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Veranstaltungsformat: Hybrid

This study is about the effect of the minimum wage on robot adoption in Germany.

We study the effect of the minimum wage on robot adoption in Germany. By exploiting the variation of whether and to what extent a plant is affected by the minimum wage introduced in 2015, we document a positive effect of the minimum wage exposure on plant-level robot adoption. Using administrative worker-level data, we find that the minimum wage introduction raises the incentives for plants to adopt robots only when it affects the workers in simple manual occupations.

The empirical findings are consistent with the prediction through the relative factor price channel based on a task-based model of robot adoption.

This study is about changes in wage premia and employment across the firm pay distribution, during a large immigration wave in Germany.

The arrival of migrants with low reservation wages strengthens the monopsony power of firms. Firms can exploit this supply of “cheap” migrant labor by offering lower wages, though at the cost of forgoing potential native hires who demand higher pay. This monopsonistic trade-off can lead to large negative effects on native employment, which are concentrated among low-paying firms.

To validate these predictions, we study changes in wage premia and employment across the firm pay distribution, during a large immigration wave in Germany. These adverse effects can be mitigated through policies which constrain firms’ monopsony power over migrants directly, such as collective bargaining, or indirectly, such as policies that facilitate the labor market integration of migrants.

The paper develops a theoretical framework to study the effect of minimum wages on poverty and bring this framework to the data.

We develop a theoretical framework to study the effect of minimum wages on poverty and bring this framework to the data using a detailed individual-level panel dataset combined with information on county-level minimum wages from urban China and both a first-differenced multinomial logit model and a difference-in-differences approach. We show that theoretically the impact of minimum wages on poverty is ambiguous while empirically China’s minimum wages have had a moderate yet significant poverty reducing effect.

Digging deeper, we demonstrate two countervailing mechanisms at work: higher minimum wages help pull some workers out of poverty, while simultaneously pushing a smaller number of workers into poverty. Results are robust to a wide range of sensitivity checks including using various different poverty lines, while subgroup analyses notably show that the effect of minimum wages on poverty is most pronounced for women.

Joint with:
Sylvie Démurger, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon and CNRS
Carl Lin, Bucknell University
Dewen Wang, The World Bank

This study is about linking post-partum experience to fertility intentions on over forties.

While motherhood is often portrayed positively, many women experience significant emotional post-partum challenges. These negative experiences may shape future family planning decisions, yet their impact on fertility intentions remains understudied.
Using a sample of Italian mothers, emotional distress was measured using a four-item scale assessing tiredness, sadness, inadequacy, and loneliness. Regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between emotional distress and fertility intentions, controlling for relevant socio-demographic factors.

A significant negative association was found between post-partum emotional distress and fertility intentions. Mothers experiencing higher levels of emotional distress reported lower intentions for subsequent childbearing, with this effect primarily driven by mothers over 35 years old.
Post-partum emotional distress is associated with a reduction in mothers' fertility intentions, particularly among older mothers, challenging idealized narratives of motherhood and highlighting the need for a more nuanced understanding of maternal experiences.
These findings underscore the importance of addressing maternal emotional well-being in reproductive health policies and suggest the need for enhanced post-partum support services, especially for older mothers.

This paper studies the role of wages and job benefits in job search behavior. We use wage and benefit data from a market-leading employer review platform and run a large-scale randomized control trial on an online job board to estimate the elasticity of job seekers' applications to posted wages and their willingness to pay for job benefits. A 10% higher wage increases job seekers' probability to view and apply to an ad by 3-5%. Many job benefits are highly valued by job seekers: Home office and company cars are valued at around 15 percent of wages, company-provided child care at 10 percent and and parking spots at around 7 percent of wages. The average vacancy offers job benefits worth 25 percent of wages. We further document that higher-paying firms typically offer more amenities. Taking the distribution and valuation of job benefits into account, we show that job value inequality is significantly higher than wage inequality. 

In this talk, a larger project that seeks to understand the role of employers in the inheritance of economic status, is discussed.

Intergenerational mobility, the extent to which individuals can achieve economic success regardless of their family background, is a key indicator of equality of opportunity. While labor market outcomes reflect both individual traits and firm-level pay-setting, research on intergenerational mobility has largely focused on the former.

In this talk, I discuss a larger project that seeks to understand the role of employers in the inheritance of economic status. In contemporary Sweden, sorting across workplaces accounts for between one-quarter (employers) and two-fifths (establishments) of the intergenerational correlation in labor earnings. Privileged workers tend to sort into firms that both generate higher value-added and distribute a larger share of surplus to employees. Although workers from less advantaged backgrounds benefit equally when employed by high-paying firms, they are much less likely to gain access to them. I quantify the roles of education, occupation, parental job networks, and the inheritance of industry, employer, and local labor market. I then conclude by outlining a broader research agenda using linked employer-employee data to systematically assess how workplace-level mechanisms shape inequality by social origin.

Why do only few couples choose the female spouse as main provider of labour income?

Why do only few couples choose the female spouse as main provider of labour income? To understand gender imbalances among family breadwinners, I present a collective household production model with identity concerns that illuminates different channels through which gender norms can affect household specialisation decisions. To test the predictions of the model regarding identity, I develop a novel experimental paradigm to study the specialisation choices of real heterosexual couples in the lab.

Women are less likely to become breadwinners than men are, but this is mainly due to gender differences in productivity. While I find little evidence that concerns for gender identity affect specialisation choices, the results suggest they amplify gender differences in labour supply at the intensive margin. The design further allows me to shed light on two additional factors that contribute to the gender imbalance among breadwinners: men’s overconfidence and women’s reluctance to assume sole responsibility for household income.

This paper investigates whether power vacua lead to collective action of marginalised groups.

In this paper, we investigate whether power vacua lead to collective action of marginalised groups. Specifically, we examine whether the large share of men missing during WWI in Germany led to an increase in the suffragette movement fighting for women's right to vote. We exploit exogenous variation in the drafting probability arising from regional differences in recruitment responsibility and link it to the presence of local suffragette clubs.

Our results suggest that women were more likely to keep open local suffragette clubs in regions with higher male absences during the war. We further explore two additional outcomes of male absences related to women's empowerment. First, we show that male absences led to increased political participation among women once female voting rights were introduced. Second, using data on employment by industry and gender, we show that missing men contributed to the growing importance of women in the economic sphere.

This study shows how new digital technology reshapes vocational training and skill acquisition.

We study how new digital technology reshapes vocational training and skill acquisition and its impact on workers' careers. We construct a novel database of legally binding training curricula and changes therein, spanning the near universe of vocational training in Germany over five decades, and link curriculum updates to breakthrough technologies using Natural Language Processing techniques.

Our findings reveal that technological advances drive training updates, with curriculum content evolving towards greater use of digital and social skills, and less routine intensive tasks, mostly through new skill emergence. Using administrative employer-employee data, we show that educational updates help workers adapt to new demands for their expertise, and earn higher wages compared to workers with outdated skills. These findings highlight the role of changes in within-occupational skill supply in meeting evolving labor market demands for non-college educated workers.

Joint with Anna Salomons and Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage.