Essays in Labor Economics
Datum
2024-08-07
Autor:innen
Zeitschriftentitel
ISSN der Zeitschrift
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Verlag
University of Oregon
Zusammenfassung
In Chapter 1, I exploit a policy change for U.S. federal workers’ pension benefits to estimate the effect of pension generosity on worker retirement, retention and recruitment. The policy increased pensions by 16%-25% or approximately $111,000. There is a 30% decrease in job quits for permanent workers. However, there is little evidence that pension generosity has an effect on new hires. This suggests salience may play a role in how workers value pensions. Additionally, I find a large heterogeneous labor supply response to pension generosity. Altogether, this shows that pension generosity is effective in retaining workers and may have important implications for workforce planning.
In Chapter 2, I estimate a structural model of retirement that incorporates anticipatory labor responses. Under a naive model that assumes workers do not respond to financial incentives, fiscal costs will be underestimated. When workers dynamically respond to pension incentives, they delay their retirement to maximize their pension value which leads to higher fiscal costs. I estimate that, when not accounting for dynamic labor responses, fiscal costs will be underestimated by 8% to 20%. Altogether, policymakers intending to decrease public pension generosity may underestimate the fiscal costs without modeling anticipatory labor responses.
Chapter 3 studies the effect of disability-based affirmative action on the federal workforce. We provide descriptive evidence there is an increase in representation of workers with disabilities. However, we find that this increase is relatively larger for less severe disabilities compared to more severe disabilities. Additionally, we find evidence there is a decrease in representation among agencies that satisfy the mandate. The results suggest that severity of disability may need to be considered when mandating disability-based affirmative action.
This dissertation includes unpublished coauthored material.