Safety Net or Helping Hand? The Effect of Job Search Assistance and Compensation on Displaced Workers
Daniel Fackler, Jens Stegmaier, Richard Upward
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 18,
2023
Abstract
We provide the first systematic evidence on the effectiveness of a contested policy in Germany to help displaced workers. So-called “transfer companies” (Transfergesellschaften) employ displaced workers for a fixed period, during which time workers are provided with job-search assistance and are paid a wage which is a substantial fraction of their pre-displacement wage. Using rich and accurate data on workers’ employment patterns before and after displacement, we compare the earnings and employment outcomes of displaced workers who entered transfer companies with those that did not. Workers can choose whether or not to accept a position in a transfer company, and therefore we use the availability of a transfer company at the establishment level as an IV in a model of one-sided compliance. Using an event study, we find that workers who enter a transfer company have significantly worse post-displacement outcomes, but we show that this is likely to be the result of negative selection: workers who lack good outside opportunities are more likely to choose to enter the transfer company. In contrast, ITT and IV estimates indicate that the use of a transfer company has a positive and significant effect on employment rates five years after job loss, but no significant effect on earnings. In addition, the transfer company provides significant additional compensation to displaced workers in the first 12 months after job loss.
Artikel Lesen
The Promise and Peril of Entrepreneurship
Robert W. Fairlie, Zachary Kroff, Javier Miranda, Nikolas Zolas
MIT Press,
2023
Abstract
Startups create jobs and power economic growth. That's an article of faith in the United States—but, as The Promise and Peril of Entrepreneurship reveals, our faith may be built on shaky ground. Economists Robert Fairlie, Zachary Kroff, Javier Miranda, and Nikolas Zolas—working with Census Bureau microdata—have developed a new data set, the Comprehensive Startup Panel, that tracks job creation and the survival of every startup in the country. In doing so, they recalibrate our understanding of how startups behave in the US economy. Specifically, their work seeks to answer three critical questions: How many jobs does each entrepreneur create? Do those jobs disappear quickly? And how long do entrepreneurial enterprises survive?
Artikel Lesen
Die Wirkung von GRW-Investitionszuschüssen – ein Beitrag zum Aufholprozess?
Matthias Brachert, Eva Dettmann, Lutz Schneider, Mirko Titze
Wirtschaftsdienst,
Konferenzband "30 Jahre Deutsche Einheit", März
2021
Abstract
Die Gemeinschaftsaufgabe „Verbesserung der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur“ (GRW) ist das wichtigste regionalpolitische Programm in Deutschland und wurde nach der Wiedervereinigung in großem Umfang zur Unterstützung des wirtschaftlichen Transformationsprozesses in den neuen Bundesländern eingesetzt. Ein Überblick über nationale und internationale kausalanalytische Studien zur Wirkung von Investitionszuschüssen zeigt, dass solche Programme positive Effekte auf die Entwicklung insbesondere von Beschäftigung und Einkommen haben. Nicht nur die geförderten Betriebe profitieren von der Unterstützung, sondern die Regionen insgesamt. Auch wenn die Studien nicht bis in die frühen 1990er Jahre zurückreichen, kann man daraus schließen, dass die GRW zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in Ostdeutschland beigetragen hat – und zum Aufholprozess.
Artikel Lesen
flexpaneldid: A Stata Toolbox for Causal Analysis with Varying Treatment Time and Duration
Eva Dettmann, Alexander Giebler, Antje Weyh
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 3,
2020
Abstract
The paper presents a modification of the matching and difference-in-differences approach of Heckman et al. (1998) for the staggered treatment adoption design and a Stata tool that implements the approach. This flexible conditional difference-in-differences approach is particularly useful for causal analysis of treatments with varying start dates and varying treatment durations. Introducing more flexibility enables the user to consider individual treatment periods for the treated observations and thus circumventing problems arising in canonical difference-in-differences approaches. The open-source flexpaneldid toolbox for Stata implements the developed approach and allows comprehensive robustness checks and quality tests. The core of the paper gives comprehensive examples to explain the use of the commands and its options on the basis of a publicly accessible data set.
