Klaus F. Zimmermann

A new GLO Discussion Paper studies determinants of self-rated physical and mental health of sexual minorities. Among other factors, increased aggregate unemployment deteriorates physical and mental wellbeing.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 936, 2021

Social Rejection, Family Acceptance, Economic Recession and Physical and Mental Health of Sexual Minorities – Download PDF
by Drydakis, Nick

GLO Fellow Nick Drydakis

Author Abstract: Utilizing two panel datasets covering the periods 2013-2014 and 2018-2019, the study examines whether social rejection, family acceptance, and economic conditions bear an association with self-rated physical and mental health of sexual minorities. Social rejection bears a negative association with physical and mental health. Family acceptance shares a positive association with physical and mental health. Periods characterized by worse economic conditions (2013-2014 versus 2018-2019) correlate with a decline in sexual minorities’ physical and mental health. It is found that women, trans people, people without higher education degrees, unemployed people, and relatively poor people, experience worse physical and mental health than the corresponding reference categories. The study indicates that sexual minorities who experienced societal rejections, such as unfair treatment in educational, workplace environments, and/or services (public/health) prompted deteriorated physical and mental health. Sexual minorities who experienced acceptance from their families over their sexual orientation status, experienced better physical and mental health. Moreover, during periods of increased aggregate unemployment, the physical and mental health status of sexual minorities was deteriorated. Antidiscrimination policies help reduce homophobic incidents and positively impact sexual/gender identity minorities’ progression, self-esteem, income, and well-being. Public health services should ensure that policies are inclusive of the physical and mental health needs of sexual/gender identity minority groups. Addressing financial hardships for minority population groups should form part of the policymakers’ agenda. This is among the first international studies to examine whether, during a period of economic recession, sexual minorities experience deteriorated physical and mental health.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper studies the role of formal institutions of contract enforcement in facilitating investments in small and medium firms in India.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 935, 2021

Caste, Courts and Business – Download PDF
by Chakraborty, Tanika & Mukherjee, Anirban & Saha, Sarani & Shukla, Divya

GLO Fellows Tanika Chakraborty, Anirban Mukherjee & Sarani Saha

Author Abstract: We study the role of formal institutions of contract enforcement in facilitating investments in small and medium firms(MSME). In a framework where established entrepreneurs can enforce contracts informally using their network ties and hierarchical advantage, we argue that an efficient formal judiciary helps entrepreneurs without any ties to informal business networks, disproportionately more. We test our theoretical prediction using a novel administrative panel-data from Indian courts and the nationally representative MSME survey data. Empirically, we treat entrepreneurs from disadvantaged castes (SC-ST) as those without traditional business-network ties. We find that improvement in court quality has a disproportionately larger impact on the investment decisions of SC-ST entrepreneurs. On average, if the time taken for a court to clear all existing cases reduces by 1 year, the initial gap in the probability of investing, between SC-ST and other entrepreneurs, gets reduced by 0.6-0.7 percentage points.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

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The new GLO Discussion Paper studies the linkages between the institutional environment and labor-management relations.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 934, 2021

Labor-Management Relations and Varieties of Capitalism – Download PDF

by Schneider, Martin R.

Author Abstract: The varieties-of-capitalism (VoC) approach distinguishes liberal market economies (LMEs) such as the USA and coordinated market economies (CMEs) such as Germany based on institutional differences in terms of corporate governance, industrial relations, company relations as well as education and training. According to the VoC approach, firms differ in the ways in which they combine market and non-market mechanisms to coordinate their activities. Firms in LMEs are considered to rely more on market or exit mechanisms than firms in CMEs, which more often complement market with non-market or voice mechanisms. This chapter summarizes what has been learned from the VoC approach on the linkages between the institutional environment and labor-management relations. Various important lessons can be drawn. Employment protection legislation is a productive element within the institutional setup of CMEs. LMEs tend to induce strong overall wage dispersion, whereas in some CMEs such as Germany the labor market performance varies markedly by skill type and gender. The recent literature also indicates that the institutional setup is more complex than the VoC approach suggests, calling for revisions to the approach. In particular, some countries are hybrid economies that combine elements of both types of capitalism. The CME-LME dichotomy does not appreciate the true variety of country-specific skill systems. Finally, multinational enterprises overcome institutional boundaries of different types of capitalism in ways that were not included in the original VoC approach.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper studies the history and effects of marriage bars, the requirement that women working in certain jobs must leave that job when they marry.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 933, 2021

