Published Papers:
"Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets", with Barbara Petrongolo
Labour Economics 64, 2020
In this paper we discuss some strands of the recent literature on the evolution of gender gaps and their driving forces. We will revisit key stylized facts about gender gaps in employment and wages in a few high-income countries. We then discuss and build on one gender-neutral force behind the rise in female employment, namely the rise of the service economy. This is also related to the polarization of female employment and to the geographic distribution of jobs, which is expected to be especially relevant for female employment prospects. We finally turn to currently debated causes of remaining gender gaps and discuss existing evidence on labor market consequences of women’s heavier caring responsibilities in the household. In particular, we highlight sharp gender differences in commuting behavior and discuss how women’s stronger distaste for commuting time may feed into gender pay gaps.
Working Papers:
"Daddy's girl: Daughters, managerial decisions, and gender inequality", with Nina Smith
Coverage: Marginal Revolution, The Visible Hand Podcast (Job Market Edition), medium.com
Abstract: Managers are in a unique position to hinder or advance gender equality in firms. Using Danish registry data, we study the role of managers' gender attitudes in shaping gender inequality in the workplace by exploiting the birth of a daughter as opposed to a son as a plausibly exogeneous shock to male managers’ gender attitudes. Comparing within-firm changes in women’s labor outcomes depending on the manager’s newborn gender, we find that women’s relative earnings and employment increase by 4.4\% and 2.9\% respectively following the birth of the manager’s first daughter. These effects are driven by an increase in managers’ propensity to replace male workers by hiring women with comparable education, hours worked, and earnings. In line with managers’ ability to substitute men with comparable women, we do not detect any significant effect on firm performance. Finally, our findings suggest that the daughter effect does not result from changes in managers' private incentives, but rather from a rapid and persistent shift in their perception of the social cost associated with gender inequality.
"Female Representation and Talent Allocation in Entrepreneurship: The Role of Early Exposure to Entrepreneurs", with Mikkel Baggesgaard Mertz and Viola Salvestrini (New draft coming soon)
Winner of the best paper award at the CSEF-RCFS Conference on Finance, Labor, and Inequality 2022
Winner of the UniCredit best paper award on Gender Economics 2022
Abstract: Using registry data from Denmark, this paper shows that higher exposure to entrepreneurship during adolescence improves female representation and talent allocation in this profession. We track the educational and professional choices of one million individuals from adolescence to adulthood and exploit within-school cross-cohort variation in exposure to entrepreneurship, as measured by the share of an adolescents' peers whose parents are entrepreneurs during the last years of compulsory school. We find that early exposure to entrepreneurs encourages girls’ entry and tenure into this profession, while it doesn't affect the professional choices of boys. The effect is entirely driven by exposure to the entrepreneur parents of female peers and works by increasing girls’ likelihood to complete secondary vocational education after compulsory schooling and reducing their probability to hold low-paying jobs as adults. Moreover, the increase in female entrepreneurship is associated with the creation of businesses that are not only larger and survive for longer than the average firm but are also characterised by higher female employment and jobs with longer tenure. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the impact of early exposure operates through both cultural and informational channels.
"Hiring Difficulties and Firms' Growth", with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Julien Sauvagnat (New Draft!)
Abstract: This paper studies the effect of hiring difficulties on firms' outcomes. We use a shift-share identification strategy combining occupation-specific changes in the difficulty of filling job vacancies within a local labor market (the \textit{shifts}) and variation across firms in their pre-sampled occupation mix (the \textit{shares}). We show that hiring difficulties have negative effects on firms' employment, capital, sales, and profits. Firms partially adjust to hiring difficulties by increasing wages and the retention rate of incumbent workers, and by lowering their hiring standards. We then document larger effects of hiring difficulties for labor-intensive firms, firms in expanding sectors, and for non-routine cognitive, high-skill, high-wage, and specialized occupations. Taken together, our findings indicate that hiring difficulties are an important determinant of the growth and profitability of firms across time and space.
"Mind the cap: The effects of regulating bankers' pay", with Jordy Meekes
Abstract: This paper investigates how external restrictions to the possibility of paying large bonuses affect firms’ remuneration schemes and their ability to attract and retain workers. To answer this question, we study the effects of the Dutch bonus cap policy, which set a 20% limit to the ratio between variable and fixed pay for all workers employed in the banking industry in the Netherlands. Using social-security data covering the population of firms and workers, we employ a dynamic difference-in-difference approach that compares banks to other financial institutions not covered by the regulation. We find that treated employees experience a sharp drop in variable pay, which is partly compensated by an increase in their fixed pay. As a result of the observed changes in compensation, we find evidence of small negative effects on banks’ ability to attract and retain workers
Work in Progress:
"From minority to majority: how gender diversity affects the type and quality of decisions", with Viola Salvestrini (data collection in progress)
This project was awarded the 2021 EIEF Grant
"Gender gaps and the structure of local labor markets", with Barbara Petrongolo
Labour Economics 64, 2020
In this paper we discuss some strands of the recent literature on the evolution of gender gaps and their driving forces. We will revisit key stylized facts about gender gaps in employment and wages in a few high-income countries. We then discuss and build on one gender-neutral force behind the rise in female employment, namely the rise of the service economy. This is also related to the polarization of female employment and to the geographic distribution of jobs, which is expected to be especially relevant for female employment prospects. We finally turn to currently debated causes of remaining gender gaps and discuss existing evidence on labor market consequences of women’s heavier caring responsibilities in the household. In particular, we highlight sharp gender differences in commuting behavior and discuss how women’s stronger distaste for commuting time may feed into gender pay gaps.
