LABOR MARKET IMPACTS OF SMOKING REGULATIONS ON THE RESTAURANT INDUSTRY

This paper examines the impact of smoking regulations on restaurant employment in West Virginia, a state with a high rate of smoking prevalence. Using a confidential establishment‐level dataset, our results suggest that smoking bans reduced restaurant employment by between 0.7 and 1.5 workers, depending on model specification. We find that smoking restrictions have heterogeneous impacts across establishments, with the largest impacts on mid‐sized establishments, defined as those with 10–29 employees. Our results also suggest that the impact of smoking restrictions was larger in counties with higher rates of smoking prevalence. (JEL L51, D78, H0)     

DOES ADVERTISING MATTER? ESTIMATING THE IMPACT OF CIGARETTE ADVERTISING ON SMOKING AMONG YOUTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

The goal of this paper is to evaluate the impact of cigarette advertising on smoking among youth in developing countries. Using micro‐level data from 19 developing countries, we examine the structural relationship between smoking behavior and advertising exposure and the reduced‐form relationship between smoking and advertising bans. Instrumental variables are used to address the endogeneity of advertising exposure. Country‐specific unobserved heterogeneity is further reduced by controlling for measures of antismoking sentiment and cigarette prices. After accounting for the endogeneity of advertising, we find that the positive correlation between smoking and advertising exposure in our sample can be largely explained by the disproportionately higher propensity of smokers to observe advertising rather than a direct causal effect of advertising on smoking. (JEL I12, I18)     

Unveiling the effects of a headscarf ban: Evidence from municipal jobs in Turkey

Religious conservatism is often associated with patriarchal attitudes and deterioration of women’s rights. This conventional wisdom has motivated ubiquitous policies that limit public expressions of religion and emphasize secular values. This paper demonstrates that a policy change which undermines secularity ends up empowering women. The current article takes advantage of a unique divergence in political institutions that occurred in Turkey’s recent history to explore how revoking a headscarf ban affected employment outcomes of women in the public sector. In a difference-in-discontinuities setting, I exploit the before/after discontinuous policy variation and compare female employment within municipalities that have Islamist and secular mayors. I find that eliminating legal obstacles against observant Muslim women in the labor market improves female employment in Islamist municipalities. Yet, when women are not allowed to wear headscarves to work, Islamist mayors employ less women vis-à-vis secular mayors. Overall, findings point to unintended consequences of headscarf bans on pious women.     

The short-term impact of smoke-free workplace laws on fatal heart attacks

Using data from across the US, we find that as the number of communities adopting smoking bans in workplaces in a state increases or an entire state goes smoke-free, there are significant reductions in fatal Myocardial Infarctions (MI) among those aged 25–54. The result proves durable, as we subject it to an extensive battery of robustness checks. These results are smaller in magnitude, however, than published case studies analysing the experiences of individual communities passing bans.     

The economic incidence of smoking laws

Although laws restricting smoking in restaurants are becoming commonplace, most research has focused on either the health benefits that laws may provide customers and workers or whether laws harm owners. But while smoking laws may directly alter profits, owners may alter prices, output, and other business attributes in ways that affect the welfare of customers and workers. This study examines whether restaurant and bar owners alter prices, entertainment, hours of operation and other business attributes in response to local smoking laws. Substantial support is found for these attribute changes in the Wisconsin hospitality industry. One implication is that an overall assessment of the desirability of smoking laws should consider economic effects imposed on owners, customers and workers, as well as health benefits that follow laws.     

The impact of public smoking bans on well‐being externalities: Evidence from a policy experiment

Recent studies on the effects of anti‐smoking policies on subjective well‐being present mixed results and do not account for potential externalities, especially among couples. We contribute to the literature by evaluating the impact of smoking bans on well‐being externalities among smokers and non‐smokers as well as couples of different types of smokers. We exploit the policy experiment provided by the timing of the UK public smoking bans and measure well‐being via the GHQ . We employ matching techniques combined with flexible difference‐in‐differences fixed effects panel data models on data from the British Household Panel Survey. The joint use of matching with fixed effects specifications allows building more comparable treatment and control groups, producing less model‐dependent results and accounting for individual‐level unobserved heterogeneity. We find that public smoking bans appear to have a statistically significant short‐term positive impact on the well‐being of married individuals, especially among women with dependent children. These effects appear to be robust to alternative specifications and placebo tests and are discussed in the light of the economic theory and recent evidence.     

Much ado about nothing? Smoking bans and Germany's hospitality industry

Over the past years, public smoking bans have been introduced in most European countries. Unlike elsewhere, in Germany such bans were introduced at state level at different points in time, which provides important intra-country regional variation that can be exploited to identify the effects of such bans on the hospitality industry. Using monthly data from a compulsory survey carried out by the German Federal Statistical Office, we study the short-run effects that these bans had on establishments’ sales. In contrast to the largely US-based literature, we find that smoke-free policies had a negative (yet moderate) effect on establishment sales. Closure rates of businesses in the hospitality industry, however, were not significantly affected by the introduction of state smoking bans.     

