The Anatomy of Absenteeism

Based on comprehensive administrative register data from Norway, we examine the determinants of sickness absence behavior; in terms of employee characteristics workplace characteristics, panel doctor characteristics, and economic conditions. The analysis is based on a novel concept of a worker's steady state sickness absence propensity, computed from a multivariate hazard rate model designed to predict the incidence and the duration of sickness absence for all workers. Key conclusions are i) that most of the cross-sectional variation in absenteeism is caused by genuine employee heterogeneity; ii) that the identity of a person's panel doctor has a significant impact on absence propensity; iii) that sickness absence insurance is frequently certified for reasons other than sickness; and iv) that the recovery rate rises enormously just prior to the exhaustion of sickness insurance benefits.sickness absence, multivariate hazards, MMPH, NPMLE

The Rise in Absenteeism: Disentangling the Impacts of Cohort, Age and Time

We examine the remarkable rise in absenteeism among Norwegian employees since the early 1990's, with particular emphasis on disentangling the roles of cohort, age, and time. Based on a fixed effects model, we show that individual age-adjusted absence propensities have risen even more than aggregate absence rates from 1993 to 2005, debunking the popular hypothesis that the rise in absenteeism resulted from the inclusion of new cohorts – with weaker work-norms – into the workforce. We also reject the idea that the rise in absenteeism resulted from more successful integration of workers with poor health; on the contrary, a massive rise in disability rolls during the 1990’s suggest that poor-health workers have left the labor market in unprecedented numbers.sickness absence, endogenous selection, multicollinearity, fixed effects logit

The Impacts of Labor Market Policies on Job Search Behavior and Post-Unemployment Job Quality

We examine empirically the impacts of labor market policies – in terms of unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) – on the duration and outcome of job search and on the quality of a subsequent job. We find that time invested in job search tends to pay off in the form of higher earnings once a job match is formed. More generous UI raises expected unemployment duration, while improving the quality of the resultant job. Participation in ALMP raises the probability of finding a job and the level of expected earnings, but at the cost of lengthening job search.multivariate hazards, job search, job quality, timing-of-events, NPMLE, MMPH

Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects on Hazard Rates

Consider a setting where a treatment that starts at some point during a spell (e.g. in unemployment) may impact on the hazard rate of the spell duration, and where the impact may be heterogeneous across subjects. We provide Monte Carlo evidence on the feasibility of estimating the distribution of treatment effects from duration data with selectivity, by means of a nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator with unrestricted numbers of mass points for the heterogeneity distribution. We find that specifying the treatment effect as homogenous may yield misleading average results if the true effects are heterogeneous, even when the sorting into treatment is appropriately accounted for. Specifying the treatment effect as a random coefficient allows for precise estimation of informative average treatment effects including the program’s overall impact on the mean duration.duration analysis, unobserved heterogeneity, program evaluation, nonparametric estimation, Monte Carlo simulation, timing of events, random effects

Convergence

rate examples and theor

Multicollinearity

identification, and estimable function