Artikel Lesen
Oxytocin, Empathy, Altruism and Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donations
Irena Jukić, Dejan Kovač, Danijela Vuletić Čugalj
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 4,
2023
Abstract
We conducted a field experiment in the natural setting of blood donations to test how oxytocin relates to empathy and altruism. We randomly assigned blood donors in the Croatian Institute for Transfusion Medicine to three groups with the aim to induce different levels of empathy by showing a neutral video to the donors from the control group and an emotional to the donors from the first and second treatment groups. In addition to watching the emotional video, donors from the second treatment group are given a gift which relates to the emotional story from the video. We find no effect of our treatment on induced levels of oxytocin. Null effects of our treatments could be explained by the above average baseline levels of oxytocin and inability of our treatments to provoke emotional stimuli in blood donors. Nonetheless, for our empathy measures we find the effect of gift exchange on empathic concerns, but not on perspective taking. After our experimental treatments, we followed the return of our blood donors for a whole year. We find that only variable which consistently predicts return for blood donation in stated period is the number of previous donations. From policy perspective it is an important finding. Especially for hospitals and other blood providers when faced with time and resource constraints.
Artikel Lesen
Toward a Taylor Rule for Fiscal Policy
Martin Kliem, Alexander Kriwoluzky
Review of Economic Dynamics,
Nr. 2,
2014
Abstract
In DSGE models, fiscal policy is typically described by simple rules in which tax rates respond to the level of output. We show that there is only weak empirical evidence in favor of such specifications in US data. Instead, the cyclical movements of labor and capital income tax rates are better described by a contemporaneous response to hours worked and investment, respectively. We show that conditioning on these variables is also desirable from a normative perspective as it significantly improves welfare relative to output-based rules.
Artikel Lesen
Der Ost-West-Produktivitätsunterschied: Was sagt die mikroökonomische Forschung?
Steffen Müller
Wirtschaftsdienst,
Konferenzband "30 Jahre Deutsche Einheit", März
2021
Abstract
Laut Volkswirtschaftlicher Gesamtrechnung erreicht die ostdeutsche Wirtschaft auch 30 Jahre nach dem Fall des Eisernen Vorhangs nur 80 % der westdeutschen Arbeitsproduktivität. Dieser Unterschied in der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Arbeitsproduktivität geht Hand in Hand mit vielen der wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Probleme, denen Ostdeutschland heute gegenübersteht. Um die Ursachen des aggregierten Produktivitätsgefälles zu verstehen, wird die neuere Literatur zum Ost-West-Gefälle diskutiert, die granulare Daten auf Firmen- und Produktebene verwendet. Die Evidenz zeigt die Relevanz von Produktivitätsunterschieden auf Firmenebene für die aggregierte Lücke deutlich und stellt gängige Hypothesen infrage, die aus aggregierten Daten abgeleitet werden.
Artikel Lesen
O Brother, Where Start Thou? Sibling Spillovers on College and Major Choice in Four Countries
Adam Altmejd, Andrés Barrios-Fernández, Marin Drlje, Joshua Goodman, Michael Hurwitz, Dejan Kovač, Christine Mulhern, Christopher Neilson, Jonathan Smith
Quarterly Journal of Economics,
Nr. 3,
2021
Abstract
Family and social networks are widely believed to influence important life decisions, but causal identification of those effects is notoriously challenging. Using data from Chile, Croatia, Sweden, and the United States, we study within-family spillovers in college and major choice across a variety of national contexts. Exploiting college-specific admissions thresholds that directly affect older but not younger siblings’ college options, we show that in all four countries a meaningful portion of younger siblings follow their older sibling to the same college or college-major combination. Older siblings are followed regardless of whether their target and counterfactual options have large, small, or even negative differences in quality. Spillover effects disappear, however, if the older sibling drops out of college, suggesting that older siblings’ college experiences matter. That siblings influence important human capital investment decisions across such varied contexts suggests that our findings are not an artifact of particular institutional detail but a more generalizable description of human behavior. Causal links between the postsecondary paths of close peers may partly explain persistent college enrollment inequalities between social groups, and this suggests that interventions to improve college access may have multiplier effects.
Artikel Lesen
Names and Behavior in a War
Štěpán Jurajda, Dejan Kovač
Journal of Population Economics,
Nr. 1,
2021
Abstract
We implement a novel empirical strategy for measuring and studying a strong form of nationalism—the willingness to fight and die in a war for national independence—using name choices corresponding to a previous war leader. Based on data on almost half a million soldiers, we first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for service in the 1991–1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certificates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism rose continuously starting in the 1970s and that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII. Our evidence on intergenerational transmission of nationalism is consistent with nationalist fathers purposefully reflecting the trade-off between within-family and society-wide transmission channels of political values. We also link the nationalist values we proxy using first name choices to right-wing voting behavior in 2015, 20 years after the war.
Artikel Lesen
