4th CESifo Monthly Webinar on Labor Economics

The CESifo Webinars on Labor Economics were launched after the very first Area Conference of the Labor Economics Area of the CESifo Research Network was canceled due to COVID-19. In order to build and connect a network of researchers in labor economics on both sides of the Atlantic, the webinars will run on a monthly basis with different speakers for each event. 

Lectures by Petra Persson (Stanford University) and Paolo Pinotti (Bocconi University)

Petra Persson will give a talk on the topic of Family Spillover Effects of Marginal Diagnosis: The Case of ADHD (co-authors: Maya Rossin-Slater and Xinyao Qui)

For hereditary diseases, a diagnosis of one individual contains information about the risk of the condition for family members. This motivates widespread use of information about relatives' health conditions in health care. At the same time, an emerging literature documents that for marginally diagnosed patients, treatment often has minimal consequences. This paper shows that reliance on information about relatives' health can perpetuate marginal diagnoses across family trees, raising caseloads and health care costs without improving patient wellbeing.  In the context of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common mental health condition among children worldwide, we document substantial intra-family diagnosis spillovers from marginally diagnosed children onto their younger siblings and cousins.  Further, we show that the recipients of these spillover diagnoses have no better - and if anything, worse - human capital and economic outcomes in adulthood. Informed by our empirical analysis, we propose that these spillovers may be mitigated by altering the physician protocol for how to use relatives' health history.  

Paolo Pinotti will talk on The Effect of Job Loss and Unemployment Insurance on Crime in Brazil
(co-authors: Diogo Britto and Breno Sampaio)

We investigate the effect of job loss and unemployment benefits on crime, exploiting unique individual-level data on the universe of workers and criminal cases in Brazil over the 2009 - 2017 period.  We find that the probability of criminal prosecution increases on average by 23% for workers displaced upon mass layoffs, and by slightly less for their cohabiting sons. Using causal forests, we show that the effect is driven entirely by young and low tenure workers, who are more likely to be liquidity constrained. Regression discontinuity estimates indicate that unemployment benefit eligibility completely offsets potential crime increases upon job loss, especially for liquidity-constrained individuals, although this effect completely vanishes upon benefit expiration. Our findings point at liquidity constraints and pyschological stress as main drivers of criminal behavior upon job loss, while substitution between time on the job and leisure does not seem to play and important role.  

General Information on the Webinar

The webinar will begin at 6pm (CET) on Thursday, 14 January 2021. Each speaker will give a 35 minute presentation and participants will then have the opportunity to pose questions.  Questions will also be encouraged during the lectures.