Working Papers:
"Daddy's girl: Daughters, managerial decisions, and gender inequality", with Nina Smith
Coverage: Marginal Revolution, The Visible Hand Podcast (Job Market Edition), medium.com
Abstract: Managers are in a unique position to hinder or advance gender equality in firms. Using Danish registry data, we study the role of managers' gender attitudes in shaping gender inequality in the workplace by exploiting the birth of a daughter as opposed to a son as a plausibly exogeneous shock to male managers’ gender attitudes. Comparing within-firm changes in women’s labor outcomes depending on the manager’s newborn gender, we find that women’s relative earnings and employment increase by 4.4\% and 2.9\% respectively following the birth of the manager’s first daughter. These effects are driven by an increase in managers’ propensity to replace male workers by hiring women with comparable education, hours worked, and earnings. In line with managers’ ability to substitute men with comparable women, we do not detect any significant effect on firm performance. Finally, our findings suggest that the daughter effect does not result from changes in managers' private incentives, but rather from a rapid and persistent shift in their perception of the social cost associated with gender inequality.
"Female Representation and Talent Allocation in Entrepreneurship: The Role of Early Exposure to Entrepreneurs", with Mikkel Baggesgaard Mertz and Viola Salvestrini (New draft coming soon)
Winner of the best paper award at the CSEF-RCFS Conference on Finance, Labor, and Inequality 2022
Winner of the UniCredit best paper award on Gender Economics 2022
Abstract: Using registry data from Denmark, this paper shows that higher exposure to entrepreneurship during adolescence improves female representation and talent allocation in this profession. We track the educational and professional choices of one million individuals from adolescence to adulthood and exploit within-school cross-cohort variation in exposure to entrepreneurship, as measured by the share of an adolescents' peers whose parents are entrepreneurs during the last years of compulsory school. We find that early exposure to entrepreneurs encourages girls’ entry and tenure into this profession, while it doesn't affect the professional choices of boys. The effect is entirely driven by exposure to the entrepreneur parents of female peers and works by increasing girls’ likelihood to complete secondary vocational education after compulsory schooling and reducing their probability to hold low-paying jobs as adults. Moreover, the increase in female entrepreneurship is associated with the creation of businesses that are not only larger and survive for longer than the average firm but are also characterised by higher female employment and jobs with longer tenure. Finally, we provide suggestive evidence that the impact of early exposure operates through both cultural and informational channels.
"Hiring Difficulties and Firms' Growth", with Thomas Le Barbanchon and Julien Sauvagnat (New Draft!)
Abstract: This paper studies the effect of hiring difficulties on firms' outcomes. We use a shift-share identification strategy combining occupation-specific changes in the difficulty of filling job vacancies within a local labor market (the \textit{shifts}) and variation across firms in their pre-sampled occupation mix (the \textit{shares}). We show that hiring difficulties have negative effects on firms' employment, capital, sales, and profits. Firms partially adjust to hiring difficulties by increasing wages and the retention rate of incumbent workers, and by lowering their hiring standards. We then document larger effects of hiring difficulties for labor-intensive firms, firms in expanding sectors, and for non-routine cognitive, high-skill, high-wage, and specialized occupations. Taken together, our findings indicate that hiring difficulties are an important determinant of the growth and profitability of firms across time and space.
"Mind the cap: The effects of regulating bankers' pay", with Jordy Meekes
Abstract: This paper investigates how external restrictions to the possibility of paying large bonuses affect firms’ remuneration schemes and their ability to attract and retain workers. To answer this question, we study the effects of the Dutch bonus cap policy, which set a 20% limit to the ratio between variable and fixed pay for all workers employed in the banking industry in the Netherlands. Using social-security data covering the population of firms and workers, we employ a dynamic difference-in-difference approach that compares banks to other financial institutions not covered by the regulation. We find that treated employees experience a sharp drop in variable pay, which is partly compensated by an increase in their fixed pay. As a result of the observed changes in compensation, we find evidence of small negative effects on banks’ ability to attract and retain workers
Work in Progress:
"From minority to majority: how gender diversity affects the type and quality of decisions", with Viola Salvestrini (data collection in progress)
This project was awarded the 2021 EIEF Grant