Research

Working Papers

• "Gender Segregation and Hiring in Japanese Labor Markets over the Business Cycle" (Available at SSRN)

Abstract: Japanese employment is characterized by strong norms for employment protections; however, these “regular” jobs are primarily held by men. Women are concentrated in temporary, part-time, and contract positions (“non-regular” jobs), which offer significantly fewer employment protections. I investigate how female and male hiring rates evolve differently over the business cycle in Japan. First, I find that the overall cyclicality of hiring is driven by hiring into regular employment, as firms adjust their hiring practices strategically in response to business cycle conditions. Second, I find that hiring rates for women are more cyclical than for men, driven by hiring into non-regular employment. I further investigate the channel that drives the gender difference in hiring cyclicality. I find that the non-regular share of new hires for men is more counter-cyclical than for women, suggesting that men crowd women out of non-regular employment when labor markets are slack. Finally, I study the role of labor supply decisions and show that married women significantly influence the gender difference in hiring cyclicality. These results indicate that Japanese women face greater job security uncertainties and more fluid labor markets than men, especially during economic recessions, despite increasing female employment and labor participation. 

• "Why Don’t Eligible Workers Receive Unemployment Insurance?", with Eliza Forsythe  (Submitted)

Abstract: The Unemployment Insurance (UI) system is plagued by under-receipt. Using data from 2018 and during the Covid-19 pandemic, we investigate the reasons likely-eligible individuals do not receive benefits. We find this is largely driven by erroneous beliefs about ineligibility, which are correlated with proxies for worker sophistication and information access. During the Covid-19 pandemic, we find misinformation about eligibility increased dramatically surrounding the expiration of the extra weekly UI payments in August 2020, suggesting uncertainty about UI program extensions contributes to misinformation and suppresses program take-up.

• "The Long-Lasting Wage Effects of Unemployment Rate at Graduation in Japan"

Abstract: It is well known that there are long-term earnings losses from graduating at a time when the unemployment rate is high. Japanese employment is characterized by firms' strong preference for hiring new graduates for entry-level permanent positions (`regular' jobs). Using the variation in the unemployment rate at graduation across regions and over the years, I estimate the effects of the initial labor market conditions on contemporaneous annual real earnings for workers in Japan who graduated between 1987 and 2007 across their first 20 years of employment. I find that both young and experienced male workers, especially those without a college degree, suffered a large decrease in contemporaneous annual real earnings as one additional percentage point increase in the unemployment rate at graduation. Such adverse wage effects do not fade out across the first 20 years of employment. Women exhibit smaller wage effects in magnitude that are not statistically significant. Then, I investigate whether securing a regular job upon graduation mitigates long-term earnings losses. I find that both genders are not substantially less likely to be employed in a regular job upon graduation when the unemployment rate becomes higher, except for non-college women. Even with a regular first job, the adverse wage effects still persist over the first 20 years of employment. However, I find that for college men and non-college women, securing a regular job upon graduation reduces the gap in earnings between young and experienced workers compared to those who start out without a regular position.

• "How does Local Renewable Energy Development Affect Household Electricity Costs in Illinois?" (with Zichang Liu)

Abstract: As Illinois continues to invest in renewable energy, understanding how these developments affect household electricity costs is essential for addressing public concerns about the clean energy transition. This paper investigates the effects of local renewable energy development on household electricity costs in Illinois, with a focus on solar and wind energy. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from 2019 to 2023, combined with administrative data on renewable energy capacity from the Illinois Power Agency and U.S. Energy Information Administration, we estimate how residential electricity bills respond to changes in solar and wind capacities. We distinguish between different scales of solar energy: utility-scale (projects above 5 megawatts), community solar (projects between 1 megawatts and 5 megawatts allowing multiple customers to subscribe to and benefit from the solar energy produced), large distributed generation (DG) (mostly commercial projects above 25 kilowatts but less than 5 megawatts), and small DG (mostly residential projects under 25 kilowatts). We estimate their effects separately using an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model. For the overall Illinois population, we show that a 10% increase in local small DG solar capacity‒particularly relevant for residential use‒ is associated with a 0.31% reduction in local average monthly household electricity costs, with more pronounced benefits for homeowners and medium- and higher-income households. In contrast, other scales of solar and wind energy show smaller and statistically insignificant effects. To examine geographic disparities, we compare the effects of small DG solar expansion in Chicago versus the rest of Illinois. Outside Chicago, a 10% increase in small DG solar capacity leads to significant cost reductions across all income groups—up to 0.86% for medium-income households—and benefits both renters and homeowners. In contrast, Chicago shows minimal and mostly statistically insignificant effects, except for a modest 0.3% reduction for high-income households. These results highlight the uneven distribution of household benefits from renewable energy development and underscore the need for targeted policy interventions to ensure equitable outcomes in the clean energy transition in Illinois.

Working In Progress 

• "Renewable Energy Economic Analysis" (with Linda Larsen, Peter J. Fugiel, and Zichang Liu)

• "A Composite Approach to Quantifying Clean Energy Jobs in Illinois'' (with Peter J. Fugiel and Abhinav Banthiya)

Reports and Other Writing

• Forsythe, Eliza and Hesong Yang. “Understanding Unemployment Insurance Recipiency during the Covid-19 Pandemic” (2021) [Report prepared for the Department of Labor]

Report prepared for the Department of Labor Chief Evaluation Office Summer Data Challenge on Equity and Underserved Communities. http://publish.illinois.edu/elizaforsythe/files/2022/04/ForsytheYang_DOL.pdf

Publications

Chinese-language Journal Articles

• 卞亚斌, 房茂涛, & 杨鹤松. (2019). “互联网+” 背景下中国制造业转型升级的微观路径——基于微笑曲线的分析. 东岳论丛, (8), 62-73.