Research

I study the impact of stress resulting from the unexpected death of a child on parents’ mortality risk. Using a flexible approach and allowing for time-varying treatment effects, I find no impact on the short-run mortality risk. However, I estimate a substantial increase in the long-run, particularly among men. I provide evidence that this group likely resorts to risky health behaviours such as heavy smoking and drinking as coping mechanisms. Assessing the possible protective effects of mental health support, I find evidence that it lowers the mortality risk for women. Mental health support has a smaller impact for men. I show that this is likely due to underutilization by those who would benefit the most. Finally, I present robustness of my results to specific departure from my identifying assumptions

Summary in RWI Impact Note   Featured in ORF Science (radio segment)

The labor supply effects of becoming a grandmother are not well established in the empirical literature. We use high-quality administrative data from Austria to estimate the effect of grandmotherhood on the labor supply decision of older workers. Under the assumption that grandmothers cannot predict the exact date of conception of their grandchild, we identify the effect of the first grandchild on employment (extensive margin). Our Timing-of-Events approach shows that having a first grandchild increases the probability of leaving the labor market by 8 percent. This effect is stronger when informal childcare is more valuable to the mother. To  assess the effect of an additional grandchild (intensive margin), we estimate the reduced-form effect of a twin-birth among the first grandchild on grandmothers' labor supply. Our estimations show a significant effect of a further grandchild. Our results highlight the important influence of the extended family on the decisions of older workers and point to heterogeneity across institutional settings and families.

In the absence of effective vaccination, mass testing and quarantining of positive cases and their contacts could help to mitigate pandemics and allow economies to stay open. We investigate the effects of repeated mass testing on the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, using data from the first ever nationwide rapid antigen testing implemented in Slovakia in autumn 2020. After the first round of testing, only districts above an ex-ante unknown threshold of test positivity were re-tested. Comparing districts above and below the threshold, we provide evidence that repeated mass antigen testing can temporarily reduce the number of new infections. Our results suggest that mass testing coupled with the quarantining of positive cases and their contacts could be an effective tool in mitigating pandemics. For lasting effects, re-testing at regular intervals would likely be necessary.

We provide comprehensive evidence on the consequences of automation risk on the career of unemployed workers and the mitigating role of labor market training. Using almost two decades of administrative data for Austria, we find that a higher risk of automation reduces the job finding probability; a problem which has increased over the past years. This development is associated with increasing re-employment wages and job stability. We also present new aspects of public training in times of technological progress. Provided training counteracts the negative impact of automation on the job finding probability. Its efficiency has declined over the past years, however.

Featured in The Telegraph   The Long View     Die Presse (in German)

The impact of children's early development status on parental labor market outcomes is not well established in the empirical literature. We combine an instrumental variable approach to account for the endogeneity of the development status with a model of non-random labor force participation to identify its impact. A one unit increase in our poor child development index reduces long-term maternal weekly hours worked by 9 hours and weekly income by 215 Australian Dollars. We provide evidence that mothers substitute working time with childcare to compensate for early disadvantages. We do not find any responds of fathers to early child development.

We examine how firms adjust their labor demand to changes in immigration policy as captured by intensified immigration enforcement.  Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in interior immigration enforcement, we find that firms boost their demand for low-skilled foreign-born labor under the H-2B visa program as enforcement intensifies.  Firms’ increased demand for guest workers is inversely related to native’s employment in occupations hiring most H-2B workers.  Yet, it does not significantly alter their wages or employment in the intensive margin in those occupations, nor does it appear to crowd-out natives from those jobs.    

We examine how migrant workers impact firm performance using administrative data from the United States. Exploiting an unexpected change in firms' likelihood of securing low-wage workers through the H-2B visa program, we find limited crowd-out of other forms of employment and no impact on average pay at the firm. Yet, access to H-2B workers raises firms' annual revenues and survival likelihood. Our results are consistent with the notion that guest worker programs can help address labor shortages without inflicting large losses on incumbent workers.

 Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide and a critical public health concern. We examine the hypothesis of suicide contagion within the workplace, investigating whether exposure to a coworker's suicide increases an individual's suicide risk. Using high-quality administrative data from Austria and an event study approach, we compare approximately 150,000 workers exposed to a coworker's suicide with a matched group exposed to a ``placebo suicide''. We find a significant increase in suicide risk for exposed individuals, with a cumulative treatment effect of 0.04 percentage points (33.3 percent) over a 20-year post-event period. Exposed individuals who also die by suicide are more likely to use the same method as their deceased coworker, strongly suggesting a causal link. Two placebo tests bolster this interpretation: workers who left the firm before the suicide and those exposed to a coworker's fatal car accident do not show an elevated suicide risk

We show that providing publicly available wage information in vacancies, so-called external pay transparency, can reduce the gender wage gap. There is an increasing interest in pay transparency policies as a tool to combat unequal pay. We exploit a reform of Austria's Equal Treatment Law to evaluate how providing wage information in vacancies affects the gender wage gap. To take into account that the value of providing such external pay information is likely to be heterogeneous along the wage distribution, we implement a Quantile Difference-in-Difference model.  The reform led to a small overall reduction of the gender wage gap. Our main results highlight that reductions in the wage gap are larger in circumstances where women are likely to hold  misspecified beliefs about their labor market options and when needing to make job acceptance decisions under pressure. The reduction in the gender wage gap was caused by an increase in women's earnings, particularly at the lower part of the distribution. Earnings of men, on the other side, remained largely constant. Our results lend support to policy proposals aimed at increasing external pay transparency.

In the News: Die Presse

We show that mothers exhibit high job mobility after childbirth, with important implications for their future career trajectories. Using a bounding approach and Austrian administrative data, we find that changing jobs after childbirth increases re-employment earnings, but only for mothers at the upper part of the earnings distribution. Changing jobs also has very persistent effects, narrowing the household earnings gap. The positive effects are caused by these mothers moving to faster growing firms offering better career opportunities to women, even if this requires longer commuting. We highlight that high mobility costs preclude more mothers from moving to better employment opportunities.

In the News: Die Presse  Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung  Austrian Institute for Family Studies

We study the spillover effects of immigration enforcement policies on children’s human capital. Exploiting the temporal and geographic variation in the enactment of immigration enforcement policies, we find that the English language skills of US-born children with at least one undocumented parent are negatively affected by the introduction of these policies. Changes in parental investment behavior cause this reduction in children’s English skills. Parents are less likely to enroll their children in formal non-mandatory preschool, substituting formal non-mandatory preschool education with parental time at home. Parents also reduce time spent on leisure and socializing, providing children with fewer opportunities to interact and learn from others. Ultimately, these developments reduce children’s long-term educational success. Exposure to immigration enforcement during early childhood lowers the likelihood of high school completion. We also find negative, though imprecise, effects on college enrollment

Blog Post: Border Criminologies Blog

In this paper, I investigate the impact of parental unemployment on children's educational attainment and long-run labor market outcomes. I find that parental unemployment shortly before an important parental investment decision compared to afterward lowers a child's probability of holding a university degree by more than 5 percentage points. This gap is unlikely explained by different access to family resources. I do not find that income is affected at the beginning of a child's labor market career along the distribution but find a gradual deterioration later on. A substantial share of these long-term losses can be explained by the lower parental investment decision. My results emphasize the intergenerational and long-lasting consequences of parental unemployment even when accounting for selection.

Summary in Upjohn Institute Research Highlights  Austrian Institute for Family Studies  Featured in MDR Wissen (radio segment) Süddeutsche Zeitung  WSJ Economics Blog  Business Insider