WHEN IS A GOOD TIME TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE?

I analyze changes in the target efficiency of the federal minimum wage over the past 25 years. Using static simulation methods I find that minimum wage target efficiency is currently close to its 25‐year peak—of the total monetary benefits generated by a 12% increase in the federal minimum wage, 16.8% would flow to workers in poverty. This exceeds the least target efficient year over this period by 4.7 percentage points and is only 0.6 percentage points below the peak. Furthermore, I find a very strong positive relationship between minimum wage target efficiency and the real federal minimum wage. The implication is that, from an efficiency standpoint, a good time to raise the minimum wage is when it is already high. This discovery raises the possibility that the minimum wage increases the employment of low‐skilled poor individuals relative to the employment of low‐skilled non‐poor individuals. Moreover, this discovery may bolster the rationale for an indexed minimum wage whereby it is prevented from falling to less efficient levels. (JEL J21, J31, J38)     

A WARM EMBRACE OR THE COLD SHOULDER? WAGE AND EMPLOYMENT OUTCOMES IN ETHNIC ENCLAVES

This paper examines how immigrant enclaves influence labor market outcomes. We examine the effect of variation in ethnic concentration across counties and county subdivisions on both immigrant earnings and employment using the non‐public use, 1‐in‐6 sample of the 2000 U.S. Census. We find that there is heterogeneity in enclave impacts by ethnic group and skill composition of the enclave. While some groups tend to suffer from lower wages and employment propensities when residing in areas with larger ethnic concentrations, others have higher wages and improved employment opportunities in enclaves. (JEL J61, J15, R23)     

THE IMPACT OF INSURANCE SUBSIDIES ON SELF‐EMPLOYMENT: DO STATE NON‐GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS MATTER?

This paper tests whether the effect of tax‐based subsidies for self‐employed health insurance on the level of self‐employment differs with the type of non‐group insurance regulatory regime at the state level. Using a panel of tax returns from 1999 to 2004, we estimate fixed effects instrumental variable regressions for the probability of being self‐employed, allowing the effect of the after‐tax price of self‐employed health insurance to differ by regulatory regime. Our results suggest that states with community rating and guaranteed issue regulations had significantly smaller increases in the fraction of taxpayers reporting some amount of self‐employment income as a result of a decrease in the after‐tax price of self‐employed health insurance. However, there is suggestive evidence that heavily regulated states experienced a larger increase in exclusive self‐employment, particularly among older taxpayers. (JEL J24, H24, I18)     

Impact of Italian smoking ban on business activity of restaurants,cafés and bars

We estimate the economic impact of the Italian smoking ban of 2005 on the catering sector using a quasi-experimental design. Our study indicates that the Italian smoking ban had a slight negative impact on sales of cafés and restaurants but had no effect on profits, earnings, or employment.     

Smoking Behavior of Older Adults: A Panel Data Analysis Using HRS

Using longitudinal data from Health and Retirement Surveys over 1992–2010, this paper analyzes decisions by older American to continue smoking and the number of cigarettes to consume using two-part hurdle models with correlated effects. We build on the existing literature by incorporating a myriad of factors including cigarette prices, health shocks and smoke-free laws in one econometric framework. Our estimates indicate that higher cigarette prices play an important role in both reducing participation and the intensity of consumption even for this adult population. In addition, health shocks, as measured by newly diagnosed diseases, raise the probability of quitting, highlighting the ‘curative’ aspects of cessation. However, we find very little effect of health on smoking intensity if an older adult does not quit after a health shock. Per capita cigarette consumption in the US declined by over 64% during the period. We show that increased cigarette prices and health shocks together contribute almost equally to explain nearly 86% of the decline, with little that can be attributed to smoking bans and anti-smoking sentiment.

     

The employment dynamics of less‐educated men in the United States: The role of self‐employment

Using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I construct a sample of working‐age males and examine the employment dynamics with a particular focus on the role of self‐employment for less‐educated men in the US. I find that men responding they had at some point been self‐employed tend to spend less time in non‐employment than other less‐educated men. The results from the dynamic multinomial logit model reveal positive aspects of self‐employment by indicating that less‐educated men who were self‐employed in the previous year were less likely to be non‐employed in the future as compared to those who were paid workers in the previous year.     

Employment,job turnover,and trade in producer services: UK firm‐level evidence

Abstract We provide the first firm‐level evidence of the impact of the trade in producer services (‘offshoring’) on the labour market. Using a new data set from the UK that measures trade in services at the firm level, we find no evidence that importing intermediate services is associated with job losses or greater worker turnover. Using regression to control for observable differences between firms that import service inputs and those that do not, we show that firms that start importing intermediate services experience faster employment growth than equivalent firms that do not. This seems likely to be the result of positive demand shocks, which cause a simultaneous increase in employment, output, and use of imported service inputs.     

