Multitasking

This paper reviews economic studies on multitasking in householdproduction. Whereas multitasking or task juggling in the workplace hasbeen analyzed more widely, economic literature on multitasking in ahousehold is relatively scarce. The chapter first provides relevantmeasures of such multitasking activities, discusses time diary data, andpresents some empirical facts employing Harmonized European Time UseSurvey data. It then reviews theoretical and empirical contributions tothis topic, focusing on childcare, food consumption, and remote work. Italso reviews the determinants of multitasking and identifies the factorsthat are more likely to affect these activities. In addition, itdiscusses multitasking by certain groups, such as ethnic minorities andchildren. Finally, it offers policy implications and suggestions forfuture research. <br/

Job Separations, Job Loss and Informality in the Russian Labor Market

Having unique data we investigate the link between job separations (displacement and quits) and informal employment, which we define in several ways posing the general question whether the burden of informality falls disproportionately on job separators in the Russian labor market. After we have established positive causal effects of displacement and quits on informal employment we analyze whether displaced workers experience more involuntary informal employment than their non-displaced counterparts. Our main results confirm our contention that displacement entraps some of the workers in involuntary informal employment. Those who quit, in turn, experience voluntary informality for the most part, but there seems a minority of quitting workers who end up in involuntary informal jobs. This scenario does not fall on all the workers who separate but predominantly on workers with low human capital. We also pursue the issue of informality persistence and find that informal employment is indeed persistent as some workers churn from one informal job to the next. Our study contributes to the debate in the informality literature regarding segmented versus integrated labor markets. It also contributes to the literature on displacement by establishing informal employment as an important cost of displacement. We also look at the share of undeclared wages in formal jobs and find that these shares are larger for separators than for incumbents, with displaced workers bearing the brunt of this manifestation of informality.

The Wage and Non-wage Costs of Displacement: Evidence from Russia

This paper is the first to analyze the costs of job loss in Russia, using unique new data from the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey over the years 2003-2008, including a special supplement on displacement that was initiated by us. We employ fixed effects regression models and propensity score matching techniques in order to establish the causal effect of displacement for displaced individuals. The paper is innovative insofar as we investigate fringe and in-kind benefits and the propensity to have an informal employment relationship as well as a permanent contract as relevant labor market outcomes upon displacement. We also analyze monthly earnings, hourly wages, employment and hours worked, which are traditionally investigated in the literature. Compared to the control group of non-displaced workers (i.e. stayers and quitters), displaced individuals face a significant income loss following displacement, which is mainly due to the reduction in employment and hours worked. This effect is robust to the definition of displacement. The losses seem to be more pronounced and are especially large for older workers with labor market experience and human capital acquired in Soviet times and for workers with primary and secondary education. Workers displaced from state firms experience particularly large relative losses in the short run, while such losses for workers laid off from private firms are more persistent. Turning to the additional non-conventional labor market outcomes, there is a loss in terms of the number of fringe and in-kind benefits for reemployed individuals but not in terms of their value. There is also some evidence of an increased probability of working in informal jobs if displaced. These results point towards the importance of both firm-specific human capital and of obsolete skills obtained under the centrally planned economy as well as to a wider occurrence of job insecurity among displaced workers.

Informal Employment in Russia: Definitions, Incidence, Determinants and Labor Market Segmentation

This paper takes stock of informal employment in Russia analyzing its incidence and determinants, developing several measures of informal employment and demonstrating that the incidence varies widely across the different definitions. We, however, show that the determinants of informal employment are roughly stable across the different measures. We also estimate an informal-formal wage gap at the means and across the entire wage distributions. We find only weak evidence for labor market segmentation in Russia for salaried workers but establish a segmented informal sector with a lower free entry tier and an upper rationed tier when including the self-employed and entrepreneurs

Returning Home at Times of Trouble? Return Migration of EU Enlargement Migrants during the Crisis

The eastern enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007 have stimulated the mobility of workers from the new EU8 and EU2 countries. A significant proportion of these migrants stayed abroad only temporarily, and the Great recession may have triggered return intentions. However, a return may be postponed if the economic situation in a sending region is persistently worse. This paper documents emerging evidence on return migration in post-enlargement Europe combining several data sources to describe the characteristics and selection of the returnees, as well as the determinants of return migration and potential re-migration decisions. The findings suggest that brain circulation rather than brain drain is relevant for several new member states and that returnees are most likely to migrate again. Moreover, the proportion of potential movers is larger in countries most affected by the crisis. Repeat and circular migration is expected to alleviate the potential negative impacts of the crisis, leading to a more efficient allocation of resources within the enlarged EU

Is Self-Employment for Migrants? Evidence from Italy

Using a unique Italian dataset covering the period 2004-2020, we assess the immigrant-native gap in entrepreneurship and investigate channels behind it. The data allows us to account for many observable characteristics as well as for risk aversion, which is usually not observed, yet crucial for the self-employment decision. Unlike most of the existing empirical literature, we find that immigrants in Italy are less likely to be self-employed. The negative gap is confirmed when propensity score matching methodology is used. Heterogeneity analysis suggests that the negative gap is larger for men, for economic migrants and those coming from Sub-Saharan Africa, while it is not significant for mixed immigrant-native couples, for highly skilled, and for migrants from Asia and Oceania. The largest gap is found for those working in the agricultural sector. Regarding additional channels, we explore the role of access to credit, including the informal one, and whether migrants are credit constrained, as well as the importance of migrant networks, easiness of doing business, and expenditures on services for migrants. Despite finding significant correlations between self-employment and some of these factors, none of them seem to decrease the magnitude of the negative gap

CROSSOVER OF MAGNETIC AND ELECTRONIC PHASE TRANSITIONS IN FERROMAGNETIC SEMICONDUCTORS

Using the example of La1–xCaxMnO3, it is shown that the inclusion of electric and magnetic fields during a first-order phase transition in ferromagnetic semiconductors is accompanied by the appearance of self-oscillations of the electric current and magnetization