Research

Published/Forthcoming :

(Not) Thinking about the Future: Financial Information and Maternal Labor Supply

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón, Michaela Slotwinski, and Anne Brenøe (AEA RCT Registry 0010399)

Forthcoming at Quarterly Journal of Economics

Does information about the long-run financial costs of reduced labor supply increase mothers’ working hours? We document descriptively that long-term financial factors are not top of mind when mothers decide on their employment level. Moreover, a substantial share of women holds overly optimistic expectations about pension receipt and wage growth under part-time work. In a large-scale field experiment in Switzerland, we randomly assign mothers working part-time as teachers to receive objective information about the long-run costs of reduced labor supply. The treatment increases both demand for financial information and future labor supply plans, in particular among women who underestimate the costs of part-time work. Leveraging linked employer administrative data one year post-intervention, we find that this group of mothers increases working hours by 7 percent. These findings underscore that policies reducing information frictions in labor supply decisions may help address remaining gender gaps in the labor market.

Press coverage: Soziale Sicherheit

Quota vs. Quality? Long-Term Gains from an Unusual Gender Quota

joint with Ville Mankki

Forthcoming at American Economic Review

We evaluate equity-efficiency trade-offs from admissions quotas by examining effects on output once beneficiaries start producing in the relevant industry. In particular, we document the impact of abolishing a 40% quota for male primary school teachers on their pupils’ long-run outcomes. The quota had advantaged academically lower-scoring male university applicants, and its removal cut the share of men among new teachers by half. We combine this reform with the timing of union-mandated teacher retirements to isolate quasi-random variation in the local share of male quota teachers. Using comprehensive register data, we find that pupils exposed to a higher share of male quota teachers during primary school transition more smoothly to post-compulsory education and have higher educational attainment and labor force attachment at age 25. Pupils of both genders benefit similarly from exposure to male quota teachers. Evidence suggests that the quota improved the allocation of talent by mending imperfections in the unconstrained selection process.

Press coverage: The Economist: Quotas on it

Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award , Labor Economics

Working Papers:

The Market for Part-Time Work and Maternal Participation in the Workforce

joint with Andrea Hofer and Andreas Beerli

Women are over-represented in industries that feature shorter hours. This paper sheds light on the labor demand forces that give rise to this sorting. We study an immigration reform that markedly expanded the pool of commuting full-time workers in a pre-defined set of Swiss border localities. Using social security registers and business census data covering the universe of establishments in a difference-in-differences design, we find that mothers — a group that predominantly works part-time — exit the workforce following the reform. Fathers and prime-age men and women without children remain unaffected. We provide evidence that maternal drop-out is driven by a firm-side restructuring towards positions with longer hours: local employment shifts toward full-time positions, and job postings exhibit reduced demand for part-time work. Taken together, these findings suggest that firms may dynamically adjust non-monetary aspects of jobs in response to supply, with reduced hours constituting an amenity that on average is costly to provide.

Non-Toxic Peers: Long-Run Returns from an Anti-Bullying Program

joint with Tabea Braun, Ana Costa-Ramón, Ana Rodríguez-González and Christina Salmivalli


We study the long-run impacts of a randomized anti-bullying intervention, the KiVa program, in Finnish schools. We link the RCT survey data for 15,000 pupils attending grades 7-9 to comprehensive administrative records on educational attainment, labor market attachment, and criminal activity in adulthood. Treated students experience gains in human capital and labor market outcomes: they are more likely to enroll in academic high school, obtain a university degree, and earn higher wages by ages 27-29. These gains accrue to all groups of pupils, irrespective of gender or social role at baseline. We show that the likely mechanism is a reduction in bullying in the classroom, particularly among boys, which leads to a more positive learning environment for all students. A reduction in crime in adulthood among boys suggests that the program successfully mitigated harmful behavior beyond the intervention window.

Happily Under-Insured Ever After? The Role of Beliefs in Household Specialization

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón, Michaela Slotwinski, and Johannes Stupperich

(E-mail for draft. AEA RCT Registry 0012494)

This paper establishes a causal link between women’s beliefs around separation and labor market investment choices. We randomly manipulate beliefs around divorce in a large-scale field experiment with Swiss female teachers who are mothers and currently in a relationship. The intervention, delivered via a documentary-style video with real protagonists, aims to make both the possibility and consequences of separation relatable. The treatment increases women’s insurance against the risks of separation both along financial and employment margins. Treated women are 55% more likely to sign up for an incentivized savings tool that allows users to assess compensation payments within the couple, and plan to work more in the future. One year after the intervention, treated women have reduced their level of specialization: they increase work hours by 3% as measured in administrative records of the employer. Women with low levels of insurance against separation at baseline adjust their employment level upwards by 7% relative to the control group mean.

Work in Progress:

Two Centuries of Tiebout: Residential Sorting and Fiscal Policy

joint with Cory Smith

(E-mail for draft)

Tiebout theory suggests that individuals sort into communities based on their preferences for public goods which in turn shape voting and public policy. We examine this mechanism in the context of nineteenth-century frontier settlement, using a natural experiment that introduced exogenous variation in initial levels of public school funding in Illinois townships. We exploit a federal policy that funded township schools using a fixed parcel of land within a standardized grid. Leveraging its arbitrary location, we use machine learning methods to convert its idiosyncratic geographic features into an exogenous predictor of initial school endowments. Townships with more valuable school lands attracted larger and more educated populations as early as 1860, with differences persisting for nearly two centuries. The paper will explore effects on subsequent schooling and public finance outcomes and mechanisms including substitution to private goods, urbanization, and education-driven outmigration.

Childcare Subsidies and Maternal Labor Supply: A Field Experiment

joint with Ana Costa-Ramón and Michaela Slotwinski (Baseline completed. AEA RCT Registry 0013838)