep too much. We find the short-term unemployed suffer more short and long sleep than the employed and are more likely to suffer from disturbed sleep. These problems are greater still for the long-term unemployed and for the jobless who say they are unable to work. |
| JEL: | I31 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27814&r=all |
| By: | Nikita Melnikov; Carlos Schmidt-Padilla; Maria Micaela Sviatschi |
| Abstract: | We study how two of the world’s largest gangs—MS-13 and 18th Street—affect economic development in El Salvador. We exploit the fact that the emergence of these gangs was the consequence of an exogenous shift in American immigration policy that led to the deportation of gang leaders from the United States to El Salvador. Using a spatial regression discontinuity design, we find that individuals living under gang control have significantly less education, material wellbeing, and income than individuals living only 50 meters away but outside of gang territory. None of these discontinuities existed before the emergence of the gangs. The results are confirmed by a difference-in-differences analysis: after the gangs’ arrival, locations under their control started experiencing lower growth in nighttime light density compared to areas without gang presence. A key mechanism behind the results is that, in order to maintain territorial control, gangs restrict individuals’ freedom of movement, affecting their labor market options. The results are not determined by exposure to violence or selective migration from gang locations. We also find no differences in public goods provision. |
| JEL: | O1 O17 O54 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27832&r=all |
| By: | Orazio Attanasio; Áureo de Paula; Alessandro Toppeta |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the evolution of socio-emotional skills over the life cycle and across generations. We start by characterising the evolution of these skills in the first part of the life cycle. We then examine whether parents’ socio-emotional skills in early childhood rather than in adolescence are more predictive of their children’s socio-emotional skills. We exploit data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) and focus on two dimensions of socio- emotional skills: internalizing and externalizing skills, linked respectively to the ability of focusing attention and engaging in interpersonal activities. When looking at the evolution of socio-emotional skills over the life cycle, we notice a considerable amount of persistence which leads to a rejection of the simple Markov dynamic models often used in the literature. The BCS70 contains data on the skills of three generations. Moreover, the skills for cohort members and their children are not observed at the same calendar time, but at similar ages. We establish that parents’ and children’s socio-emotional skills during early childhood are comparable and estimate intergenerational mobility in socio-emotional skills, examining the link between the parent’s socio-emotional skills at age 5, 10 and 16 and the child’s socio-emotional skills between ages 3 and 16. We show that the magnitudes of intergenerational persistence estimates are smaller than the magnitude of intergenerational persistence estimates in occupation and income found for the United Kingdom. Finally, we estimate multi-generational persistence in socio-emotional skills and find that the grandmother’s internalizing skill correlates with the grandchild’s socio-emotional skills even after controlling for parental skills. |
| JEL: | D63 I21 J24 J62 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27823&r=all |
| By: | Gihleb, Rania (University of Pittsburgh); Giuntella, Osea (University of Pittsburgh); Stella, Luca (Catholic University Milan); Wang, Tianyi (University of Copenhagen) |
| Abstract: | This study explores the relationship between the adoption of industrial robots and workplace injuries using data from the United States (US) and Germany. Our empirical analyses, based on establishment-level data for the US, suggest that a one standard deviation increase in robot exposure reduces work-related injuries by approximately 16%. These results are driven by manufacturing firms (-28%), while we detect no impact on sectors that were less exposed to industrial robots. We also show that the US counties that are more exposed to robot penetration experience a significant increase in drug- or alcohol-related deaths and mental health problems, consistent with the extant evidence of negative effects on labor market outcomes in the US. Employing individual longitudinal data from Germany, we exploit within-individual changes in robot exposure and document similar effects on job physical intensity (-4%) and disability (-5%), but no evidence of significant effects on mental health and work and life satisfaction, consistent with the lack of significant impacts of robot penetration on labor market outcomes in Germany. |
