Make work
Comparing Federal and Private-Sector Wages without Logs
Justin Falk
Contemporary Economic Policy, forthcoming
Abstract:
I use Current Population Survey data from 2005 through 2010 to compare the wages of federal employees and workers in the private sector who have similar observable characteristics. The distribution of wages differed drastically between the federal and private sectors. In particular, I find that federal employees with no more than a high school diploma earned 21% more, on average, than their private-sector counterparts, whereas those with a professional degree or doctorate earned 23% less. Overall, the average of federal wages was about 2% higher than the average wage of similar private-sector workers. Other researchers have found larger differences because they used log-linearized models, which result in comparisons of geometric means. I show that arithmetic means are more relevant in the context of the relationship between a government's compensation policy and its budget. The discrepancy between differences in arithmetic and geometric means occurs because the wages of federal employees were much less dispersed than those of employees with similar characteristics in the private sector.
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Adam Waytz & Michael Norton
Emotion, April 2014, Pages 434-444
Abstract:
Technological innovations have produced robots capable of jobs that, until recently, only humans could perform. The present research explores the psychology of “botsourcing” — the replacement of human jobs by robots — while examining how understanding botsourcing can inform the psychology of outsourcing — the replacement of jobs in one country by humans from other countries. We test four related hypotheses across six experiments: (1) Given people’s lay theories about the capacities for cognition and emotion for robots and humans, workers will express more discomfort with botsourcing when they consider losing jobs that require emotion versus cognition; (2) people will express more comfort with botsourcing when jobs are framed as requiring cognition versus emotion; (3) people will express more comfort with botsourcing for jobs that do require emotion if robots appear to convey more emotion; and (4) people prefer to outsource cognition- versus emotion-oriented jobs to other humans who are perceived as more versus less robotic. These results have theoretical implications for understanding social cognition about both humans and nonhumans and practical implications for the increasingly botsourced and outsourced economy.
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The Declining Fortunes of the Young since 2000
Paul Beaudry, David Green & Benjamin Sand
American Economic Review, May 2014, Pages 381-386
Abstract:
We document that successive cohorts of college and post-college degree graduates experienced an increase in the probability of obtaining cognitive jobs both at the start of their careers and with time in the labor market in the 1990s. However, this pattern reversed for cohorts entering after 2000; profiles of the proportion of a cohort in cognitive occupations since school completion fall and become flatter with successive cohorts. Since cohort-wage profiles display a similar pattern, these findings appear to fit with a strong increase in demand for cognitive tasks in the 1990s followed by a decline in the 2000s.
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John Helliwell & Haifang Huang
Economic Inquiry, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using two large U.S. surveys, we estimate the effects of unemployment on the subjective well-being (SWB) of the unemployed and the rest of the population. For the unemployed, the nonpecuniary costs of unemployment are several times as large as those resulting from lower incomes, while the indirect effect at the population level is 15 times as large. For those who are still employed, a one percentage point increase in local unemployment has an impact on well-being roughly equivalent to a 4% decline in household income. We also find evidence indicating that job security is an important channel for the indirect effects of unemployment.
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Amerisclerosis?: The Puzzle of Rising U.S. Unemployment Persistence
Olivier Coibion, Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Dmitri Koustas
Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2013, Pages 193-260
Abstract:
The persistence of U.S. unemployment has risen with each of the last three recessions, raising the specter that future U.S. recessions might look more like the “Eurosclerosis” experience of the 1980s than like the traditional V-shaped recoveries of the past. We revisit several explanations for this rising persistence, decomposing them into three possible sources: business cycle fluctuations, changing policy responses, and propagation mechanisms. First, we find that financial shocks do not systematically lead to more persistent unemployment than monetary policy shocks, casting doubt on the hypothesis that different drivers of business cycles are the primary explanation. Second, we find that changing monetary and fiscal policy responses account for approximately one-third of the rise in unemployment persistence. Third, after examining three propagation mechanisms we find that jointly they cannot account for any rising persistence of unemployment. The three propagation mechanisms we focus on — declining labor mobility, changing age structures, and the decline in trust among Americans — are consistent with four other cyclical patterns that have evolved since the early 1980s: a rising cyclicality in long-term unemployment, lower regional convergence after downturns, rising cyclicality in disability claims, and missing disinflation. We exploit regional variation in labor market outcomes across Western Europe and North America during 1970–91 to assess the predictive capacity of each propagation mechanism for unemployment persistence. In summary, two-thirds of the rise in unemployment persistence is unexplained.
