Research
Research
Working Papers
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: This paper investigates the effects of local renewable energy development on residential electricity bills in Illinois, focusing 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, we estimate how residential electricity bills respond to changes in solar and wind capacities. We estimate the effects of different scales of solar energy, such as utility-scale, community, large distributed generation (DG), and small DG, using a fixed effects model. Our OLS estimates show that small DG solar capacity has the most substantial and statistically significant effect: a 1% increase in local small DG solar capacity is associated with a 0.039% reduction in local average monthly household electricity bills. Community solar, large DG, and utility-scale solar have smaller but still significant effects, while wind energy shows no statistically significant effect on residential electricity bills. Heterogeneity analyses show that for all Illinois residents, both homeowners and renters, as well as low-, middle-, and high-income households, benefit from small DG solar expansion, though the magnitude of savings varies slightly across groups. Single-family households experience meaningful cost reductions, whereas multi-family households see negligible benefits. Additionally, the impacts are generally more pronounced in non-Chicago MSA areas compared to the Chicago MSA.
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.