| Keywords: | work-related health risks, robot-exposure |
| JEL: | I10 J0 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13672&r=all |
| By: | Yu, Shuye (University of Groningen); Postepska, Agnieszka (University of Groningen) |
| Abstract: | Recent studies have found that self-reported life satisfaction drops during the transition into parenthood which has been mainly attributed to work-family conflict. This study investigates whether different forms of flexible employment can alleviate this drop in parental life satisfaction during this period. A fixed-effects analysis in an event study framework using Australian household survey data (HILDA) delivers convincing evidence that working flexibly indeed alleviates the drop in subjective well-being suggesting that it relieves the stress related to work-family conflict. Moreover, we find substantial gender heterogeneity in the effects different types of flexible employment have on mothers and fathers. Mothers with short part-time jobs (0-20 hours per week) exhibit greater life satisfaction than mothers who work full-time, especially when their children are younger than 4 years old. Among fathers, self-scheduling and home-based work yield a significant increase in perceived happiness as compared to fixed employment terms. This is especially true for fathers of one- and two-years-olds. These results are consistent with a typical intra-household time allocation of parents in Australia. |
| Keywords: | work and family, transition to parenthood, subjective well-being, flexible work |
| JEL: | D1 I31 J13 J16 J21 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13700&r=all |
| By: | Kirill Borusyak; Peter Hull |
| Abstract: | We develop new tools for causal inference in settings where exogenous shocks affect the treatment status of multiple observations jointly, to different extents. In these settings researchers may construct treatments or instruments that combine the shocks with predetermined measures of shock exposure. Examples include measures of spillovers in social and transportation networks, simulated eligibility instruments, and shift-share instruments. We show that leveraging the exogeneity of shocks for identification generally requires a simple but nonstandard recentering, derived from the specification of counterfactual shocks that might as well have been realized. We further show how specification of counterfactual shocks can be used for finite-sample inference and specification tests, and we characterize the recentered instruments that are asymptotically efficient. We use this framework to estimate the employment effects of Chinese market access growth due to high-speed rail construction and the insurance coverage effects of expanded Medicaid eligibility. |
| JEL: | C21 C26 F14 I13 R40 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27845&r=all |
| By: | Sebastian Graves |
| Abstract: | In this paper, I show that the decline in household consumption during unemployment spells depends on both liquid and illiquid asset positions. I also provide evidence that unemployment spells predict the withdrawal of illiquid assets, particularly when households have few liquid assets. Motivated by these findings, I embed endogenous unemployment risk in a two-asset heterogeneous-agent New Keynesian model. The model is consistent with the above evidence and provides a new propagation mechanism for aggregate shocks due to a flight-to-liquidity that occurs when unemployment risk rises. This mechanism implies that unemployment insurance plays an important role as an automatic stabilizer, particularly when monetary policy is constrained. |
| Keywords: | Heterogeneous-agent model; liquid and illiquid assets; Unemployment insurance; Unemployment risk |
| JEL: | E10 E24 E32 E62 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–09–18 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:1298&r=all |
| By: | Stefano Caria; Grant Gordon; Simon Quinn; Soha Shami; Alexander Teytelboym; Maximilian Kasy |
| Abstract: | We introduce a novel methodology for adaptive targeted experiments. Our Tempered Thompson Algorithm balances the goals of maximizing the precision of treatment effect estimates and maximizing the welfare of experimental participants. A hierarchical Bayesian model allows us to adaptively target treatments at different groups. We implement our methodology in a field experiment. We examine the impact of three interventions designed to improve formal employment outcomes of Syrian refugees and local jobseekers in Jordan: one treatment to address liquidity constraints, one to address information frictions, and one to address challenges of self-control. Six weeks after being offered treatment, none of the interventions has a significant or meaningful impact on the probability that individuals are in wage employment; we estimate that our targeting algorithm had a positive but small effect on aggregate employment (approximately 1 percentage point). However, we find large employment effects of all treatments for refugees at the two-month follow-up, and suggestive evidence of four-month impacts for the cash grant; liquidity appears to be a key barrier to employment for refugees. |