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Unemployment Benefit Extensions Caused Jobless Recoveries!?
Kurt Mitman & Stanislav Rabinovich
University of Pennsylvania Working Paper, April 2014
Abstract:
The last three recessions in the United States were followed by jobless recoveries: while labor productivity recovered, unemployment remained high. In this paper, we show that countercyclical unemployment benefit extensions lead to jobless recoveries. We augment the standard Mortensen-Pissarides model to incorporate unemployment benefits expiration and state-dependent extensions of unemployment benefits. In the model, an extension of unemployment benefits slows down the recovery of vacancy creation in the aftermath of a recession. We calibrate the model to US data and show that it is quantitatively consistent with observed labor market dynamics, in particular the emergence of jobless recoveries after 1990. Furthermore, counterfactual experiments indicate that unemployment benefits are quantitatively important in explaining jobless recoveries.
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Anne Gielen & Jan van Ours
Economica, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is puzzling that people feel unhappy when they become unemployed, while simultaneously active labour market policies are needed to bring them back to work. We investigate this using GSOEP data. We find that nearly half of the unemployed do not experience a drop in happiness, which might explain why activation is sometimes needed. Furthermore, even though unhappy unemployed search more actively for a job, it does not speed up their job finding. Apparently, there is no link between unhappiness and job finding rate. Hence there is no contradiction between the unemployed being unhappy and the need for activation policies.
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Job Displacement and the Duration of Joblessness: The Role of Spatial Mismatch
Fredrik Andersson et al.
NBER Working Paper, April 2014
Abstract:
This paper presents a new approach to the measurement of the effects of spatial mismatch that takes advantage of matched employer-employee administrative data integrated with a person-specific job accessibility measure, as well as demographic and neighborhood characteristics. The basic hypothesis is that if spatial mismatch is present, then improved accessibility to appropriate jobs should shorten the duration of unemployment. We focus on lower-income workers with strong labor force attachment searching for employment after being subject to a mass layoff – thereby focusing on a group of job searchers that are plausibly searching for exogenous reasons. We construct person-specific measures of job accessibility based upon an empirical model of transport modal choice and network travel-time data, giving variation both across neighborhoods in nine metropolitan areas, as well as across neighbors. Our results support the spatial mismatch hypothesis. We find that better job accessibility significantly decreases the duration of joblessness among lower-paid displaced workers. Blacks, females, and older workers are more sensitive to job accessibility than other subpopulations.
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Free to Move? A Network Analytic Approach for Learning the Limits to Job Mobility
Ian Schmutte
Labour Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Job mobility has many overlapping determinants that are hard to characterize solely on the basis of industry or occupation transitions. Workers may match with, and move to, particular jobs on the basis of match quality, preferences, human capital, and mobility costs. This paper implements a novel method based on complex network analysis to describe how workers move from job to job. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I find first that the labor market is composed of four distinct segments between which job mobility is relatively unlikely. Second, these segments are not well-described on the basis of industry, occupation, demographic characteristics, or education. Third, mobility segments are associated with earnings heterogeneity, and there is evidence of positive assortative matching across segments. Fourth, the boundaries to job mobility are counter-cyclical: workers move more freely when unemployment is low.
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Episodes of Unemployment Reduction in Rich, Middle-Income and Transition Economies
Caroline Freund & Bob Rijkers
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper studies the incidence and determinants of episodes of drastic unemployment reduction, defined as swift, substantial, and sustained declines in unemployment. We identify 43 episodes over a period of nearly 3 decades in 94 rich, middle-income and transition countries. Unemployment reductions often coincide with an acceleration of growth and an improvement in macroeconomic conditions. Episodes are much more prevalent in countries with higher levels of unemployment and, given unemployment, are more likely in countries with better regulation. An efficient legal system that enforces contracts expeditiously is particularly important for reducing unemployment. The results imply that while employment is largely related to the business cycle, better regulation reduces likelihood of high unemployment and facilitates a more rapid recovery in the event unemployment builds up.
