<p>This dissertation consists of three separate essays on job search and labor market dynamics. In the first essay, “The Impact of Labor Market Conditions on Job Creation: Evidence from Firm Level Data”, I study how much changes in labor market conditions reduce employment fluctuations over the business cycle. Changes in labor market conditions make hiring more expensive during expansions and cheaper during recessions, creating counter-cyclical incentives for job creation. I estimate firm level elasticities of labor demand with respect to changes in labor market conditions, considering two margins: changes in labor market tightness and changes in wages. Using employer-employee matched data from Brazil, I find that all firms are more sensitive to changes in wages rather than labor market tightness, and there is substantial heterogeneity in labor demand elasticity across regions. Based on these results, I demonstrate that changes in labor market conditions reduce the variance of employment growth over the business cycle by 20% in a median region, and this effect is equally driven by changes along each margin. Moreover, I show that the magnitude of the effect of labor market conditions on employment growth can be significantly affected by economic policy. In particular, I document that the rapid growth of the national minimum wages in Brazil in 1997-2010 amplified the impact of the change in labor market conditions during local expansions and diminished this impact during local recessions.</p><p>In the second essay, “A Framework for Estimating Persistence of Local Labor</p><p>Demand Shocks”, I propose a decomposition which allows me to study the persistence of local labor demand shocks. Persistence of labor demand shocks varies across industries, and the incidence of shocks in a region depends on the regional industrial composition. As a result, less diverse regions are more likely to experience deeper shocks, but not necessarily more long lasting shocks. Building on this idea, I propose a decomposition of local labor demand shocks into idiosyncratic location shocks and nationwide industry shocks and estimate the variance and the persistence of these shocks using the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) in 1990-2013.</p><p>In the third essay, “Conditional Choice Probability Estimation of Continuous- Time Job Search Models”, co-authored with Peter Arcidiacono and Arnaud Maurel, we propose a novel, computationally feasible method of estimating non-stationary job search models. Non-stationary job search models arise in many applications, where policy change can be anticipated by the workers. The most prominent example of such policy is the expiration of unemployment benefits. However, estimating these models still poses a considerable computational challenge, because of the need to solve a differential equation numerically at each step of the optimization routine. We overcome this challenge by adopting conditional choice probability methods, widely used in dynamic discrete choice literature, to job search models and show how the hazard rate out of unemployment and the distribution of the accepted wages, which can be estimated in many datasets, can be used to infer the value of unemployment. We demonstrate how to apply our method by analyzing the effect of the unemployment benefit expiration on duration of unemployment using the data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) in 1996-2007.</p> / Dissertation

Cette thèse de doctorat a pour vocation de contribuer au débat sur l'origine de la discrimination ethnique, en se focalisant sur la population des immigrés africains en France et sur celle des Afro-américains aux Etats-Unis. Spécifiquement, en analysant des données microéconomiques françaises et américaines, elle permet d'identifier l'existence de la discrimination fondée sur le principe des préférences des employeurs et des consommateurs et leur effet sur la fragilisation de la situation économique de ces deux groupes minorés. Elle établit l'importance de la discrimination indirecte de la part des consommateurs, et suggère qu'il est primordial de connaître les origines de la discrimination ethnique pour instaurer des politiques publiques à même de lutter efficacement contre ce phénomène. Le premier chapitre propose une analyse descriptive de l'accès des actifs selon leurs origines géographiques aux emplois en contact avec la clientèle en France. Celui-ci révèle le moindre accès des immigrés en France, et des immigrés africains en particulier, aux emplois en contact avec le public. Dans le but d'analyser si les consommateurs jouent un rôle dans cette sous-représentation, le deuxième chapitre formule une stratégie de test destinée à distinguer la discrimination des consommateurs de celle des employeurs. L'existence de ces deux sources de discrimination à l'encontre des immigrés africains est ensuite prouvée à travers l'utilisation du recensement de la population française. A l'aide de la stratégie de test précédente, le troisième chapitre révèle la présence de cette source de discrimination envers les Afro-américains aux Etats-Unis. / This dissertation aims at contributing to the debate on the origins of ethnic discrimination by focusing on the population of African immigrants in France, and of African-Americans in the United States. More specifically, by analyzing French and US microeconomic data, it identifies the existence of discrimination based on the principle of employers' and consumers' tastes, and their impact on the weakening of the economic situation of these two discriminated groups. It establishes the importance of consumer discrimination and suggests that it is essential to understand the origins of ethnic discrimination in order to introduce efficient public policies to overcome this phenomenon. The first chapter provides a descriptive analysis of the access to customer-contact jobs for employed individuals based on their geographic origin. It reveals a lower access for immigrants in France, and African immigrants in particular, everything else being constant. In order to analyze whether consumer discrimination plays a part in this under-representation, the second chapter builds a test strategy to disentangle consumer from employer discrimination. The existence of consumer discrimination against African immigrants is then proved using the French census. Using the aforementioned test strategy, the third chapter reveals the presence of this source of discrimination against African-Americans in the US.

