The Impact of
Workplace Conditions on Firm Performance (with Elena Cottini and Niels Westergaard-Nielsen),
version June '08, also as ASB Working Paper 08-13; currently under revisionSebastian Buhai's Research in Economics
Work in Progress (and some temporarily abandoned projects)
Publications
Working Papers
The Impact of
Workplace Conditions on Firm Performance (with Elena Cottini and Niels Westergaard-Nielsen),
version June '08, also as ASB Working Paper 08-13; currently under revision
This paper estimates the impact of work environment health and safety
practice on firm performance, and examines which firm-characteristic factors are
associated with good work conditions. We use Danish longitudinal register matched
employer-employee data, merged with firm business accounts and detailed cross-sectional
survey data on workplace conditions. This enables us to address typical econometric
problems such as omitted variables bias or endogeneity in estimating i) standard
production functions augmented with work environment indicators and aggregate employee
characteristics and ii) firm mean wage regressions on the same explanatory variables. Our
findings suggest that improvement in some of the physical dimensions of the work health
and safety environment (specifically, "internal climate" and "repetitive
and strenuous activity") strongly impacts the firm productivity, whereas
"internal climate" problems are the only workplace hazards compensated for by
higher mean wages.
Keywords: occupational health and safety, work environment, production function
estimation, firm performance, compensating wage differentials
JEL codes: J28, J31, L23
Returns to Tenure or Seniority? (with
Miguel Portela, Coen Teulings and Aico van Vuuren), latest
version: July '09, older versions as TI DP 08-010/3, IZA DP 3302; revise and resubmit at Econometrica
This study documents two empirical regularities, using data for Denmark and Portugal.
First, workers who are hired last are the first to leave the firm (Last In, First Out;
LIFO). Second, workers' wages rise with seniority (= a worker's tenure relative to the
tenure of her colleagues). We seek to explain these regularities by developing a dynamic
model of the firm with stochastic product demand and irreversible specific investments.
There is wage bargaining between a worker and its firm. Separations (quits or layoffs)
obey the LIFO rule and bargaining is efficient (a zero surplus at the moment of
separation). The LIFO rule provides a stronger bargaining position for senior workers,
leading to a return to seniority in wages.
Keywords: irreversible investment, options, seniority, LIFO, matched employer-employee
data
JEL-codes: J31, J41, J63
A Social Network Analysis of
Occupational Segregation (with Marco van der Leij), latest version: March '08, older version as TI
DP 06-016/1; currently under revision
We develop a social network model of occupational segregation between different
social groups, generated by the existence of positive inbreeding bias among individuals
from the same group. If network referrals are important for job search, then expected
homophily in the contact network structure induces different career choices for
individuals from different social groups. This further translates into stable occupational
segregation equilibria in the labor market. We derive the conditions for wage and
unemployment inequality in the segregation equilibria and characterize first and second
best social welfare optima. Surprisingly, we find that socially optimal policies involve
segregation.
JEL codes: J24, J31, J70, Z13
Keywords: Social Networks, Homophily, Inbreeding Bias, Occupational Segregation, Labor
Market Inequality, Social Welfare
Tenure Profiles and Efficient
Separation in a Stochastic Productivity Model (with Coen Teulings), latest
version: May '08, older versions as TI DP 05-099/3 (revised Oct '06), IZA DP 1997; 2nd
round revise & resubmit at the Review
of Economic Studies
This paper provides a new way of analyzing tenure profiles in wages, by modelling
simultaneously the evolution of wages and the distribution of tenures. We develop a
theoretical model based on efficient bargaining, where both log outside wage and log wage
in the current job follow a random walk, as found empirically. This setting allows the
application of real option theory. We derive the efficient separation rule. The model fits
the observed distribution of job tenures well. Since we observe outside wages only at job
start and job separation, our empirical analysis of within job wage growth is based on
expected wage growth conditional on the outside wages at both dates. Our modelling allows
testing of the e.cient bargaining hypothesis. The model is estimated on the PSID.
Keywords: random productivity growth, efficient bargaining, job tenure, inverse gaussian,
wage-tenure profiles, option theory
JEL-codes: C51, C52, J63
Peer-reviewed
Will follow soon.
Published Dissertations & Reports
Essays on Labour Markets: Worker-Firm
Dynamics, Occupational Segregation and Workplace Conditions (Full Digital Version
in the EUR Repository), PhD Thesis November 2008, Tinbergen Institute and Erasmus
University Rotterdam, Thela Thesis -Academic Publishing Services, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands, November 2008
Wages, Seniority and Separation Rates in a Stochastic Productivity Model: A Comparative Perspective, MPhil Thesis in 2003, at the Tinbergen Institute, published as monograph at the Lumen Publishing House, Iasi, Romania, February 2006
Quantile Regression: Overview and Selected
Applications, Ad-Astra
Journal (Young Romanian Scientists' Journal), Vol. 4, 2005
Note on Panel Data Econometrics,
NAKE
Nieuws 15 (2), December 2003
Other Unpublished Older Work (Surveys, Reports etc.)
On Risk in Educational Choice: Brief
Overview and Research Note, December 2003
Investigating Reciprocal Motivation in
Experimental Labor Markets, June 2003
Incomplete Contracts and the Theory of the
Firm, January 2003
Job Search and Contact Networks, April
2002
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