The effect of employer incentives in social insurance on individual wages

Several studies have documented that employer incentives, in form of experience rating, co-insurance or deductibles, could decrease the social insurance usage. Such employer incentives may though have unintended side effects, as it gives employers incentives to transfer the costs to their workers, affecting individual wages and inducing cream skimming. Side effects which have been given limited attention. This paper aims to fill one part of this gap in the literature. The effect off employer incentives on individual wages is estimated using a reform in January 1992, which introduced an employer co-insurance system into the Swedish sickness absence insurance. The analysis based on a long population panel database, including survey information on hourly wages, gives no support of any important individual wage effects from the co-insurance reform. This is not a result of lack of variation in individual wage increases, nor is it a result of large standard errors.Wage; employer incentives; co-insurance; sickness absence; work absence; social insurance

Bounds on treatment effects on transitions

This paper considers the definition and identification of treatment effects on conditional transition probabilities. We show that even under sequential random assignment only the instantaneous average treatment effect is point identified. Because treated and control units drop out at different rates, randomization only ensures the comparability of treatment and controls at the time of randomization, so that long run average treatment effects are not point identified. Instead we derive informative bounds on these average treatment effects. Our bounds do not impose (semi)parametric restrictions, as e.g. proportional hazards, that would narrow the bounds or even allow for point identification. We also explore various assumptions such as monotone treatment response, common shocks and positively correlated outcomes.Partial identification; duration model; randomized experiment; treatment effect

Socioeconomic Heterogeneity in the Effect of Health Shocks on Earnings. Evidence from Population-Wide Data on Swedish Workers

In this paper, we estimate socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of unexpected health shocks on labor market outcomes, using register-based data on the entire population of Swedish workers. We effectively exploit a Difference-in-Difference-in-Differences design, in which we compare the change in labor earnings across treated and control groups with high and low education levels. If the anticipation effects are similar for individuals with high and low education, any difference in the estimates across socioeconomic groups could plausibly be given a causal interpretation. Our results suggest a large amount of heterogeneity in the effects, in which individuals with a low education level suer relatively more from a given health shock. These results hold across a wide range of different types of health shocks and become more pronounced with age. Our results suggest that socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of health shocks offers one explanation for how the socioeconomic gradient in health arises.Health; Health Shocks; Socioeconomic Status; Life-cycle

Cluster sample inference using sensitivity analysis: the case with few groups

This paper re-examines inference for cluster samples. Sensitivity analysis is proposed as a new method to perform inference when the number of groups is small. Based on estimations using disaggregated data, the sensitivity of the standard errors with respect to the variance of the cluster effects can be examined in order to distinguish a causal effect from random shocks. The method even handles just-identified models. One important example of a just-identified model is the two groups and two time periods difference-in-differences setting. The method allows for different types of correlation over time and between groups in the cluster effects.Cluster-correlation; difference-in-difference; sensitivity analysis

Socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of health shocks on earnings: evidence from population-wide data on Swedish workers

In this paper, we test for the existence of socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of health shocks on labor market outcomes using register data on the total population of Swedish workers. We estimate fixed effect models and use unexpected hospitalizations as a measure of health shocks. Our results suggest large heterogeneity in the effects, where low educated individuals suffer relatively more from a given health shock. This result holds across a wide range of different health shocks and our results suggest that the heterogeneity increases by age. We test several potential explanations to these results. Extensive sensitivity analyses, including a difference-in-differences matching model, show that our estimates are robust to a number of potential threats. We conclude that socioeconomic heterogeneity in the effect of health shocks offers one explanation to why the socioeconomic gradient in health widens during middle ages.Health; health shocks; socioeconomic status; life-cycle

The Relative Efficiency of Active Labour Market Policies: Evidence from a Social Experiment and Non-Parametric Methods

We re-analyze the effects of a Danish active labour market program social experiment that included a range of sub-treatments, including monitoring, job search assistance and training. Previous studies have shown that the overall effect of the experiment is positive. We apply newly developed non-parametric methods to determine which of the individual policies that explains the positive effect. The use of non-parametric methods to separate sub-treatment effects is important from a methodological point of view, since the alternative, namely parametric/distributional assumptions, is in conflict with the concept of experimental evidence. Our results are highly relevant in a policy perspective, as optimal labour market policy design requires knowledge on the effectiveness of specific policy measures.active labour market policy, treatment effect, non-parametric bounds

What active labor market policy works in a recession?

