Research

Here is an overview of my research. 

My Google Scholar page provides an overview of my publications. 

Check out the People page for an overview of the Lausanne Labor Group (and its former members).

WORK IN PROGRESS

• School Closures and Parental Labor Supply: Differential Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Closures, Sofia Schröter, Kalaivani Karunanethy. (This study is part of the NIH funded consortium on COVID-19 mitigation policies and economic behavior.) Slides.

• Supporting Disadvantaged Youth in Finding Formal Employment, Alice Antunes, Elena Esposito, Andrés Moay, Slides

• How to Compete with Robots and AI? Results for Switzerland: Total, Women, Men

• Supporting Job Search: A Series of Randomized Information and Training Interventions for Job Seekers (with Hélène Benghalem, Michele Pellizzari, Matthias Kliegel, Mauro Cherubini, Mirjam Bächli, Sascha Zuber). Slides.

• Adapting to scarcity: Job search and recruiting across occupational boundaries (with Daniel Kopp, Jeremias Kläui, and Michael Siegenthaler), slides

• Trade Shocks and Trade Restrictions, (with Fabrizio Colella and Laurance Wicht)

• What Drives the Decline in Job Offers? (with Aderonke Osikominu, Lorenzo Pesaresi, Jérémy Zuchuat, Josef Zweimüller). Slides.

• Patrick Arni, Rafael Lalive, and Pierpaolo Parrotta. Are Social Networks an Effective Job Search Channel? First Results from a Randomized Experiment.

WORKING PAPERS

• Ranking occupations by proximity to workers’ profiles. With Mirjam B¨achli, Helene Benghalem, Doriana Tinello, Damaris Aschwanden, Sascha Zuber, Matthias Kliegel, Michele Pellizzari. Paper

• Identifying Congestion Costs in Two-Sided Markets (with Tobias Lehmann and Camille Terrier)

• Lionel Cottier, Pierre Kempeneers, Yves Flückiger, and Rafael Lalive. Does Intensive Job Search Assistance Help Job Seekers Find and Keep Jobs? 

• Elisa Guglielminetti, Philippe Ruh, Etienne Wasmer, and Rafael Lalive. Spatial search strategies of job seekers and the role of unemployment insurance. (Revise and Resubmit Labour Economics)

PUBLISHED WORK

UNEMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

• David Card, Fabrizio Colella and Rafael Lalive. Gender Preferences in Job Vacancies and Workplace Gender Diversity Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming

• Lionel Cottier, Kathrin Degen and Rafael Lalive (in press). 2019. Can unemployment benefit cuts improve employment and earnings? Empirical Economics. 

• Rafael Lalive and Tobias Lehmann. 2017. The Labor Market in Switzerland, 2000-2016, IZA World of Labor.

• Rafael Lalive and Pierpaolo Parrotta. 2017. How does pension eligibility affect labor supply in couples? Labor Economics, 46: 177-188. DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2016.10.002.

• Patrick Arni, Gerald J. van der Berg, Rafael Lalive. 2015. Treatment Versus Regime Effects of Carrots and Sticks, Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, DOI: 10.1080/07350015.2020.1784744 

• Rafael Lalive, Camille Landais and Josef Zweimüller. 2015. Market Externalities from Large Unemployment Insurance Benefit Extension Programs. American Economic Review, 105(12): 3564-96. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20131273.

• Patrick Arni, Rafael Lalive, and Jan van Ours. 2013. How Effective are Unemployment Benefit Sanctions? Looking Beyond Unemployment Exit, Journal of Applied Econometrics, 28(7): 1153-1178. DOI:10.1002/jae.2289. 

  • Online Appendix

  • Media: Handelsblatt, TV Show Anne Will

• Rafael Lalive, Jan C. van Ours and Josef Zweimüller. 2012. Equilibrium Unemployment and the Duration of Unemployment Benefits. Journal of Population Economics, 24(4): 1385-1409. DOI: 10.1007/s00148-010-0318-8.

• Andreas Kuhn, Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller. 2009. The Public Health Costs of Job Loss. Journal of Health Economics, 28: 1099–1115. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2009.09.004. 

