Ongoing Projects
The Labor Market Effects of Restricting Refugees' Employment Opportunities
Joint with Achim Ahrens, Andreas Beerli, Selina Kurer, and Dominik Hangartner. IZA Discussion Paper No. 15901, Updated version (December 2023). Revise and resubmit, American Economic Review
Abstract: Refugees, and immigrants more generally, often do not have access to all jobs in the labor market. We argue that restrictions on employment opportunities help explain why immigrants have lower employment and wages than native citizens. To test this hypothesis, we leverage refugees’ exogenous geographic assignment in Switzerland, within-canton variation in labor market restrictions, and linked register data 1999–2016. We document large negative employment and earnings effects of banning refugees from working in the first months after arrival, from working in certain sectors and regions, and from prioritizing residents over refugees. Consistent with an effect of outside options on wages, removing 10% of jobs reduces refugees’ hourly wages by 2.8% and increases the wage gap to similar host-country citizens in similar jobs by 2.2%. Furthermore, we show that restrictions reduce refugees’ earnings even after they cease applying. Restrictions do not spur refugee emigration nor improve earnings of non-refugee immigrants.
How Ethnic Discrimination Varies across Recruiters and with the Candidate Pool: Evidence and Implications for Unemployment
Joint with Daniel Kopp and Dominik Hangartner. Draft available at request. This project is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Abstract: This paper examines whether ethnic discrimination is common among recruiters, depends on the applicant pool, and prolongs minorities' unemployment. We peer over recruiters' shoulders when making actual hiring decisions by tracking their clicks on the online recruitment platform of the Swiss public employment service. Estimating minorities' contact penalties relative to otherwise equivalent Swiss job seekers for individual recruiters, we find that ethnic discrimination varies substantially across recruiters but is nevertheless widespread: almost one-third of recruiters discriminates non-Europeans statistically significantly. Discrimination against Non-Europeans increases with the number of candidates for the job. Discrimination against Europeans does not, as Europeans face less discrimination if they compete with more non-Swiss candidates. Finally, we match the job seekers on the platform to their entries in the Swiss unemployment register. We find evidence that discrimination contributes to explaining why minority job seekers are unemployed longer compared to similar Swiss job seekers. Our results suggest that ethnic discrimination is prevalent among recruiters and prolongs minorities' unemployment, particularly in slack labor markets.
Host Country Citizenship Reduces Hiring Discrimination against Immigrant Minorities
Joint with Daniel Kopp and Dominik Hangartner. Draft available at request. This project is financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation
Abstract: Persistent labor market discrimination diminishes the capacity of immigrants to achieve economic success and to contribute to the host economy. Despite the prevalence of ethnic discrimination in many immigrant-receiving countries, we lack a reliable understanding of policies that can alleviate it. This study provides evidence that host country citizenship substantially reduces hiring discrimination. To generate valid comparisons of immigrants and natives and overcome the self-selection into naturalization, we leverage novel data from the online recruitment platform of the Swiss government. Our data enable us to monitor recruiter search behavior and statistically adjust for all jobseeker characteristics that are visible on the platform. This approach allows us to compare recruiter contact rates for otherwise similar naturalized immigrants, non-naturalized immigrants, and natives. We find that non-naturalized immigrants are 5.9% less likely to be contacted compared to observably similar natives, and that ethnic penalties are larger for more marginalized immigrant groups. Host country citizenship reduces the extent of hiring discrimination by 76%. Additional analyses suggest that citizenship acquisition is a credible signal of successful integration that enables immigrants to overcome statistical discrimination.
Adapting to Scarcity: Job Search and Recruiting Across Occupational Boundaries
Joint with Jeremias Kläui, Daniel Kopp, and Rafael Lalive. Draft available at request. This project is financed by the National Research Program on Digital Transformation NRP-77
Abstract: We analyze how overlap in job requirements and labor market conditions affect recruiters’ and job seekers’ search across occupational boundaries. We leverage unique click data from a job and recruitment platform linked to Swiss unemployment register records. We develop a novel measure of occupational similarity that quantifies the overlap in job requirements in vacancy postings between and within occupations. Overlap strongly determines job seekers’ clicks on jobs in other occupations and recruiters’ contacts of candidates from other occupations. However, job seekers’ last occupation is also important. Job seekers and recruiters are substantially more likely to focus on jobs or candidates in the same occupation than in other occupations with the same overlap. Finally, the importance of the last occupation varies with scarcity. If tightness in an occupation increases, job seekers are less likely to consider switching occupation while recruiters are more inclined to contact candidates from other occupations, particularly those from similar, lower-paying occupations. A key novelty of these analyses is to demonstrate recruiters’ important role in moderating job seekers’ ability to change occupations.
Selected further work in progress
Can Job Seekers Circumvent Discriminatory Recruiters?
Joint with and Daniel Kopp, Dominik Hangartner and Kristina Schüpbach. This project is financed by the NCCR on the move.
The Role of Wages and Fringe Benefits in Job Search: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment
Joint with Andreas Beerli, Stefano Fiorin, Andreas Gulyas, Daniel Kopp, and Masha Khoshnama. This project is financed by the National Research Program on Digital Transformation NRP-77
Golden Shackles? The Effects of Pension Portability on Job Mobility and Wages
Joint with Enea Baselgia, Simon Jäger and Benjamin Schoefer