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The Career Prospects of Overeducated Americans
Brian Clark, Clément Joubert & Arnaud Maurel
NBER Working Paper, May 2014
Abstract:
In this paper we analyze career dynamics for the large share of U.S. workers who have more schooling than their peers in the same occupation. We use data from the NLSY79 combined with the CPS to analyze transitions into and out of overeducated employment, together with the corresponding effects on wages. Overeducation is a fairly persistent phenomenon at the aggregate and individual levels, with 66% of workers remaining overeducated after one year. Overeducation is not only more common, but also more persistent among blacks and low-AFQT individuals. Further, the hazard rate out of overeducation drops by about 60% during the first 5 years spent overeducated. However, the estimation of a mixed proportional hazard model suggests that this is attributable to selection on unobservables rather than true duration dependence. Finally, overeducation is associated with lower current as well as future wages, which points to the existence of scarring effects.
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Macroeconomic policy in recessions and unemployment hysteresis
Simon Sturn
Applied Economics Letters, Summer 2014, Pages 914-917
Abstract:
I adopt Ball’s (1999) cross-sectional approach to test for unemployment hysteresis to panel data. Long-run unemployment is explained with standard institutional controls, and proxies for monetary and fiscal policy reactions in recessions. The sample consists of 20 OECD countries for the period 1985 to 2008. The results indicate that fiscal consolidation in recessions has long-lasting effects on unemployment. No significant impact of monetary policy is found. However, tentative evidence suggests that the effects of fiscal spending are stronger when accommodated by expansionary monetary policy.
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The skill bias of technological change and the evolution of the skill premium in the US since 1970
Barbara Richter
B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using a two-sector model with potentially different capital shares in each sector, I show that the evolution of the skill premium from 1970 to 2005 is consistent with skill-neutrality and even a mild unskill-bias of technological change. The main channel of adjustment to changes in labor supply is instead via the reallocation of capital. New investment occurs predominantly in the skilled sector, to the detriment of the unskilled sector of the economy. This result is shown both theoretically in a simple model and in a quantitative exercise using data on the US economy.
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Competition over High-income Workers: Job Growth and Access to Labour in Atlanta
Miwa Matsuo
Urban Studies, June 2014, Pages 1634-1652
Abstract:
Access to a large labour pool (labour pooling) leads to local economic concentrations through agglomeration economies. However, these concentrations may be self-limiting by reducing labour availability through competition over high-skill workers. This paper examines whether labour pooling and labour availability of workers with different incomes account for local job growth in the Atlanta metropolitan area between 2000 and 2006. Workers’ income is employed to account for the human capital of workers, including education and skills. It is found that the availability of high-income workers is the only positive significant factor for job growth and the spatial size of the effect is larger than the traffic analysis zone (neighbourhood scale). In contrast, no labour pooling indicators show a positive association with job growth. The finding casts doubt on labour pooling effects at the intraregional level and suggests avenues for further research on local-area agglomeration economies.
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Habit persistence and the long-run labor supply
Clemens Struck
Economics Letters, forthcoming
Abstract:
Standard macroeconomic models possess the undesirable feature that people stop working in the long run. Assuming standard parameters, the neoclassical model predicts that 2% of annual productivity growth leads to a 99% decline in the labor supply after 624 years. Yet, this contradicts the fact that labor hours per capita are relatively stable, even over a long period of time. This paper shows how internal and external habit persistence each work to stabilize the long run labor supply, independent of key parameter choices.
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Sonja Fagernäs
Explorations in Economic History, April 2014, Pages 63–92
Abstract:
A birth certificate establishes a child's legal identity and age, but few quantitative estimates of the significance of birth registration exist. Birth registration laws were enacted by U.S. states in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Using 1910–1930 census data, this study finds that minimum working age legislation was twice as effective in reducing under-aged employment if children had been born with a birth registration law, with positive implications for school attendance. There is some evidence that registration laws also improved the enforcement of schooling laws for younger children. A retrospective analysis with the 1960 census shows that the long-term effect of registration laws was to increase educational attainment by approximately 0.1 years.