Working papers

A Non-Profit Discount? Wage Gap Analysis and Monetary Motives of Non-Profit and For-Profit Employees (Job Market Paper)

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 [Working paper]

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-difference empirical strategy, I find that the deregulation has a negative effect on overall employment, driven by weakly 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. Exploring the mechanisms that explain the rise of for-profit to the detriment of non-profit employment, I find that for-profit organizations are more cost-efficient but provide lower quality services and primarily serve profitable markets.

Ownership Structure over the Business Cycle: Evidence from France [Working paper available soon]

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

Projects

(Un)Healthy Firms: The Impact of Firms on Healthcare Consumption

With Thomas Pelloquin

The Effect of Mental Health Breakdowns on Employment

With Thomas Pelloquin

The Public-Private Absenteeism Gap

The Big Quit? The Cost of Meaningful Jobs and the Evolution of Meaningful Job Seekers