• Rafael Lalive. 2008. How do Extended Benefits affect Unemployment Duration? A Regression Discontinuity Approach. Journal of Econometrics, 142(2): 785-806. DOI: 10.1016/j.jeconom.2007.05.013. 

  • Data and programs available upon request.

  • Working Paper . February 2006. 

• Rafael Lalive, Jan Van Ours, and Josef Zweimüller. 2008. The Impact of Active Labor Market Programs on the Duration of Unemployment. The Economic Journal, 118: 235-257. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0297.2007.02111.x. 

  • Working Paper. July 2006. 

• Rafael Lalive. 2007. Unemployment Benefits, Unemployment Duration, and Post-Unemployment Jobs: A Regression Discontinuity Approach. American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings), 91(2): 108-112. DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.2.108. 

  • Manuscript

• Rafael Lalive, Jan Van Ours, and Josef Zweimüller. 2006. How Changes in Financial Incentives Affect the Duration of Unemployment. Review of Economic Studies, 73(4): 1009-1038. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-937X.2006.00406.x.

  • Data and programs available upon request.

  • Note: This paper features in Jan and Tito Boeri's chapter on unemployment benefits in The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets (see FRDB webpage).

• Rafael Lalive, Jan Van Ours, and Josef Zweimüller. 2005. The Effect of Benefit Sanctions on the Duration of Unemployment. Journal of the European Economic Association, 3(6): 1386-1417. DOI:10.1162/154247605775012879. 

• Armin Falk, Rafael Lalive, and Armin Zweimüller. 2005. The Success of Job Applications: A New Approach to Program Evaluation. Labour Economics, 12(6): 739-748. DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2004.05.002. 

• Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller. 2004. Benefit Entitlement and Unemployment Duration: The Role of Policy Endogeneity. Journal of Public Economics, 88(12): 2587-2616. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2003.10.002. 

• Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller. 2004. Benefit Entitlement and the Labor Market:Evidence from a Large Scale Policy Change, in: Agell, Jonas, Keen, Michael, and Alfons Weichenrieder (eds.), Labor Market Institutions and Public Policy, 2004, 63100, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Working Paper: CESifo Working Paper Series No. 694; IZA Discussion Paper No. 444. March 2002.

PARENTAL LEAVE/DISABILITY/HEALTH/PENSIONS

• Mothers at Work: How Mandating Paid Maternity Leave Affects Work and Fertility (joint with Esther Mirjam Girsberger Seelaus, Lena Hassani-Nezhad, Kalaivani Karunanethy,  Labour Economics, accepted for publication: March 2023 (IZA 2021 Version)

• Rafael Lalive, Arvind Magesan, and with Stefan Staubli (2023). How Social Security Reform Affects Retirement and Pension Claiming, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Vol 15, No 3.

• Christina Felfe and Rafael Lalive (2018). Does Early Child Care Affect Children’s Development? Journal of Public Economics.

• Rafael Lalive, Analía Schlosser, Andreas Steinhauer, and Josef Zweimüller. 2014. Parental Leave and Mothers' Post Birth Careers: The Relative Importance of Job Protection and Cash Benefits, Review of Economic Studies, 81(1): 219-265. DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdt028.

• Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller. 2009. Does Parental Leave Affect Fertility and Return-to-Work? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2009, 24(3): 1363-1402. DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2009.124.3.1363.  (Data and programs are available upon request.)

• Rafael Lalive, Jean-Philippe Wuellrich, and Josef Zweimüller. 2013. Do Financial Incentives Affect Firms’ Demand For Disabled Workers? Journal of the European Economic Association, 11(1): 25-58. DOI: 10.1111/j.1542-4774.2012.01109.x

CULTURE, SOCIAL INTERACTIONS AND NORMS

• Beatrix Eugster, Rafael Lalive, Andreas Steinhauer, and Josef Zweimüller. 2017. Culture, Work Attitudes, and Job Search: Evidence from the Swiss Language Border. Journal of the European Economic Association, jvw024. DOI: 10.1093/jeea/jvw024.

