This dissertation includes three essays in applied microeconomics. The first two chapters focus on gender and female labor force participation. The third chapter examines the strategic behavior in politics.
The first chapter examines the impact of male casualties due to World War II on fertility and female employment in the United States. We rely on the number of casualties at the county-level and use a differences-in-differences strategy. While most counties in the U.S. experienced a Baby Boom following the war, we find that the increase in fertility was lower in high casualty rate counties than in low casualty rate counties. Analyzing the channels through which male casualties could have decreased fertility, we provide evidence that county male casualties are positively related to 1950s female employment and household income.
The second chapter examines the impact of gender focused labor legislation on women's labor force participation and economic empowerment. We rely on historical acts passed by state legislatures and exploit whether or not states passed regulatory laws regulating overall and industry specific employment and work conditions for women, night work laws and labor laws requiring provision of seats for working women. We exploit the fact that not all states enacted these laws as well as the variation in the timing of enactment of such laws. Our results show that women in comparison to men in treated states are more likely to be in the labor force after the introduction of seating and night work laws relative to control states. We also document the effect of industry-specific labor policies on women's likelihood to be employed in the affected industry and in higher-wage occupations within the industry of interest. Policy implications of our findings endorse the adoption of labor laws in favor of women to further their empowerment through a higher involvement in the labor market and financial independence.
The third chapter examines strategic timing in the appearance of scandals about elected officials in the United States. In order to minimize negative publicity, politicians may strategically manipulate the timing of uncovering their own unpopular actions to coincide with other important events that are crowding the media and distracting the public. I start by developing a simple voting model to better understand the different mechanisms behind the timing of scandals' appearance. A forward-looking strategy implies that predictable news events may be used by politicians to distort public opinion. Using a novel data set of misconduct episodes from 1970 to 2020 and an instrumental variable strategy, I show that scandals are more likely to appear simultaneously with other foreseeable newsworthy events. I also examine the heterogeneity of different types of scandals and potentially different behavior across political parties. My findings suggest that Republican politicians are behaving especially strategically in timing the revelation of sexual and political misconducts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/43657 |
| Date | 27 May 2022 |
| Creators | El Kattan, Lamis |
| Contributors | Brodeur, Abel |
| Publisher | Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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