Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102750
Alex Bryson , Harald Dale-Olsen
{"title":"Job search under changing labour taxes","authors":"Alex Bryson , Harald Dale-Olsen","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102750","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102750","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Workers’ job mobility decisions are related to firms’ wage policies but also depend on tax schedules. Using Norwegian population-wide administrative linked employer-employee data for 2010–2019, we study how the job-to-job turnover of employees is affected by marginal taxes and firms’ pay policies, thus drawing inferences on job search behaviour. By paying higher wages, job-to-job separation rates drop, but this negative relationship is weakened when income taxes increase, consistent with higher taxes reducing search activity. However, consistent with theory, the tax effect is smaller where workers receive performance bonuses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102750"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144934148","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effects of team diversity on individual performance and voice: A field experiment of group composition by gender and language","authors":"Valentina Contreras , Chiara Orsini , Berkay Özcan , Johann Koehler","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102763","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102763","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We present results from a field experiment that tests the effects of varying gender and linguistic group composition on performance and on group-members’ perception that their voice is heard when completing complex collaborative work within a low scrutiny environment. We randomize individuals enrolled in a postgraduate course populated by mostly women and non-native English speakers into small teams within larger, exogenously assigned seminar groups. Groups are tasked with complex and deliberative research assignments over three months. Using administrative and survey data, we find that a higher share of women in seminar groups significantly benefits the academic performance of group members—an effect driven by a positive effect on female native English speakers — while a greater proportion of women in small teams improves non-native language speakers’ perception of being heard.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102763"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144933694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102754
Luca Fontanelli , Flavio Calvino , Chiara Criscuolo , Lionel Nesta , Elena Verdolini
{"title":"Human after all: Occupations at the core of AI adoption","authors":"Luca Fontanelli , Flavio Calvino , Chiara Criscuolo , Lionel Nesta , Elena Verdolini","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102754","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102754","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates how firms’ occupational structure shapes the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) using matched administrative data on French firms and relying on an instrumental variable Probit model. We identify ICT engineers as the only occupational group with a robust and statistically significant effect on AI adoption. This finding holds for ICT and non-ICT Services sectors, and regardless of whether AI is developed in-house or acquired externally. Our estimates suggest that closing the occupational gap between adopters and non-adopters would require approximately 215,000 additional ICT engineers, and 45,000 for the firms most exposed to AI. The results highlight the critical importance of investing in advanced digital skills to support the broader diffusion of AI technologies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102754"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144934143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102759
Laurenz Baertsch , Malte Sandner
{"title":"Reducing the child penalty by incentivizing maternal part-time work?","authors":"Laurenz Baertsch , Malte Sandner","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102759","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102759","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Governments worldwide are discussing ways to increase maternal labor market participation and to reduce the child penalty. This study analyzes the long run effects of a paid parental leave reform in Germany, a country characterized by high rates of maternal part-time employment after childbirth. The reform introduced additional financial incentives for mothers to engage in part-time work during the first two years following childbirth. Using German social security records, we exploit the fact that only mothers whose child is born in or after July 2015 are eligible for the new part-time parental leave option in a Difference-in-Differences strategy. We find that the policy increased the probability that high-income mothers return to work during the first year after child birth by 2.1–2.8 percentage points (<span><math><mo>≈</mo></math></span> 15%–20%). However, the policy does not affect maternal employment along the extensive or intensive margin (part-time or full-time work) in the long run (i.e. up to 4.5 years after child). This indicates that while the reform successfully encourages early part-time return to work among high-income mothers, it does not significantly reduce the child penalty. However, it does also not trap mothers in part-time employment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102759"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144933692","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-08-01DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102743
Katharina Adler , Fabian Kosse , Markus Nagler , Johannes Rincke
{"title":"Earnings expectations of “First-in Family” university students and their role for major choice","authors":"Katharina Adler , Fabian Kosse , Markus Nagler , Johannes Rincke","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102743","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102743","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How do students’ earnings expectations differ by being the first in their family to attend university (FiF) and how do they affect field of study choice? We leverage unique survey and administrative data to document sizable gaps in expected earnings between FiF and non-FiF students. Our data can explain two-thirds of this gap, with the largest share attributable to field of study choice. We show that FiF students sort less into study fields based on their earnings expectations. Investigating potential explanations, we find that in high-earning fields, FiF students expect lower own ability and worse non-wage amenities than non-FiF students.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102743"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144934146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102766