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There is an urbanization trend in the world. Sweden is no exception. Today, approximately 85 percent of Sweden's population live in urban areas, which means that urbanization has grown considerably since the beginning of the 19th century when 90 percent of Sweden's population lived in rural areas. At the same time as urbanization has grown stronger, employment commuting, both within and across municipal boundaries, has increased. Improved infrastructure in the form of better road networks, faster and denser public transport and an increased number of passenger cars are all contributing factors to this. As an effect of the increased commuting, local labour markets have been expanded in many places and so-called regional enlargement has been created.   The aim of this study is to map and analyse the development pattern, with the focus on the population, in the Umeå region during the period 2000 to 2015. The purpose is also to discuss the development in the region and it’s connection to theories and the general development.   The study is a descriptive quantitative study based on municipal statistics from SCB. The study describes population development in different demographic dimensions for all municipalities in the Umeå region.   The study's results indicate that the Umeå region has had a positive development between 2000 and 2015, but the differences within the region are high. Umeå municipality is the municipality that had the strongest growth, while the surrounding municipalities had a weak, and in some cases also a negative development. You can see clear traces of urbanization in the region, not only Umeå municipality has had a positive development, but primarily Umeå city.     Keywords: population development, urbanization, local labor markets, regional enlargement, growth poles

Diese Dissertation besteht aus vier Aufsätzen, die einen Beitrag zur Literatur über die empirische Analyse von lokalen Arbeitsmärkten leisten. Der erste Aufsatz nutzt den Abzug eines Großteils der US-Stationierungsstreitkräfte in Deutschland seit 1990 als ein natürliches Experiment, das die Identifikation von kausalen Effekten von Nachfrageschocks in lokalen Arbeitsmärkten ermöglicht. Als Datengrundlage dient ein neu aufbereiteter Datensatz zu den regionalen Veränderungen der Personalstärke der U.S. Stützpunkte. Die empirischen Ergebnisse belegen, dass der Abzug zu einem signifikanten Rückgang der Beschäftigung in der lokalen Privatwirtschaft und einem nachfolgenden Anstieg in der lokalen Arbeitslosenrate führte. Im Gegensatz dazu weisen die Ergebnisse keine Evidenz für signifikante Anpassungen in den lokalen Löhnen oder Wanderungssalden auf. Der zweite Aufsatz vertieft die Frage der lokalen Lohnrigiditäten angesichts des Nachfrageschocks. Der Einfluss von zwei Institutionen wird als mögliche Quelle von heterogenen Lohnanpassungen in lokalen Arbeitsmärkten identifiziert. Die empirischen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Einfluss der beiden Institutionen isoliert mit keinen heterogenen Lohnanpassungen verbunden ist, aber das Zusammenwirken beider Dimensionen verbunden ist mit differenziellen Lohnreduktionen. Der dritte Aufsatz erweitert die Analyse der Folgen des amerikanischen Truppenabzugs um die Frage nach der Entwicklung der lokalen Kriminalitätsrate. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Truppenabzug mit einem Rückgang der Kriminalität insbesondere von Drogen- und Sexualstraftaten verbunden ist. Der vierte Aufsatz untersucht die langfristige Entwicklung der Zeitarbeit in den regionalen Arbeitsmärkten in Deutschland seit 1979. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die anfängliche Verteilung der Beschäftigungsanteile für manuelle Nicht-Routine- und Routine-Tätigkeiten eine starke Vorhersagekraft für das unterschiedliche regionale Beschäftigungswachstum von Zeitarbeit in Deutschland besitzt. / This thesis consists of four essays that contribute to the empirical analysis of local labor markets. The first essay exploits the massive withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces in the aftermath of the German Reunification as a natural experiment that enables the identification of the causal impact of local labor demand shocks. It introduces a novel dataset that details the evolution of the U.S. manpower levels at the disaggregated regional level and thereby enables the measurement how U.S. base closures affected