How Damaging is Part-time Employment to a Woman's Occupational Prospects?

This paper investigates the causes of the well documented association between part-time employment and low occupational attainment amongst British women. In particular, the relative importance of structural factors and unobserved heterogeneity to the occupational attainment of women who choose to work part-time is investigated. he results indicate that, depending on observed individual characteristics, structural factors explain between 56% and 87% of the difference in the occupational attainment of full-time and part-time workers. The remainder of the difference in the occupational attainment of full-time and part-time workers is attributed to differences in the unobserved characteristics of the two groups of workers.Dynamic labor supply, Heterogeneity, Occupational attainment, Part-time employment.

Estimating Time Demand Elasticities Under Rationing

A multivariate extension of the standard labour supply model in presented. In the multivariate time allocation model leisure is disaggregated into a number of non market activities including sports, volunteer work and home production. Using data from the 2000 UK Time Use Survey, a linear expenditure system is estimated, allowing corner solutions in the time allocated to market work and non market activities. The effects of children, age, gender and education are largely as expected. The unusually high wage elasticities are attributed to a combination of the functional form of the linear expenditure and the treatment of the zero observations.Time use, Labour supply, Corner solutions, Simulation inference

State Dependence in a Multi-state Model of Employment

A multinomial choice framework is used to investigate the nature of women's transitions between full-time employment, part-time employment and non-employment. The stochastic framework allows time varying and time invariant unobserved preferences, and also controls for the possible endogenity of education, fertility and non-labor income. Significant positive true state dependence is found in both full-time and part-time employment. This finding is robust to the specification of unobserved preferences. The results are used the assess the dynamic effects of three temporary wage subsidies. All three policies have substantial effects on employment behavior for up to 6 years. However, obtaining a permanent increase in employment requires sustained or repeated interventions.Dynamic labor supply, Heterogeneity, Multinomial choice, State dependence.

A novel computerized real effort task based on sliders

In this note, we present a novel computerized real effort task based on moving sliders across a screen which overcomes many of the drawbacks of existing real effort tasks. The task was first developed and used by us in Gill and Prowse (forthcoming). We outline the design of our \slider task", describe its advantages compared to existing real effort tasks and provide a statistical analysis of the behavior of subjects undertaking the task. We believe that the task will prove valuable to researchers in designing future real effort experiments, and to this end we provide z-Tree code and guidance to assist researchers wishing to implement the slider task. Keywords; real effort task, slider task, design of laboratory experiments, learning and time effects, individual heterogeneity

The Design of Unemployment Transfers: Evidence from a Dynamic Structural Life-Cycle Model

In this paper we use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to analyze the employment, fiscal and welfare effects induced by unemployment insurance. The model features a detailed specification of the tax and transfer system, including unemployment insurance benefits which depend on an individual's employment and earnings history. The model also captures the endogenous accumulation of experience which impacts on future wages, job arrivals and job separations. For better identification of the structural parameters we exploit a quasi-natural experiment, namely reductions over time in the entitlement period for unemployment insurance benefits which varied by age and experience. The results show that a policy cut in the generosity of unemployment insurance operationalized as a reduction in the entitlement period generates a larger increase in employment and yields a bigger fiscal saving than a cut operationalized as a reduction in the replacement ratio. Welfare analysis of revenue neutral tax and transfer reforms also favors a reduction in the entitlement period.Unemployment insurance, Replacement ratio, Entitlement period, Life-cycle labor supply, Tax reform, Method of Simulated Moments

Longevity, Life-Cycle Behavior and Pension Reform

How can public pension systems be reformed to ensure fiscal stability in the face of increasing life expectancy? To address this pressing open question in public finance, we estimate a life-cycle model in which the optimal employment, retirement and consumption decisions of forward-looking individuals depend, inter alia, on life expectancy and the design of the public pension system. We calculate that, in the case of Germany, the fiscal consequences of the 6.4 year increase in age 65 life expectancy anticipated to occur over the 40 years that separate the 1942 and 1982 birth cohorts can be offset by either an increase of 4.34 years in the full pensionable age or a cut of 37.7% in the per-year value of public pension benefits. Of these two distinct policy approaches to coping with the fiscal consequences of improving longevity, increasing the full pensionable age generates the largest responses in labor supply and retirement behavior.Life expectancy, public pension reform, retirement, employment, life-cycle models, consumption, tax and transfer system

A Structural Analysis of Disappointment Aversion in a Real Effort Competition

We develop a novel computerized real effort task, based on moving sliders across a screen, to test experimentally whether agents are disappointment averse when they compete in a real effort sequential-move tournament. We predict that a disappointment averse agent, who is loss averse around her endogenous choice-acclimating expectations-based reference point, responds negatively to her rival's effort. We find significant evidence for this discouragement effect, and use the Method of Simulated Moments to estimate the strength of disappointment aversion on average and the heterogeneity in disappointment aversion across the population.Disappointment aversion, Loss aversion, Reference-dependent preferences, Reference point adjustment, Expectations, Tournament, Real effort experiment, Slider task

Longevity, Life-Cycle Behavior and Pension Reform

How can public pension systems be reformed to ensure fiscal stability in the face of increasing life expectancy? To address this pressing open question in public finance, we estimate a life-cycle model in which the optimal employment, retirement and consumption decisions of forward-looking individuals depend, inter alia, on life expectancy and the design of the public pension system. We calculate that, in the case of Germany, the fiscal consequences of the 6.4 year increase in age 65 life expectancy anticipated to occur over the 40 years that separate the 1942 and 1982 birth cohorts can be offset by either an increase of 4.34 years in the full pensionable age or a cut of 37.7% in the per-year value of public pension benefits. Of these two distinct policy approaches to coping with the fiscal consequences of improving longevity, increasing the full pensionable age generates the largest responses in labor supply and retirement behavior.Life expectancy, public pension reform, retirement, employment, life-cycle models, consumption, tax and transfer system

A Structural Approach to Estimating the Effect of Taxation on the Labor Market Dynamics of Older Workers

We estimate a dynamic structural life-cycle model of employment, non-employment and retirement that includes endogenous accumulation of human capital and intertemporal non- separabilities in preferences. Additionally, the model accounts for the effect of the tax and transfer system on work incentives. The structural parameter estimates are used to evaluate the effects of a tax reform targeted at low income individuals on employment behavior and retirement decisions.Life-cycle labor supply, income taxation

A Structural Approach to Estimating the Effect of Taxation on the Labor Market Dynamics of Older Workers

We estimate a dynamic structural life-cycle model of employment, non-employment and retirement that includes endogenous accumulation of human capital and intertemporal non-separabilities in preferences. Additionally, the model accounts for the effect of the tax and transfer system on work incentives. The structural parameter estimates are used to evaluate the effects of a tax reform targeted at low income individuals on employment behavior and retirement decisions.Life-cycle labor supply, income taxation