• Charles Efferson, Rafael Lalive, Maria Paula Cacault, and Deborah Kistler. 2016. The evolution of facultative conformity based on similarity. PLoS ONE 11(12): e0168551. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0168551.

• Verena Tiefenbeck, Lorenz Goette, Kathrin Degen, Vojkan Tasic, Elgar Fleisch, Rafael Lalive, Thorsten Staake. 2016. Overcoming Salience Bias: How Real-Time Feedback Fosters Resource Conservation. Management Science. DOI: doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2646.

• Maria Paula Cacault, Lorenz Goette, Rafael Lalive, and Mathias Thoenig. 2015. Do We Harm Others Even if We Don't Need To? Frontiers in psychology. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00729.

  • Supplementary material.

• Alberto Antonioni, Maria Paula Cacault, Rafael Lalive, and Marco Tomassini. 2014. Know Thy Neighbor: Costly Information Can Hurt Cooperation in Dynamic Networks, PLOSone. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0110788. 

• Alberto Antonioni, Maria Paula Cacault, Rafael Lalive, and Marco Tomassini. 2013. Coordination on Networks: Does Topology Matter? PLOSone 8(2): e55033. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055033. 

• Beatrix Eugster, Rafael Lalive, Andreas Steinhauer, and Josef Zweimüller. 2011. The Demand for Social Insurance: Does Culture Matter? The Economic Journal, 121(556): F413-F448. DOI:10.1111/j.1468-0297.2011.02479.x. 

• Rafael Lalive and Alois Stutzer. 2009. Approval of Equal Rights and Gender Differences in Well-Being. Journal of Population Economics. 23(3), 933-962. DOI: 10.1007/s00148-009-0257-4. 

• Rafael Lalive and Alejandra Cattaneo. 2009. Social Interactions and Schooling Decisions. Review of Economics and Statistics, 91(3): 457-477. DOI: 10.1162/rest.91.3.457.  

• Charles Efferson, Rafael Lalive and Ernst Fehr. 2008. The Coevolution of Cultural Groups and In-Group Favoritism. Science, 321: 1844-1849. DOI: 10.1126/science.1155805. 

• Charles Efferson, Rafael Lalive, Peter J. Richerson, Richard McElreath, and Mark Lubell. 2008. Conformists and Mavericks: The Empirics of Frequency-Dependent Cultural Transmission. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29(1): 56-64. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2007.08.003.

  • Working Paper. August 2007.

• Alois Stutzer and Rafael Lalive. 2004. The Role of Social Work Norms in Job Searching and Subjective Well-being. Journal of the European Economic Association, 2(4): 696-719. DOI: 10.1162/1542476041423331.

  • Working Paper. January 2003. 

WAGE SETTING

• Max Gruetter and Rafael Lalive. The Importance of Firms in Wage Determination. Labour Economics, 16(2): 149-160. DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2008.09.001. 

• Rafael Lalive. 2007. Do Wages Compensate for Workplace Disamenities?. Applied Economics Quarterly, 53(3): 273-298.

  • Manuscript

• Cornelia Luchsinger, Joerg Wild, and Rafael Lalive. 2003. Do Wages Rise With Job Seniority? The Swiss Case. Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, 139(2): 207-29. 

  • CEPE Working Paper, Volume 7. 2001.

• Rafael Lalive. 2003. Did we Overestimate the Value of Health?. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 27(2): 171-93. DOI: 10.1023/A:1025685024913. 

ENVIRONMENT/COVID-19/TECHNOLOGY/WELL-BEING

• Rafael Lalive, Armin Schmutzler, and Chrstine Zulehner. Auctions vs negotiations in public procurement: which works better? Journal of Transport Economics and Policy, forthcoming.