Economics of Marriage Bars – Download PDF
by Mosca, Irene & Wright, Robert E

GLO Fellows Irene Mosca & Robert E Wright

Author Abstract: A Marriage Bar is the requirement that women working in certain jobs must leave that job when they marry. In the twentieth century, Marriage Bars were not unusual internationally. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, legislative provisions that required women to resign at marriage were introduced in several countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK. Spill-overs to jobs not strictly covered by the Marriage Bar were also common. This chapter critically reviews, from an economics perspective, the background, the history and the impacts of Marriage Bars. This chapter has four aims. The first is to summarise the arguments provided by government officials and employers to justify both the introduction and the retention of Marriage Bars. The second is to provide a cross-country comparison of Marriage Bars. The third is to investigate the potential impacts of the Marriage Bar on women’s behavior with respect to employment, marriage and education. The fourth is to highlight potential avenues for future research. Although Marriage Bars do not exist anymore, they are still a serious topic of current debate. Much more can be learned about important topics, such as discrimination, from carrying out research focused on Marriage Bars.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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A new paper published ONLINE FIRST with free readlink in the Journal of Population Economics finds that severe water contamination in the US modestly increased the rate of low birth weight, but had little effect on the length of gestation or rate of prematurity.

Something in the pipe: the Flint water crisis and health at birth

by Rui Wang, Xi Chen and Xun Li

Published ONLINE FIRST 2021: Journal of Population Economics
Free READLINK: https://rdcu.be/cytgm

Author Abstract: In 2014, the city of Flint, MI, in the USA changed its public water source, resulting in severe water contamination and a public health crisis. Using the Flint water crisis as a natural experiment, we estimate the effect of in utero exposure to polluted water on health at birth. Matching vital statistics birth records with various sources of data, we use the synthetic control method to identify the causal impact of water pollution on key birth outcomes. Our results suggest that the crisis modestly increased the rate of low birth weight (LBW) by 1.8 percentage points (or 15.5%) but had little effect on the length of gestation or rate of prematurity. However, these effects are larger among children born to black mothers, as indicated by an increase in the rate of LBW by 2.5 percentage points (or 19%). Children born to white mothers exhibit, on average, a 30.1-g decrease in birth weight. We find little evidence that the male-to-female sex ratio declines in the overall population, suggesting that the in utero scarring effect of the Flint water crisis may dominate the channel of mortality selection. However, we observe a slight decline in the sex ratio among children born to black mothers. Finally, we find no notable change in the fertility rates of either black women or white women in Flint. These results are robust to a rich set of placebo and falsification tests.

Journal of Population Economics
Access to the recently published Volume 34, Issue 4, July 2021. 10 articles on Covid-19 all freely accessible.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 4, 2021:
The impact of repeated mass antigen testing for COVID-19 on the prevalence of the disease
by Martin Kahanec, Lukáš Lafférs & Bernhard Schmidpeter

OPEN ACCESS: Free Readlink – Download PDF

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Presentations in this series are based on the projects that GLO-VirtYS program scholars completed as part of the their program participation. See for the details VirtYs program and the cohort 2021.

Register for the next talk NOW. Participation is free and open to the public.
https://kent-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0of-Corz8tHNWYjrXwoG4_1SOCb6VTGuGv
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

September 30^th 2021 Program on 1 pm London/UK time.