Diego Dabed, Sabrina Genz, Emilie Rademakers
{"title":"Equalising the effects of automation? The role of task overlap for job finding","authors":"Diego Dabed, Sabrina Genz, Emilie Rademakers","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102766","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102766","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates whether task overlap can equalise the distributional effects of automation for unemployed job seekers displaced from routine jobs. Using a language model, we establish a novel job-to-job task similarity measure. Exploiting the resulting job network to define job markets flexibly, we find that only the most similar jobs affect job finding. Since automation-exposed jobs overlap with other highly exposed jobs, task-based reallocation provides little relief for affected job seekers. We show that this is not true for more recent software exposure, for which task overlap lowers the inequality in job finding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102766"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144757324","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-07-24DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102765
Marianna Kudlyak , Murat Tasci , Didem Tüzemen
{"title":"Minimum wage increases and vacancies","authors":"Marianna Kudlyak , Murat Tasci , Didem Tüzemen","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102765","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102765","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We use a unique data set and a novel identification strategy to estimate the effect of minimum wage increases on vacancy postings. Utilizing occupation-specific county-level vacancy data from the Conference Board’s Help Wanted Online for 2005-18, we find that state-level minimum wage increases lead to substantial declines in existing and new vacancy postings in occupations with a larger share of workers earning close to the effective minimum wage. We estimate that a 10 percent increase in the state-level effective minimum wage reduces vacancies in these occupations relative to the rest by 2.4 percent in the same quarter, and the cumulative effect is as large as 4.5 percent a year later. Focusing on vacancies rather than employment allows us to highlight changes in firms’ hiring intentions in response to minimum wage increases. Coupled with the earlier U.S. evidence showing reductions in separations following minimum wage hikes, our finding of declining vacancies contributes to the broader empirical literature suggesting negligible effects of minimum wage increases on net employment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 102765"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145005315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-07-22DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102764
Andreas Diemer
{"title":"The ‘acting native’ hypothesis: Evidence from classrooms in four European countries","authors":"Andreas Diemer","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102764","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102764","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In analogy to the controversial ‘acting White’ narrative for racial achievement gaps among US children, I explore whether migrant background pupils in Europe are exposed to similar social pressure by their peers not to adopt behaviours perceived to be typical of the majority group, notably doing well in school. Leveraging comprehensive longitudinal data on classroom interactions and several proxies for academic achievement, including predetermined measures of ability, I find mixed and model-dependent evidence in support of this ‘acting native’ hypothesis in the European context.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102764"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144703435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Labour EconomicsPub Date : 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102756
Junjie Guo
{"title":"Estimation of the wage offer distribution using both accepted and rejected offers","authors":"Junjie Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102756","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102756","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper estimates the wage offer distribution using workers who received multiple offers in a short period of time, including both accepted and rejected offers. We show that, after accounting for worker heterogeneity and measurement error, each wage offer is a random draw from the same distribution, and a normal distribution with a standard deviation of 0.137 is consistent with data. The dispersion is smaller than most estimates in the literature, increasing in the unemployment rate for workers without a bachelor’s degree, but not significantly related to a worker’s age or employment status.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102756"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding labour productivity in maternity wards","authors":"Marina Di Giacomo , Massimiliano Piacenza , Luca Salmasi , Gilberto Turati","doi":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102760","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102760","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper provides a causal estimate of labour productivity in maternity wards. We consider an Italian law that defines the staffing requirements of hospital maternity units according to the annual number of births. We exploit the discontinuities in the availability of medical staff caused by thresholds in the law to define both instrumental variables and a regression discontinuity framework that allows us to estimate the causal effect of different teams of professionals on the mode of delivery and on the health status of newborns and mothers at delivery. The analysis is based on detailed patient-level data on births in an Italian region. We find that maternity units with annual births above the thresholds are more likely to have a 'full team' of professionals at delivery. We find that having a full team has no effect on the mode of delivery (caesarean section vs vaginal birth). However, the presence of a full team has a significant impact on health outcomes. We find an improvement in both neonatal and maternal outcomes associated with a more intensive use of medical interventions, suggesting that larger hospitals are better than smaller units at managing deliveries with appropriate treatments to avoid complications. In addition, we do not find substantial heterogeneous effects across days of the week, time of day, or nationality of mothers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48153,"journal":{"name":"Labour Economics","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102760"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2025-07-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144679829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}