Employment Status Persistence in the Japanese Labour Market

The growth of non‐standard employment has become a cause for concern for policy‐makers trying to boost output and keep unemployment low while also maintaining job security. This paper estimates a dynamic unobserved effects model using the Keio Household Panel Survey, an individual‐level panel data set, to investigate the effects on future employment opportunities of employment in Japan's non‐standard employment and regular employment sectors. I find strong evidence of persistence within the labour market, suggesting that past employment experience has a significant impact on future labour market outcomes.     

The negative effect of NCAA football bowl bans on university enrolment and applications

Universities provide consumption amenities to students in addition to their educational services. Collegiate sports programs have been characterized as one of these consumption amenities. Previous research has shown that athletic success has a positive impact on both the quantity and quality of students attending a university. Alternatively, we analyse if athletic malfeasance, as measured by NCAA postseason bans of football programs, negatively affects either the quantity or quality of student applications or enrolment. Our findings suggest that athletic malfeasance that results in a postseason football bowl ban lowers the quantity of applications, admittances and enrolment to a university. In addition, we find that universities respond to decreased application numbers by increasing their admission rates, while students who are admitted to the school enrol at the same rate as before the ban. Thus, the reduced enrolment is the result of a smaller applicant pool and not the result of a lower rate of enrolment. Lastly, we do not detect any reduction in student quality at the sanctioned university. Our results demonstrate that impropriety by an athletics program directly impacts a university’s non-athlete student enrolment by influencing the amenity mix provided by the university.     

Price of High‐quality Daycare and Female Employment

Using local variation between municipalities, I analyze the degree to which the price of high‐quality publicly subsidized childcare affects female employment following maternity leave. Importantly, prices are income dependent and thus likely endogenous, yet by exploiting information on minimum income compensation during non‐employment, I bypass this problem. The results show that the price negatively affects employment. A price increase of €1 per month decreases employment by 0.08%, which corresponds to a price elasticity of −0.17. These effects prevail during the first 12 months after childbirth. I also find that availability of childcare increases employment.     

PERCEIVED ARSENIC‐RELATED MORTALITY RISKS FOR SMOKERS AND NON‐SMOKERS

Prolonged ingestion of arsenic in drinking water can increase the risks of dying of lung and bladder cancer, particularly for smokers. In a survey of arsenic hotspots in the United States, we elicited individuals' subjective mortality risks related to the presence of arsenic in drinking water. Using this data, we address whether smokers perceive mortality risks from this source differently from non‐smokers. We find that those who have smoked at some point in their life have significantly higher perceived arsenic mortality risks than those who have never smoked, on average. We also find that the sample group of current smokers has higher average perceived arsenic mortality risks than those who have quit smoking. We model the decision to treat water for arsenic and find some evidence that current smokers are less likely to engage in this mitigating behavior than are ex‐smokers or non‐smokers even though their perceived risk is higher. We infer that smokers are either less risk averse or have a higher rate of time preference than non‐smokers and ex‐smokers. (JEL I0, D81, Q53)     

THE EFFECTS OF U.S.-CHINA TRADE ON EMPLOYMENT AND WAGES IN THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER REGION

This article investigates the impact of foreign competition from China on employment and wages in four U.S.-Mexico Border counties: Santa Cruz, Arizona; San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and Webb, Texas. Using disaggregated industry-level data between 1992 and 2006, we find that increased trade with China is associated with significantly lower county-industry employment and wages. In contrast, and as expected, increased imports from Mexico are positively related to increased employment and wages in U.S.-Mexico border counties. The results indicate that the U.S.-Mexico supply-chain relationship related to the maquiladora industry is significantly affected by Chinese competition. Implications for policy include an increased focus on federal programs that are intended to diversify the border economy . ( JEL F13, F43, F23)     

DO STATE EMPLOYMENT ELIGIBILITY VERIFICATION LAWS AFFECT JOB TURNOVER?

State laws requiring employers to verify workers' employment eligibility may reduce employment and earnings among unauthorized workers and make it difficult for them to switch jobs. Using data from the 2005–2014 Quarterly Workforce Indicators, we find evidence of a reduction in employment and job turnover among Hispanics as a whole in states that require all employers to verify employment eligibility. These adverse effects become larger as the share of likely unauthorized Hispanic workers falls. The drop in job turnover may be due to the laws trapping some Hispanic workers in their jobs. There is little effect on employment or job turnover among non‐Hispanic whites or blacks. There is no effect on average pay for all groups of workers. (JEL J15, J61, J68)