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My dissertation (in one full document) is available for download here: The individual papers are available for download below, by clicking on the title above the abstract. The stand-alone papers are slightly newer than the dissertation. Paper 1: National Context and Atypical Employment The first paper takes a macro approach, examining the causes of three types of atypical
employment (fixed term, part time, and self employment) in OECD countries. Support
is found for three hypotheses: Atypical work arrangements are more prevalent in more
entrepreneurial cultures; when there are legal constraints on firms; and when economic Paper 1b: Atypical Employment Policy Approaches Atypical employment has become an
important area of inquiry in labor market policy for developed countries as
it has become apparent that atypical workers suffer many disadvantages
including weaker legal protections, lower compensation, and less job
security. This article reflects on three main policy approaches
(legislative, union, and judicial) to atypical employment and offers
suggestions for future policy. Paper 2: The Fixed Term Wage Gap Labor market institutions may play a vital role in both the growth of precarious employment and its effects. This paper studies whether fixed term workers' relative wages are a consequence of labor market institutions. The analysis uses propensity score matching and regression analysis with micro data from the Luxembourg Income Study for ten European countries. I find that fixed term workers earn less than their permanent counterparts in all countries, and that they their wage penalty is higher in those countries with strict employment protection legislation, centralized union negotiations (or weak unions), and where fixed term work is less common. In addition, more of the wage gap is due to sorting (or selection) in weaker labor markets and when fixed term work contracts renewals are limited. Paper 3: Employment Intermediaries This paper introduces a micro-simulation of job-worker matching with intermediaries (i.e. temp agencies). While many suggest that firms hire workers through intermediaries to save money on compensation, this paper finds that in a world of limited information and geographically limited job search, intermediaries' human resources ability could be a strong enough incentive, independent of compensation. The study also has some auxiliary findings showing that traditional fee structures encourage firms to use intermediaries for low-skill hires and that firms are more likely to use intermediaries when there is more worker heterogeneity. In the empirical analysis, it becomes clear that studies' estimates of indirect employment in the United States are inconsistent, partly because individuals are uncertain of their contractual status and their employer. Paper 4: Academic Employment Networks The final chapter continues from the organizational perspective, looking at inequality across organizations instead of across workers. Research has found a correlation between academic departments’ rank and their centrality in academic hiring networks. This relationships might result from the fact that highly ranked schools train more PhDs, their graduates are more likely to continue in the academic labor market, and that the highly ranked schools have more faculty. This study is the first to consider the relationship between university departments’ rank and their position in the academic hiring network independent of department size and training. If academics move between institutions for various reasons like wages, location, and specialty areas, there should be no correlation between hiring network centrality and rank. Nevertheless, this paper finds that the correlation persists, suggesting academics are more willing to make career switches to top ranked departments or between them. This preference would give top departments a competitive advantage and positive returns to their rank. This could be one possible explanation for static academic rankings. New Projects: Taxation and Public Goods under Federalism: Exit, Voice, and Revenue Equalization Most countries allow local governments to levy taxes. Heterogeneous tax rates can motivate household residential choices while simultaneously households influence taxes through initiatives, referendums, and representatives. This circular relationship between residential mobility and democracy can encourage rich households to cluster in low-tax areas where the ``tyranny of the majority'' does not force them to subsidize their poorer neighbours. Central governments' tax equalisation schemes can ameliorate these problems, but can also distort local government's preferences. The effects of tax decentralisation and equalisation vary based on policy contexts including the type of tax, the extent of decentralisation, and the type of voting. This project will use agent based modeling (ABM) to test whether mobility and democracy result in the unequal or inefficient public goods provision or residential segregation and what the optimal (in terms of inefficiency or equality) equalisation formulae are. These questions will first be explored in test cases modeled on Switzerland and Britian, two extreme cases of centralisation. Contextual characteristics will then also be varied to test how the findings vary. The project has three empirical subcomponents which are used to develop the simulation. First, a Theil index of inequality will be decomposed into between- and within- locality inequality, measuring the level of economic segregation; second, we will test whether British and Swiss localities set tax rates in response to their constituencies; and finally, we will test whether moving households chose their destinations, in part, based on tax rates. slide show grant proposal Atypical Employment, Does it depress standard workers' wages? "Flexicurity" is an approach to protecting workers that de-links workers' protections from the employee-employer relationship, replacing employer-provided protections with government benefits with the intention of providing workers a safety net while not distorting businesses' hiring and firing decisions. The paper develops two indices, one measuring the government-provided safety net and the other measuring dismissal protection. Advocates of flexicurity argue that those economies with more emphasis on employer-provided protections would have longer durations of unemployment and perhaps higher unemployment rates while flexicurity critics argue there are no employment effects, and that workers' feeling of security are a policy goal as well. The indices are used to test these competing claims, first using the Luxembourg Income Study data to predict individual employment outcomes, controlling for macro characteristics (like GDP per capita) and individual characteristics (like work experience). The two indices are then used in a second analysis of the World Values Survey to predict workers' life and job satisfaction controlling for individual and macro characteristics. In addition, the second analysis considers the role of culture-specific beliefs in labour protections. In sum, two indices are developed and used in a series of models to test whether mandated protections increase unemployment and worker satisfaction. If the flexicurity hypothesis is valid, workers should be equally satisfied under the two regimes, with higher unemployment rates or duration under the mandated protection regime. slide show
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