• Jean-Philippe Bonardi, Quantin Gallea, Dimitria Kalanoski. Managing Pandemics: How to contain COVID-19 through Internal and External Lockdowns and their Release, Management Science, forthcoming 

• Antonio Paolillo, Fabrizio Colella, Nicola Nosengo, Fabrizio Schiano, William Stewart, Davide Zambrano, Isabelle Chappuis, Rafael Lalive, Dario Floreano. How to Compete with Robots: Assessing Job Automation Risks and Resilient Alternatives, Science Robotics, 7, 65, doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abg5561

• Marius Brülhart, Valentin Klotzbücher, and Stephanie K Reich. Mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic as revealed by helpline calls, Nature 600 (7887), 121-126 

•  Jean-Philippe Bonardi , Quentin Gallea, Dimitrija Kalanoski, Rafael Lalive, Raahil Madhok, Frederik Noack, Dominic Rohner and Tommaso Sonno. Saving the world from your couch: the heterogeneous medium-run benefits of COVID-19 lockdowns on air pollution (2021), Environmental Research Letters, Volume 16, Number 7

• Stefano Carrattini, Andrea Baranzini, and Rafael Lalive (2018). Is taxing a waste of time? Evidence from a Supreme Court decision. Ecological Economics. 

• Rafael Lalive, Simon Luechinger, and Armin Schmutzler. In press. Does Supporting Passenger Railways Reduce Road Traffic Externalities? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management. DOI: 10.1016/j.jeem.2017.09.003. (Vox article, 15 March 2013.)

• Ursina Kuhn, and Oliver Lipps, and Rainer Winkelmann. 2016. What Makes You Satisfied with Life? Market Goods vs Social Goods. In Swiss Social Report 2016: Wellbeing, edited by Felix Bühlmann, Franziska Ehrler, Peter Farago, François Höpflinger, Dominique Joye, Pasqualina Perrig-Chiello, and Christian Suter, 66–82. Zurich: Seismo.

• Rafael Lalive and Armin Schmutzler. 2008. Exploring the Effects of Competition for Railway Markets. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 26: 443-458. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijindorg.2007.02.005. 

  • Working Paper. September 2005.

• Rafael Lalive and Armin Schmutzler. 2008. Entry in Liberalized Railway Markets: The German Experience. Review of Network Economics, 7: 37-52. DOI: DOI: 10.2202/1446-9022.1137.

  • Earlier version: Review of Network Economics, Volume 2, Issue 2 - June 2003.

METHODS IN MANAGEMENT

• John Antonakis, Samuel Bendahan, Philippe Jacquart, and Rafael Lalive. 2014. Causality and endogeneity: Problems and solutions, The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations. In D.V. Day (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Leadership and Organizations (pp. 93-117). New York: Oxford University Press. 

• John Antonakis and Rafael Lalive. 2011. Counterfactuals and causal inference: Methods and principles for social research. Review of S. L. Morgan and C. Winship. Structural Equation Modeling, 18(1): 152-159.

• John Antonakis, Samuel Bendahan, and Philippe Jacquart, and Rafael Lalive. 2010. On making causal claims: A review and recommendations. Leadership Quarterly, 21(6): 1086-1120. DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.10.010. 

• John Antonakis and Rafael Lalive. 2008. Quantifying Scholarly Impact: IQp versus the Hirsch h. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 59(6): 956–969. DOI: 10.1002/asi.20802. 

UNPUBLISHED

• Rafael Lalive, Oliver Ruf and Josef Zweimüller. 2006. Wages and Risks at the Workplace: Evidence from Linked Firm-Worker Data. 

• Rafael Lalive. Social Interactions in Unemployment, 2003, Note: I no longer try publishing this paper since the empirical design is not clean enough. The paper nevertheless contains some discussion of how policy changes can be used to identify social spillover effects.

APPLIED RESEARCH

I have been involved in numerous applied research projects since I started my PhD in 1997. My fields of expertise are the labor market and the policies affecting behavior on the labor market (unemployment insurance, etc.). I am also interested in family policies and their effects on labor market participation, fertility, and behavioral outcomes of children. I also work on the fields of energy consumption and transportation. I have conducted a range of evaluation studies (both micro and macro level studies) and have set-up field experiments addressing issues in energy consumption and unemployment insurance.