Sydney (10pm), Beijing (8pm), Istanbul (3pm), Berlin (2pm), London (1pm), Cape Town (2pm), Washington DC (8am), Santiago de Chile (9am)

Jie Chen, Jiangsu University and GLO Affiliate
Does vocational education pay better, or worse, than academic education?
(GLO VirtYS program advisor Professor Francesco Pastore)

Muchin Bazan Ruiz, Virginia Tech and GLO Affiliate
Women in Engineering: The Role of Role Models
(GLO VirtYS program advisor Professor Kompal Sinha

Chaired by GLO VirtYS Program Director Olena Nizalova.

FOR PAST AND FUTURE EVENTS SEE THE GLO WEBSITE.
Featured Image: Employee-Training-unsplash

Jie Chen is a lecturer of economics at Jiangsu University. Her research interests are in experimental economics and educational economics. She received her PhD in economics from the University of New South Wales.

GLO VirtYS project: Does vocational education pay better, or worse, than academic education?

In this paper, we use the Chinese General Social Survey data to analyze the returns to upper secondary vocational education in China. To address possible endogeneity of vocational training due to omitted heterogeneity, we construct a novel instrumental variable using the proportion of tertiary education graduates relative to the entire population by year. Our main finding is that, although returns to vocational upper secondary education appear higher than returns to academic upper secondary education according to the Mincerian equation, the results from the instrumental variable method tell the opposite story: vocational upper secondary graduates face a wage penalty compared to academic upper secondary graduates. The wage penalty is confirmed by an alternative and more recent IV method – the Lewbel method (Lewbel, 2012). Our findings highlight the importance of properly accounting for endogeneity when estimating the returns to vocational education.

Muchin Bazan Ruiz is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Virginia Tech. She has an MSc in Economics at the University of Warwick and a BSc. in Economics from Universidad de Piura. She has worked in the Superintendence of Banks, Insurance Companies, and Private Pension Funds (Peru) and as a Consultant at the Intern-American Development Bank. Muchin is passionate about Development and her research interests are in Development Economics, Economics of Education, and Gender Studies. She investigates the effect of role models on students’ career choices and perceptions using randomized controlled trials and administrative data.

GLO VirtYS project: Women in Engineering: The Role of Role Models

Gender disparities in STEM field participation are a major cause of concern for policymakers around the world. Given the higher average level of earnings of STEM graduates, low enrollment rates of women in these fields contribute to gender-based inequalities in earnings and wealth. This paper studies the effects of exposure to role models on female preferences for STEM fields. We conduct a randomized control trial where female senior students currently enrolled in engineering programs at an elite private university in Peru give talks about their experiences at randomly selected high schools. We find that exposure to this treatment increases high ability female students’ preferences for engineering programs by 14 percentage points. The effect is only statistically significant for the subgroup of female students with baseline math scores in the top 25 percentile, and that reside close to the city where the role models’ university is located. We also find positive but smaller effects on “low ability” male students. In a context where females are discouraged from enrolling in STEM fields, our results have important policy implications.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper finds disadvantages of Soviet-aided industrialization programs for long-run innovations.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 932, 2021

The Legacies of the Soviet Influence in the 1950s: China’s 156 Major Industrial Projects – Download PDF
by Jin, Zhangfeng

GLO Fellow Zhangfeng Jin

Author Abstract: This paper investigates whether and how China’s adoption of Soviet-aided industrialization programs in the 1950s has affected its long-run innovation. Focusing on 156 major industrial projects aided by the Soviet Union, combined with an instrumental variable approach, I find that the adoption of these programs substantially discourages local firms to innovate in the long run. A causal mediation analysis of instrumental variable settings shows that the negative effect is entirely driven by local firms’ lower intensity of incentive pay. This evidence suggests disadvantages of Soviet-aided industrialization programs for long-run innovation due to firms adopting incentive-incompatible management technology.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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A new paper published ONLINE FIRST with free readlink in the Journal of Population Economics finds that financial hardship is associated with significantly more screen time, particularly passive screen time, and screen time at excessive levels.