| Keywords: | adaptive experiments, refugees, job search |
| JEL: | C93 J6 O15 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8535&r=all |
| By: | Max Deter |
| Abstract: | Since the labor market reforms around 2005, known as the Hartz reforms, Germany has experienced declining unemployment rates. However, little is known about the reforms’ effect on individual life satisfaction of unemployed workers. This study applies difference-in-difference estimations and finds a decrease in life satisfaction after the reforms that is more pronounced for male unemployed in west Germany. The effect is driven by income and income satisfaction, but not by the unemployment rate. Also unemployed persons who exogenously lost their jobs are affected by the reforms. In line with the structure of the reforms, the effect is stronger on long-term and involuntarily unemployed persons. |
| Keywords: | Unemployment, Hartz reforms, happiness, SOEP |
| JEL: | E24 I31 J64 |
| Date: | 2020 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1106&r=all |
| By: | Angelini, Viola (University of Groningen); Bertoni, Marco (University of Padova); Weber, Guglielmo (University of Padova) |
| Abstract: | We study the role played by the standard of living during childhood on nest leaving. Using data from SHARE, we show empirically that individuals who grew up in a golden nest leave the parental home later and that education only partially mediates this effect. This relationship holds across different cultures, for both males and females, urban and rural residents. We then use a 3-period lifecycle model to show that this behaviour is consistent with standard assumptions on preferences and resources if earnings increase with age, and that habit-forming preferences reinforce the delaying effect of a golden nest on nest leaving. |
| Keywords: | nest leaving, socio-economic status, habit-forming preferences, intergenerational mobility, SHARE |
| JEL: | J12 J13 J62 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13659&r=all |
| By: | Nicole Janz (School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham); Luca Messerschmidt (Hochschule für Politik at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the TUM School of Governance) |
| Abstract: | Does foreign direct investment (FDI) lead to better or worse labour standards in developing countries? We argue that it depends on the type of labour right, and how costly it is to protect it. Governments are likely to follow international pressure and 'climb to the top' of improved labour standards, but only for those rights that do not incur direct costs to foreign investors, such as collective bargaining rights. In contrast, governments engage in a 'race to the bottom' when it comes to rights that bear immediate costs for firms, such as overtime pay. To test our argument, we use novel data to distinguish between the legal protection of (1) fair working contracts, (2) adequate working time, (3) dismissal protections, which are more costly; versus (4) collective worker representation, and (5) industrial action rights, which are relatively cheaper to grant. Our panel data analysis for 138 developing countries (1982-2010) shows that higher FDI is indeed connected to an improvement of `cheap' rights, and to a decline in `expensive' rights protection. These results remain robust across a range of model specifications. |
| Keywords: | Foreign direct investment; worker rights; developing countries; cash standards; outcome standards |
| JEL: | G38 J08 J50 J80 K31 |
| Date: | 2020–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aiw:wpaper:05&r=all |
| By: | Biswajit Nag (Indian Institute of Foreign Trade , New Delhi); Willem van der Geest (Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), United Nations, New York) |
| Abstract: | India with large-scale informal workers face a major crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic. The current paper attemptsto understand the possible growth trajectory in few major sectors and its effect on employment, possible bearing on health management and fiscal scenario. It starts with a comparative analysis of South Asian economies in terms of incidence of the disease, stringency and its impact. This is juxtaposed with the predicted impact on GDP, consumption and investment as calculated by multilateral agencies. Using the base level data provided by Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, the current paper analyses the possible decline of India’s GDP developing ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ case scenarios through various sector level assumptions. Further, employment impact is assessed using asymmetric nature of employment elasticity of output. For the year 2020-21, the model did quarterly prediction. Next, the article describes the channels in which job loss and health crisis can lead to income inequality and whether current state of health management and fiscal constraint address in short and medium term in light of the announced stimulus package. The results indicate a large-scale job losses in 2020 (16 to 34 million)and a slight recovery in 2021. This will have a severe socio-economic impact and may push the economy backward for several years. |
