People I Know: Workplace Networks and Job Search Outcomes

We examine the role of information networks in job-search outcomes of displaced individuals. We draw on longitudinal Social Security records covering the universe of worker-firm matches in a tight labor market in Northern Italy. Unlike previous research, we focus on workplace networks whose labor market attributes we are able to describe extensively. A workplace network is defined as all coworkers a displaced individual worked with prior to displacement. Estimates of network effects are thus affected by omitted variable bias if the labor market sorts workers across firms along relevant determinants of search outcomes and network characteristics or if past coworkers are exposed to the same shocks. The empirical strategy accounts for these possibilities by comparing subsequent outcomes of workers displaced by the same firm; in addition, we exploit the longitudinal dimension to develop controls for potential residual within-firm heterogeneity. In particular, we control for pre-displacement wages and employment status as well as descriptions of pre-displacement firms and their workforce. ContactsÂ’ labor market attributes have a significant effect on a variety of job search outcomes. Employed contacts significantly increase the probability of re-employment. They are more effective if they experienced a recent job change and when geographically and technologically closer to the displaced. Stronger ties and lower competition for the available information also speed up re-employment. While largely irrelevant for unemployment duration, contactsÂ’ quality is a significant determinant of entry wages and subsequent job stability.Unemployment, Wages, Job Stability, Social Networks

Schooling and youth mortality: learning from a mass military exemption

We examine the relationship between education and mortality in a young population of Italian males. In 1981 several cohorts of young men from specific southern towns were unexpectedly exempted from compulsory military service after a major quake hit the region. Comparisons of exempt cohorts from least damaged towns on the border of the quake region with similar ones from neighbouring non-exempt towns just outside the region show that, by 1991, the cohorts exempted while still in high school display significantly higher graduation rates. The probability of dying over the decade 1991-2001 was also significantly lower. Several robustness checks confirm that the findings do not reflect omitted quake-related confounding factors, such as the ensuing compensatory interventions. Moreover, cohorts exempted soon after high school age do not display higher schooling or lower mortality rates, thus excluding that the main findings reflect direct effects of military service on subsequent mortality rather than a causal effect of schooling. We conclude that increasing the proportion of high school graduates by 1 percentage point leads to 0.1-0.2 percentage points lower mortality rates between the ages of 25 and 35.education, mortality, health, schooling, human capital

The distribution of employees’ labour earnings in the European Union: Data, concepts and first results

This paper studies the distribution of labour earnings among employees within the EU using data from Wave 2007-1 of the Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EUSILC). The review of available information and the comparisons with external sources show that the EU-SILC data are not exempt from problems, particularly in some countries, yet can be fruitfully used to study the distribution of earnings in the EU; they also allow researchers to assess the sensitivity of results to various concepts of labour earnings. The ranking of countries by median full-time equivalent monthly gross earnings shows Eastern European nations at the bottom and Luxembourg at the top; earnings differences are sizeable, both across and within countries. Taking the euro area and the EU-25 (excluding Malta, for which data are unavailable) as a whole, inequality is higher when earnings are measured in euro at market rates rather than at purchasing power parities. The wage distribution is wider in the EU-25 than in the euro area, which is not surprising given that the former includes the poorer Eastern European countries that joined the Union in 2004. The higher inequality observed in the EU-25 is largely attributable to differences between countries, which are essentially due to the returns to individual attributes rather than to a different composition of the workforce with respect to these attributes.wage inequality, EU and euro area labour markets.

Schooling and youth mortality : learning from a mass military exemption

This paper examines the relationship between education and mortality in a young population of Italian males. In 1981 several cohorts of young men from specific southern towns were unexpectedly exempted from compulsory military service after a major quake hit the region. Comparisons of exempt cohorts from the least damaged towns on the border of the quake region with similar ones from neighbouring non-exempt towns just outside the region show that, by 1991, the cohorts exempted while still in high school display significantly higher graduation rates. The probability of dying over the decade 1991-2001 was also significantly lower. Several robustness checks confirm that the findings do not reflect omitted quake-related confounding factors, such as the ensuing compensatory interventions. Moreover, cohorts exempted soon after high school age do not display higher schooling or lower mortality rates, thus excluding that the main findings reflect direct effects of military service on subsequent mortality rather than a causal effect of schooling. The authors conclude that increasing the proportion of high school graduates by 1 percentage point leads to 0.1-0.2 percentage points lower mortality rates between the ages of 25 and 35.Population Policies,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Labor Policies,Demographics,Education For All

Social Interactions in High School: Lessons from an Earthquake.

We provide new evidence on the impact of peer effects on the schooling decisions of teenagers. In November 1980 a major earthquake hit Southern Italy. In the aftermath, young men from certain towns were exempted from compulsory military service. We show that the exemption raised high school graduation rates of boys by more than 2 percentage points by comparing high school graduation rates of young exempt men and older not exempt men from the least damaged areas and men of the same age groups from nearby towns that were not hit by the quake. Similar comparisons show that graduation rates of young women in the affected areas rose by about 2 percentage points. Since in Italy women are not subject to drafting, we interpret these findings as evidence of social effects of the decision of teenage boys of staying longer in school on that of teenage girls. Our estimates suggest that an increase of 1 percentage point of male graduation rates raises female probability of completing high school by about 0.7-0.8 percentage points. A series of robustness checks, including comparisons across different age groups and with different definitions of the comparison areas, suggest that the rise was due to the earthquake-related exemption, rather than other factors.istruzione, interazione sociale, peer effects, servizio militare obbligatorio

Social Interactions in Schooling

We exploit the 1980 earthquake in southern Italy and the subsequent relief from mandatory military service granted to all males in the regions hit by the seism to estimate the strength of endogenous social interactions in schooling achievements. Preliminary results point to a significant and strong effect of interactions not mediated by marketsEndogenous interactions, schooling, peer-effect.

Productivity and foreign competition

The debate in Italy on the recent disappointing performance of GDP growth has focused on the increasing competitive pressure exerted by firms located in the developing countries and specialized in key product sectors of Italian manufacturing. This paper contributes by explicitly quantifying the effects of this competition on the efficiency of Italian manufacturing firms and sectors. The exercise exploits the exogenous nature of the entry into international markets of competing firms located in developing countries, largely attributable to trade liberalization policies and the initial forms of industrial development. The relation between the developing countriesÂ’ market shares and sectoral productivity in Italy, both disaggregated according to the 3-digit Ateco91 classification, is found to be empirically positive. The effect is largely due to a process of creative destruction in which the least efficient firms exit the market and new firms of above-average efficiency enter.concorrenza estera, produttivita' del lavoro, quote di mercato

ABC-LMPC: Safe Sample-Based Learning MPC for Stochastic Nonlinear Dynamical Systems with Adjustable Boundary Conditions

Sample-based learning model predictive control (LMPC) strategies have recently attracted attention due to their desirable theoretical properties and their good empirical performance on robotic tasks. However, prior analysis of LMPC controllers for stochastic systems has mainly focused on linear systems in the iterative learning control setting. We present a novel LMPC algorithm, Adjustable Boundary Condition LMPC (ABC-LMPC), which enables rapid adaptation to novel start and goal configurations and theoretically show that the resulting controller guarantees iterative improvement in expectation for stochastic nonlinear systems. We present results with a practical instantiation of this algorithm and experimentally demonstrate that the resulting controller adapts to a variety of initial and terminal conditions on 3 stochastic continuous control tasks.Comment: Workshop on the Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics (WAFR) 2020. First two authors contributed equall