This paper discusses the case for expanding active labor market policy in recession. We find that there is reasonable case for relying more heavily on certain kinds of programs. The argument is tied to the varying size of the lock-in effect in boom and recession. If programs with relatively large lock-in effects should ever be used, they should be used in a downturn. The reason is simply that the cost of forgoing search time is lower in recession. We also provide new evidence on the relative effectiveness of different kinds of programs over the business cycle. In particular we compare an on-the-job training scheme with (traditional) labor market training. We find that labor market training is relatively more effective in recession. This result is consistent with our priors since labor market training features relative large lock-in effects.Active labor market policy; business cycle; unemployment

What active labor market policy works in a recession?

This paper discusses the case for expanding active labor market policy in recession. We find that there is reasonable case for relying more heavily on certain kinds of programs. The argument is tied to the varying size of the lock-in effect in boom and recession. If programs with relatively large lock-in effects should ever be used, they should be used in a downturn. The reason is simply that the cost of forgoing search time is lower in recession. We also provide new evidence on the relative effectiveness of different kinds of programs over the business cycle. In particular we compare an on-the-job training scheme with (traditional) labor market training. We find that labor market training is relatively more effective in recession. This result is consistent with our priors since labor market training features relative large lock-in effects.Active labor market policy; business cycle; unemployment

Monitoring Job Offer Decisions, Punishments, Exit to Work, and Job Quality

Unemployment insurance systems include monitoring of unemployed workers and punitive sanctions if job search requirements are violated. We analyze the effect of sanctions on the ensuing job quality, notably on wage rates and hours worked, and we examine how often a sanction leads to a lower occupational level. The data cover the Swedish population over 1999-2004. We estimate duration models dealing with selection on unobservables. We use weighted exogenous sampling maximum likelihood to deal with the fact the data register is large whereas observed punishments are rare. We also develop a theoretical job search model with monitoring of job offer rejection vis-a-vis monitoring of job search effort. The observation window includes a policy change in which the punishment severity was reduced. We find that the hourly wage and the number of hours are on average lower after a sanction, and that individuals move more often to a lower occupational level, incurring human capital losses. Monitoring offer rejections is less effective than monitoring search effort.offer rejection, unemployment, job offer, duration, sanction, wage, hours worked, weighted exogenous sampling maximum likelihood, case worker, search effort

Monitoring job offer decisions, punishments, exit to work, and job quality

Unemployment insurance systems include monitoring of unemployed workers and punitive sanctions if job search requirements are violated. We analyze the effect of sanctions on the ensuing job quality, notably on wage rates and hours worked, and we examine how often a sanction leads to a lower occupational level. The data cover the Swedish population over 1999–2004. We estimate duration models dealing with selection on unobservables. We use weighted exogenous sampling maximum likelihood to deal with the fact that the data register is large whereas observed punishments are rare. We also develop a theoretical job search model with monitoring of job offer rejection versus monitoring of job search effort. The observation window includes a discontinuous policy change in which the punishment severity was reduced. We find that the hourly wage and the number of hours are lower after a sanction, and that individuals move more often to a lower occupational level, incurring human capital losses. Monitoring offer rejections is less effective than monitoring search effort.Unemployment; duration; sanction; wage; hours worked; weighted exogenous sampling maximum likelihood; case worker; job offer; offer rejection; search effort