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Bonn : IZA, 2020
Abstract: This study examines the initial impact of COVID-19 shutdowns on the employment and hours of unincorporated self-employed workers using data from the Current Population Survey. Although the shutdowns decreased employment and hours for all groups, differential effects by gender, couple status, and parental status exist. Coupled women were less likely to be working than coupled men, while single women were more likely to be working than single men. However, fathers of school-age children ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2020
Abstract: This paper analyzes the role of networks in the spatial diffusion of local economic shocks in Africa. We show that road and ethnic connectivity are particularly important factors for diffusing economic spillovers over longer distances. We then determine the key players, i.e., which districts are key in propagating local economic shocks across Africa. Using these results, we conduct counterfactual policy exercises to evaluate the potential gains from policies that increase economic acti ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2020
Abstract: Home office at full pay is not an option for all employees hit by the coronavirus crisis. To analyze changes in work arrangements during the pandemic, a team of economists from the University of Bonn, IZA and the University of Tilburg surveyed around 5,500 individuals in the Netherlands from March 20-31. The results show that high-skilled workers spend more time in the home office, while less-skilled workers are more likely to work reduced hours or lose their jobs. Education plays a ke ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2013
Abstract: Female labor supply can insure households against shocks to paternal employment. The paper estimates whether the female labor supply response to a paternal employment shock differs by eligibility to maternity employment protection. We exploit time-state variation in the implementation of unpaid maternity leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in the US which increased employment protection from 0 to 12 weeks. We find that mothers eligible for FMLA speed up their return t ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2012
Abstract: With young people among the big losers of the recent financial crisis, vocational education and training (VET) is often seen as the silver bullet to the problem of youth joblessness. This paper provides a better understanding of VET around the world, dealing with three types of vocational systems: school-based education, a dual system in which school-based education is combined with firm-based training, and informal training. We first explore the motivation for these different types of ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2011
Abstract: Short-time work was the "German answer" to the economic crisis. The number of short-time workers strongly increased in the recession and peaked at more than 1.5 million. Without the extensive use of short-time work, unemployment would have risen by approximately twice as much as it actually did. Short-time work has certainly contributed to the mild response of the German labor market to the crisis, but this is likely due to the country-specific context. Although the crisis has been ove ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2020
Abstract: The social and the private returns to education differ when education can increase productivity, and also be used to signal productivity. We show how instrumental variables can be used to separately identify and estimate the social and private returns to education within the employer learning framework of Farber and Gibbons [1996] and Altonji and Pierret [2001]. What an instrumental variable identifies depends crucially on whether the instrument is hidden from, or observed by, the empl ...; [Read more...]
Bonn : IZA, 2011
Abstract: The main question addressed by this article is whether and how gender inequalities in wages have changed in Italy in the face of the important labour market developments of the last years. Specifically, the paper addresses gender wage inequalities in Italy in the mid-1990s and in the mid-2000s. In this period important labour market developments occurred: institutional changes have loosened the use of flexible and atypical contracts; the female employment rates and educational levels h ...; [Read more...]