Predicting unemployment in short samples with internet job search query data

This article tests the power of a novel indicator based on job search related web queries in predicting quarterly unemployment rates in short samples. Augmenting standard time series specifications with this indicator definitely improves out-of-sample forecasting performance at nearly all in-sample interval lengths and forecast horizons, both when compared with models estimated on the same or on a much longer time series interval.Google econometrics, Forecast comparison, Keyword search, Unemployment, Time series models.

Immigration and Occupations in Europe

In this paper we analyze the effect of immigrants on natives' job specialization in Western Europe. We test whether the inflow of immigrants changes employment rates or the chosen occupation of natives with similar education and age. We find no evidence of the first and strong evidence of the second: immigrants take more manual-routine type of occupations and push natives towards more abstract-complex jobs, for a given set of observable skills. We also find some evidence that this occupation reallocation is larger in countries with more flexible labor laws. As abstract-complex tasks pay a premium over manual-routine ones, we can evaluate the positive effect of such reallocation on the wages of native workers. Accounting for the total change in Complex/Non Complex task supply from natives and immigrants we find that immigration does not change much the relative compensation of the two types of tasks but it promotes the specialization of natives into the first type.immigration, task specialization, European labor markets

Monetary incentives vs. monitoring in addressing absenteeism: experimental evidence

Exploiting two unexpected variations in sickness absence policy for civil servants in Italy, this paper assesses the relative importance of monitoring and monetary incentives in determining a basic measure of effort: presence at work. When stricter monitoring was introduced together with an average 20% cut in replacement rates for civil servants on short sick leave, sickness absence decreased by 26.4%, eliminating the wedge in absence rates with comparable private sector workers. The impact substantially decreased when a subsequent policy change brought back monitoring to the pre-reform level, while leaving monetary incentives untouched. Results are confirmed by a variety of robustness checks and are not driven by the presence of attenuation bias. No shift is detected in other types of absence as a consequence of the reforms. Given that sickness absence rates are higher in the public than in the private sector in the US and Western Europe as well, these results provide useful insights on how to draw a successful strategy for addressing absenteeism.monetary incentives, monitoring, effort, sickness absence

The Labor Market Impact of Immigration in Western Germany in the 1990's

In this article we measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market looking at both wage and employment effects. Refining administrative data for the period 1987-2001 to account for ethnic German immigrants and immigrants from Eastern Germany, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had very little adverse effects on native wages and on their employment levels. Instead, it had a sizable adverse employment effect as well as a small adverse wage effect on previous waves of immigrants. These asymmetric results are partly driven by a higher degree of substitution between old and new immigrants in the labor market. In a simple calculation we show that the largest aggregate effect of new immigration on natives and old immigrants comes from the increased costs of unemployment benefits to old immigrants. Those costs could be eliminated in a world of wage flexibility and no unemployment insurance in which immigration would not have any negative employment effect but only moderate wage effects.International Migration, Remittances

The Labor Market Impact of Immigration in Western Germany in the 1990's

We adopt a general equilibrium approach in order to measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market, looking at both wage and employment effects. Using the Regional File of the IAB Employment Subsample for the period 1987- 2001, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had no adverse effects on native wages and employment levels. It had instead adverse employment and wage effects on previous waves of immigrants. This stems from the fact that, after controlling for education and experience levels, native and migrant workers appear to be imperfect substitutes whereas new and old immigrants exhibit perfect substitutability. Our analysis suggests that if the German labor market were as “flexible” as the UK labor market, it would be more effcient in dealing with the effects of immigration.Immigration, Skill Complementarities, Employment, Wages.

The labor market impact of immigration in Western Germany in the 1990's

We adopt a general equilibrium approach in order to measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market, looking at both wage and employment effects. Using the Regional File of the IAB Employment Subsample for the period 1987-2001, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had no adverse effects on native wages and employment levels. It had instead adverse employment and wage effects on previous waves of immigrants. This stems from the fact that, after controlling for education and experience levels, native and migrant workers appear to be imperfect substitutes whereas new and old immigrants exhibit perfect substitutability. Our analysis suggests that if the German labor market were as 'flexible' as the UK labor market, it would be more efficient in dealing with the effects of immigration. --Immigration,Skill Complementarities,Employment,Wages

Forecasting Births Using Google

Abstract de la ponencia[EN] Monitoring fertility change is particularly important for policy and planning purposes. New data may help us in this monitoring. We propose a new leading indicator based on Google web-searches. We then test its predictive power using US data. In a deep out-of sample comparison we show that popular time series specifications augmented with web-search-related data improve their forecasting performance at forecast horizons of 6 to 24 months. The superior performance of these augmented models is confirmed by formal tests of equal forecast accuracy. Moreover, our results survive a falsification test and are confirmed also when a forecast horse race is conducted using different out-of-sample tests, and at the state rather than at the federal level. Conditioning on the same information set, the forecast error of our best model for predicting 2009 births is 35% lower than the Census bureau projections. Our findings indicate the potential use of Googe web-searches in monitoring fertility change and in informing fertility forecasts.Billari, F.; D'amuri, F.; Marcucci, J. (2016). Forecasting Births Using Google. En CARMA 2016: 1st International Conference on Advanced Research Methods in Analytics. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 119-119. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2016.2015.4301OCS11911

Immigration, Jobs and Employment Protection: Evidence from Europe

In this paper we analyze the effect of immigrants on native jobs in fourteen Western European countries. We test whether the inflow of immigrants in the period 1996-2007 decreased employment rates and/or if it altered the occupational distribution of natives with similar education and age. We find no evidence of the first but significant evidence of the second: immigrants took "simple" (manual-routine) type of occupations and natives moved, in response, toward more "complex" (abstract-communication) jobs. The results are robust to the use of an IV strategy based on past settlement of different nationalities of immigrants across European countries. We also document the labor market flows through which such a positive reallocation took place: immigration stimulated job creation, and the complexity of jobs offered to new native hires was higher relative to the complexity of destructed native jobs. Finally, we find evidence that the occupation reallocation of natives was significantly larger in countries with more flexible labor laws. This tendency was particularly strong for less educated workers.

Predicting unemployment in short samples with internet job search query data

This article tests the power of a novel indicator based on job search related web queries in predicting quarterly unemployment rates in short samples. Augmenting standard time series specifications with this indicator definitely improves out-of-sample forecasting performance at nearly all in-sample interval lengths and forecast horizons, both when compared with models estimated on the same or on a much longer time series interval

The Labor Market Impact of Immigration in Western Germany in the 1990's

We adopt a general equilibrium approach in order to measure the effects of recent immigration on the Western German labor market, looking at both wage and employment effects. Using the Regional File of the IAB Employment Subsample for the period 1987-2001, we find that the substantial immigration of the 1990's had no adverse effects on native wages and employment levels. It had instead adverse employment and wage effects on previous waves of immigrants. This stems from the fact that, after controlling for education and experience levels, native and migrant workers appear to be imperfect substitutes whereas new and old immigrants exhibit perfect substitutability. Our analysis suggests that if the German labor market were as 'flexible' as the UK labor market, it would be more efficient in dealing with the effects of immigration.