the demand for local non-tradable goods and services. The results from the empirical analyses suggest that the drop in local labor demand caused a significant loss of private sector employment and generated a subsequent rise in local unemployment rates. In contrast, wages and migration patterns do not exhibit any significant responses. The second essay further explores the rigidity of wages in local labor markets in response to the U.S. base closures. The presence of two types of institutions (i.e. works councils and the German Trade and Crafts Code) and their interplay are characterized as potential sources of wage heterogeneities. While in isolation these two institutions do not seem to alter the pattern of insignificant wage adjustments, their interaction is found to introduce a channel for small downward wage adjustments. The third essay is concerned with the change in local crime rates in response to the U.S. presence and withdrawal. The empirical findings suggest that the drawdown of the U.S. military presence can be related to large and significant drops in the local rate of drug and sex offenses. The fourth essay provides an empirical analysis of the diverging patterns of employment in temporary help services across labor markets in Germany over the last 30 years. The differential growth pattern both at the level of occupations and across regional labor markets are found to be related to the initial intensity of routine and non-routine manual tasks.

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Diese Dissertation umfasst vier Essays, die einen Beitrag zur empirischen Literatur über die Determinanten der Veränderungen in der Beschäftigungs- und Lohnstruktur in Deutschland leisten. Im ersten Aufsatz wird der Zusammenhang zwischen technologischem Wandel und Wachstum von Beschäftigung am unteren Ende der Lohnverteilung untersucht. Eine ökonometrische Analyse zeigt, dass technologischer Wandel die Arbeitsnachfrage von routine-intensiven Berufen hin zu Berufen verschiebt, die niedrig entlohnte manuelle Tätigkeiten erfordern und sich nicht zur Substitution durch Informationstechnologien eignen. Damit trägt er zur Polarisierung der Beschäftigungsstrukturen bei. Der zweite Aufsatz untersucht die Rolle von technologischem Wandel in der Entstehung räumlicher Lohnungleichheiten. Es wird gezeigt, dass technologischer Wandel zu einem Zuwachs in der Entlohnung von nicht-routine kognitiven Tätigkeiten und zu einem Rückgang der Entlohnung für routine und nicht-routine manuelle Tätigkeiten führte und damit zur Vergrößerung der inter- und intra-regionalen Lohnungleichheit beitrug. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht die Beschäftigungswirkung von Produktmarktderegulierung am Beispiel der Liberalisierung der Ladenschlussgesetze, wobei regionale Variation in der Gesetzgebung zur Identifikation des kausalen Effekts dient. Es wird gezeigt, dass die Beschäftigung im Einzelhandel durch die Deregulierung um etwa 19.000 vollzeitäquivalente Stellen zurückging. Dem zugrunde liegt ein signifikanter Rückgang an kleinen Unternehmen, die personalintensiver arbeiten als große Unternehmen. Im vierten Aufsatz werden die Auswirkungen von öffentlicher Beschäftigung auf die Beschäftigung im Privatsektor untersucht. Ergebnis ist, dass die Schaffung öffentlicher Beschäftigung erhebliche Verdrängungseffekte auf die Gesamtbeschäftigung im Privatsektor hat, wobei hauptsächlich der handelbare Sektor von Beschäftigungsverlusten betroffen ist. / This thesis consists of four essays that contribute to the empirical literature on the determinants of recent changes in the employment and wage structure in Germany. The first essay analyzes recent employment growth at the lower tail of the wage distribution and its relation to technological progress. An econometric analysis suggests that tech-nological progress has shifted the demand from routine intensive occupations towards low-paying service occupations that require non-routine manual tasks, which are difficult to be replaced by information technologies, thereby contributing to the polarization of the employment structure. The second essay explores the role of technological change in the evolution of spatial wage inequality. The results indicate technological change is one driver of wage inequality by increasing the compensation for non-routine cognitive tasks, and by decreasing the compensation for routine and non-routine manual tasks. The third essay exploits