| Keywords: | GDP Forecasting, Unemployment, Public policy |
| JEL: | E17 J60 J68 |
| Date: | 2020–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ift:wpaper:2041&r=all |
| By: | Vellore Arthi; John Parman |
| Abstract: | How might COVID-19 affect human capital and wellbeing in the long run? The COVID-19 pandemic has already imposed a heavy human cost—taken together, this public health crisis and its attendant economic downturn appear poised to dwarf the scope, scale, and disruptiveness of most modern pandemics. What evidence we do have about other modern pandemics is largely limited to short-run impacts. Consequently, recent experience can do little to help us anticipate and respond to COVID-19’s potential long-run impact on individuals over decades and even generations. History, however, offers a solution. Historical crises offer closer analogues to COVID-19 in each of its key dimensions—as a global pandemic, as a global recession—and offer the runway necessary to study the life-course and intergenerational outcomes. In this paper, we review the evidence on the long-run effects on health, labor, and human capital of both historical pandemics (with a focus on the 1918 Influenza Pandemic) and historical recessions (with a focus on the Great Depression). We conclude by discussing how past crises can inform our approach to COVID-19—helping tell us what to look for, what to prepare for, and what data we ought to collect now. |
| JEL: | I1 I3 J1 J6 N1 N3 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27805&r=all |
| By: | Lisa Cameron; Jennifer Seager; Manisha Shah |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of criminalizing sex work, exploiting an event in which local officials unexpectedly criminalized sex work in one district in East Java, Indonesia, but not in neighboring districts. We collect data from female sex workers and their clients before and after the change. We find that criminalization increases sexually transmitted infections among female sex workers by 58 percent, measured by biological tests. This is driven by decreased condom access and use. We also find evidence that criminalization decreases earnings among women who left sex work due to criminalization, and decreases their ability to meet their children's school expenses while increasing the likelihood that children begin working to supplement household income. While criminalization has the potential to improve population STI outcomes if the market shrinks permanently, we show that five years post-criminalization the market has rebounded and the probability of STI transmission within the general population is likely to have increased. |
| JEL: | I18 J16 K42 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27846&r=all |
| By: | Manduca, Robert (Department of Sociology, University of Michigan); Hell, Maximilian (Department of Sociology, Stanford University); Adermon, Adrian (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Blanden, Jo (Department of Economics, University of Surrey); Bratberg, Espen (Department of Economics, University of Bergen); Gielen, Anne C. (Erasmus School of Economics); van Kipepersluis, Hans (Erasmus School of Economics); Lee, Keun Bok (California Center for Population Research,); Machin, Stephen (Department of Economics, London School of Economics); Munk, Martin D. (The Free University, Copenhagen); Nybom, Martin (IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy); Ostrovsky, Yuri (Statistics Canada); Rahman, Sumaiya (Frontier Economics); Sirniö, Outi (Department of Sociology, University of Turku) |
| Abstract: | We compute rates of absolute upward income mobility for the 1960-1987 birth cohorts in eight countries in North America and Europe. Rates and trends in absolute mobility varied dramatically across countries during this period: the US and Canada saw upward mobility rates near 50% for recent cohorts, while countries like Norway and Finland saw sustained rates above 70%. Decomposition analysis suggests that differences in the marginal income distributions, especially the amount of cross-cohort income inequality, were the primary driver of differing mobility rates across countries. We also demonstrate that absolute mobility rates can be accurately estimated without linked parent-child data. |
| Keywords: | Intergenerational mobility; absolute mobility; inequality |
| JEL: | J62 |
| Date: | 2020–09–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2020_011&r=all |
| By: | Hie Joo Ahn; Yun Liu; Yeonwoo Rho |
| Abstract: | This paper proposes a new nonparametric mixed data sampling (MIDAS) model and develops a framework to infer clusters in a panel regression with mixed frequency data. The nonparametric MIDAS estimation method is more flexible and substantially simpler to implement than competing approaches. We show that the proposed clustering algorithm successfully recovers true membership in the cross-section, both in theory and in simulations, without requiring prior knowledge of the number of clusters. This methodology is applied to a mixed-frequency Okun's law model for state-level data in the U.S. and uncovers four meaningful clusters based 10 on the dynamic features of state-level labor markets. |
| Keywords: | Clustering; Forecasting; Mixed data sampling regression model; Panel data; Penalized regression |
| JEL: | C14 C32 C33 C53 J64 |
| Date: | 2020–09–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2020-82&r=all |
| By: | Costa-Font, Joan (London School of Economics); Gyori, Mario (London School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The worldwide obesity epidemic has impacted women more heavily than men. These gender-based differences are particularly pronounced in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region where gender obesity gaps on average exceed 10 percentage points. This paper examines one of the explanations, namely the role of female empowerment on gender gaps in obesity. We study the effect of several measures of female empowerment including female labour market participation on gender obesity gaps over a time span of 41 years (1975-2016) in a sample of 190 countries. We document that after controlling for a number of relevant controls, gender obesity gaps are only associated to measures of female empowerment in the MENA region but that this is not true worldwide. We then use an instrumental variable approach in order to illustrate that the causality runs indeed from empowerment, proxy it by both labour market and political participation to gender obesity gaps and not vice versa. Our results reveal that a one percentage point increase in female labor market participation (female MPs in national parliament) predicts a 0.2 (0.09) percentage point decrease in gender gaps in obesity in the MENA region. |
| Keywords: | female overweight, obesity, female empowerment, female labour market participation, Middle East and North Africa Region, female political participation |
| JEL: | I18 J16 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp13687&r=all |
| By: | Pablo Mitnik; Anne-Line Helsø; Victoria L. Bryant |
| Abstract: | We carry out a comparative analysis of inequality of opportunity (IOp) for long-run income in Denmark and the United States. We adopt a luck-egalitarian understanding of IOp, use high-quality administrative data, and rely on highly improved methods. These include novel identification assumptions that allow us to produce set estimates of IOp in the United States relative to Denmark rather than just lower-bound estimates of IOp in the two countries. There are five main results. First, with types based only on gender and parental income rank as the circumstances beyond people’s control, measured IOp for income is high in the United States and far from negligible in Denmark: before taxes and transfers, the lower-bound Gini coefficients for individual earnings and family income opportunities are in the 0.21-024 range in the United States and in the 0.08–0.12 range in Denmark. Second, the tax system and the welfare state reduce measured IOp in both countries, but they do so by more than twice as much in Denmark. Third, our analyses in terms of disposable family income per adult—which factor in taxes and transfers and purge the effect of the association between parental income and the probability of marriage—entail that there is more IOp for income in the United States than overall income inequality in Denmark. Fourth, IOp for income is substantially higher in the United States than in Denmark. With opportunities defined in terms of disposable family income per adult, IOp is at the very least 68 percent higher in the United States, and this result is very robust to the inequality index employed in the analysis. Fifth, our lower-bound estimates of the unfair inequality as a share of overall inequality are much larger in both countries than typically reported for advanced economies. When we account for race and ethnicity as circumstances beyond people’s control (in addition to gender and parental income), our lower-bound estimate of that share for the U.S. reaches almost 58 percent. We conclude that the distribution of economic opportunities—and not just of economic outcomes—is substantially less unequal in Denmark than in the U.S., and that a very large share of U.S. income inequality may be tracked back to circumstances beyond people’s control. |
| JEL: | D31 D63 H23 I30 J62 Z13 Z18 |
| Date: | 2020–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27835&r=all |