Activating the Long-Term Inactive: Labor Market and Mental Health Effects - joint with Robert Dur and Anne Gielen
Labour Economics, 2024, volume 90
In many Western countries, a sizeable group of people live on welfare benefits for a long time. Many of them suffer from mental health issues. This paper studies the labor market and mental health effects of an activation program targeting these long-term inactive people. We exploit the staggered implementation of the program in a difference-in-differences design. We find that the activation program does not affect labor market outcomes of men and women. However, among men who were on mental health medication prior to the start of the program, we find a substantial drop in mental health drug prescriptions in the years following the start of the program.
Older versions: CESifo Working Paper No. 10830; IZA Discussion Paper No. 15891; Tinbergen Institute Discussion Paper 2023-003/V
Turning the Tide: Long-Term Gains of Graduating in a Recession for Low Educated Entrants (new draft coming soon)
Economic conditions at time of labor market entry have been shown to have large negative effects on labor market outcomes for an extended period of time. The immediate effects have been shown to be worse for lower educated entrants. In the long run, the effects may be very different as low and high educated have different possibilities to accommodate this negative shock, high educated entrants can downgrade and low educated entrants cannot. This paper estimates the long-term effects of economic conditions at labor market entry on income and employment for high and low educated separately up to 40 years after graduation. I exploit regional variation in unemployment and proxy for time and location of labor market entry using birth region and nominal duration of education. For both high and low educated labor market entrants between 1971 and 1988, I find short-lived negative effects immediately after graduation. These negative effects on earnings and employment remain for high educated in the long run. Low educated benefit as they end up in more stable jobs. This can be explained by low educated entrants shifting to less cyclical sectors, which shields them from future recessions, as a result of high educated entrants downgrading.
Female Labor Supply and Intergenerational Spillovers: Evidence from a Tax Reform
Female labor supply has increased substantially over the past century. Consequently, more women and men have observed their mother employed which may affect their own labor supply. In this paper, I exploit a tax reform which stimulated labor supply among women with low labor force attachment. Mothers directly affected by the reform increased their labor supply. However, daughters of these women reduce their labor supply and are more likely to have kids and be married. I do not find any effects on the labor supply or fertility of sons. Hence, my results show that a reform which stimulated maternal labor supply can have unintended negative effects on the labor supply of their daughters.