Changes in children’s time use during periods of financial hardship

by Jessica L. Arnup, Nicole Black & David W. Johnston

Published ONLINE FIRST 2021: Journal of Population Economics
Free READLINK: https://rdcu.be/cyeE8

Author Abstract: This paper examines the impact of children’s migration on the well-being of left-behind parents using panel data on experienced utility measured by the Day Reconstruction Method. Exploiting exogenous variation in exposure to employment shocks at migration destinations for identification, we find that left-behind parents experience lower utility when their adult children migrate. This is partly due to increased working time and less time spent in social activities, and partly due to reduced utility within activity type. The latter effect is consistent with the finding of less physical care and psychological support from children who have migrated. These negative effects dominate the possible benefits of greater income associated with children’s migration.

Journal of Population Economics
Access to the recently published Volume 34, Issue 4, July 2021. 10 articles on Covid-19 all freely accessible.

LEAD ARTICLE OF ISSUE 4, 2021:
The impact of repeated mass antigen testing for COVID-19 on the prevalence of the disease
by Martin Kahanec, Lukáš Lafférs & Bernhard Schmidpeter

OPEN ACCESS: Free Readlink – Download PDF

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper reveals selection in characteristics, a strong role for soft factors like social ties and sociocultural integration, and a faint role for economic factors.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 930, 2021

Longing for Which Home: Evidence from Global Aspirations to Stay, Return or Migrate Onwards – Download PDF
by Bekaert, Els & Constant, Amelie F. & Foubert, Killian & Ruyssen, Ilse

GLO Fellows Amelie F. Constant & Ilse Ruyssen, and GLO Affiliate Killian Foubert

Author Abstract: Aspirations provide the underlying dynamics of the behavior of individuals whether they are realized or not. Knowledge about the characteristics and motives of those who aspire to leave the host country is key for both host and home countries to formulate appropriate and effective policies in order to keep their valued immigrants or citizens and foster their (re-)integration. Based on unique individual-level Gallup World Polls data, a random utility model, and a multinomial logit we model the aspirations or stated preferences of immigrants across 138 countries worldwide. Our analysis reveals selection in characteristics, a strong role for soft factors like social ties and sociocultural integration, and a faint role for economic factors. Changes in circumstances in the home and host countries are also important determinants of aspirations. Results differ by the host countries’ level of economic development.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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A new GLO Discussion Paper shows for China that a 1-day decrease in the time taken to confirm the first case in a city publicly led to 9.4% and 12.7% reductions in COVID-19 prevalence and mortality over the subsequent six months.

GLO Discussion Paper No. 931, 2021

Act Early to Prevent Infections and Save Lives: Causal Impact of Diagnostic Efficiency on the COVID-19 Pandemic – Download PDF
by Chen, Simiao & Jin, Zhangfeng & Vollmer, Sebastian & Bärnighausen, Till & David E. Bloom

GLO Fellow Zhangfeng Jin

Author Abstract: This paper examines the causal impact of diagnostic efficiency on the COVID-19 pandemic in China. Using an instrumental variable approach, we show that a 1-day decrease in the time taken to confirm the first case in a city publicly led to 9.4% and 12.7% reductions in COVID-19 prevalence and mortality over the subsequent six months, respectively. The impact was larger for cities that are farther from the COVID-19 epicenter, are exposed to less migration, have more responsive public health systems, and have higher-capacity utilization of health systems. Social distancing and a less burdened health system are likely underlying mechanisms.

More from the GLO COVID-19 Cluster.

GLO Discussion Papers are research and policy papers of the GLO Network which are widely circulated to encourage discussion. Provided in cooperation with EconStor, a service of the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, GLO Discussion Papers are among others listed in RePEc (see IDEAS,  EconPapers). Complete list of all GLO DPs – downloadable for free.

The Global Labor Organization (GLO) is an independent, non-partisan and non-governmental organization that functions as an international network and virtual platform to stimulate global research, debate and collaboration.

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