regional variation in the liberalization of shop-closing legislation in Germany to identify the causal impact of product market deregulation on employment outcomes in the retail sector. The results from the empirical analysis suggest that the deregulation had moderately negative effects on retail employment, leading to a loss of approximately 19,000 full-time equivalent jobs. The reason is that deregulation induced a change in the market structure by significantly decreasing the number of small retail stores which are relatively more personnel-intensive than larger formats. The fourth essay provides an empirical analysis of the impact of changes in public sector employment on employment in the private sector at the level of local labor markets. It shows that expansions in public employment can be associated with a sizeable crowding out effect on private sector employment. Moreover, the results indicate that employment losses are concentrated in the tradable sector.

This thesis explores the entire cycle of education, from initial access to schooling, over degree completion, to returns to education. Despite recent gains in increasing access, an tens of millions of children worldwide are still out of school. Abolishing school fees has increased enrollment rates in several countries where enrollments were low and fees were high. However, such policies may be less effective, or even have negative consequences, when supply-side responses are weak. The first part of the thesis evaluates the impacts of a tuition waiver program in Haiti, which provided public financing to nonpublic schools conditional on not charging tuition. The chapter concludes that school's participation in the program results in more students enrolled, more staff, and slightly higher student-teacher ratios. The program also reduces grade repetition and the share of overage students. While the increase in students does not directly equate to a reduction in the number of children out of school, it does demonstrate strong demand from families for the program and a correspondingly strong supply response from the nonpublic sector.Pertaining degree completion, it is well established that natural disasters can have a negative effect on human capital accumulation. However, a comparison of the differential impacts of distinct disaster classes is missing. Using census data and information from DesInventar and EMDAT, two large disaster databases, the second part of the thesis assesses how geological disasters and climatic shocks affect the upper secondary degree attainment of adolescents. The chapter focuses on Mexico, given its diverse disaster landscape and lack of obligatory upper secondary education over the observed time period. While all disaster types are found to impede attainment, climatic disasters that are not infrastructure-destructive (e.g. droughts) have the strongest negative effect, decreasing educational expansion by over 40%. The effects seem largely driven by demand-side changes such as increases in school dropouts and fertility, especially for young women. The results may also be influenced by deteriorated parental labor market outcomes. Supply-side effects appear to be solely driven by infrastructure-destructive climatic shocks (e.g. floods). These findings thus call for differential public measures according to specific disaster types and an enhanced attention to climatic events given their potentially stronger impact on younger generations.It is also widely appreciated that natural disasters can have negative impacts on local labor market outcomes. However, the study of differential types of negative capital shocks, the underlying labor market mechanisms, and the context of the poorest countries have been neglected. Following testable predictions of economic theory, the third part of the thesis exploits the exogenous variation of destruction of human and physical capital caused by the 2010 Haiti earthquake to disentangle the differential impact on local individual monetary returns to education. Employing individual-level survey data from before and after the earthquake the chapter finds that the returns decreased on average by 37%, especially in equipment-capital intensive industry. Higher educated individuals adjust into low-paying self-employment or agriculture. The returns are particularly shock-sensitive for urban residents, migrants, males, and people over age 25. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished