Working papers

A Non-Profit Discount? Wage Gap Analysis and Monetary Motives of Non-Profit and For-Profit Employees [Available upon request]

This paper investigates the hourly wage gap between non-profit and for-profit employees. Leveraging employee mobility in the French labor market, the analysis estimates a two-way fixed effects model with worker and establishment fixed effects. A decomposition of the gap using these fixed effects reveals that the lower wage rates observed for non-profit employees are almost entirely driven by differences in the composition of employees across industries. Within industries, the wage premiums of non-profit and for-profit establishments do not differ on average, although the gap is sensitive to labor market conditions, market structure, and industry type. The paper further examines employees’ motivations for switching organizational type, providing event study estimates. Employees moving from non-profit to for-profit organizations experience a sharp increase in earnings, suggesting monetary motives. In contrast, those moving in the opposite direction experience a drop in earnings, primarily among employees who face difficulties finding new jobs, indicating re-employment motives in joining non-profit establishments. These variations in earnings are largely driven by industry transitions and movement along the establishment ladder, suggesting that ownership structure plays a limited role in explaining the observed changes in wages.

Non-Profit vs. For-Profit Competition and Employment Implications: Evidence from Home Care [under review]

This paper provides novel evidence on the effect of competition between non-profit and for-profit organizations on employment. The analysis leverages a unique reform: the removal of entry barriers for for-profit organizations in the home care sector. Using a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, I find that the deregulation has no effect on total private employment in the most populated regions, and a negative effect in sparsely populated regions. For-profit organizations mainly expand in the most populated regions, substituting non-profit employment. Non-profit organizations negatively adjust employment in less populated regions, likely to balance profits at the group level. Investigating mechanisms, I find that for-profits do not exhibit better working conditions or higher product quality. Their success appears to stem from lower group-level cost advantages, driven by concentrated operations in the most profitable markets.

Ownership Structure over the Business Cycle: Evidence from France [under review]

With Simon Cornée and Véronique Thelen

Winner, 2023 Best Paper Award, EMES

This paper documents the comparative behavior of the third and the conventional sector over the business cycle. Third sector organizations, such as non-profits and cooperatives, have marked differences in their ownership structures compared to conventional firms. However, their sensitivity to economic fluctuations is unknown. Using a novel French dataset over the 2000-2019 period that differentiates both sectors, we find persistent lower cyclical sensitivities for the third than the conventional sector. We document the results across various sector size and business cycle proxies and provide details per third sector subgroups. Consistent with previous research on worker cooperatives, our more general findings on the third sector call for further research to uncover underlying mechanisms.

Work in progress

Ownership Structure and Absenteeism

With Simon Cornée and Véronique Thelen

The Impact of Emergency Call Centers: Evidence from France

With Julien Mousquès, Thomas Pelloquin and Nicolas Sirven

Regulating Access to Emergency Departments: Effects on Hospitals, Primary Care, and Patients

With Julien Mousquès, Thomas Pelloquin and Nicolas Sirven

Hospital-at-Home: A Win-Win for Patients, Health Professionals, and Insurers?

With Thomas Pelloquin