Employment, training and the fight against unemployment

Eligibility for unemployment insurance and length of employment, Laura Khoury (Université Paris Dauphine-PSL)
While the literature on unemployment insurance (UI) has extensively documented the role of benefit level and duration, we still know little about the effect of UI eligibility conditions. These conditions often impose a minimum employment history to qualify for unemployment benefits. In this article, we exploit a French reform that relaxed this criterion after 2009 to assess the impact of unemployment insurance eligibility conditions on employment duration. Using administrative panel data tracking employment and unemployment episodes at the individual level, we show that the reform induced a jump in employment exits at the new threshold. Our results show that companies’ hiring decisions play a role in this separation reaction: they schedule fixed-term contracts so that their duration coincides with the new threshold. The reform also affects the employment duration of workers beyond those seeking eligibility for unemployment insurance, indicating the emergence of a new norm for contract duration.

The long-term impact of hiring incentives, Cyprien Batut (Institut Avant-garde)
This article studies the implementation of a hiring bonus aimed at small businesses in France during the Great Recession. Using French administrative data, it estimates its effect on employment growth and worker flows in eligible firms more than two years after the bonus was cancelled. It had a positive effect on employment growth due to a higher number of new hires. Employment growth did not fall back below pre-treatment trends after the end of the bonus, meaning that the jobs created were not transitory. The public cost per job created was 19% of its private cost in 2012.

Technological change and domestic outsourcing, Sara Signorelli (CREST)
We study the staggered spread of broadband internet in France in the 2000s and show that connected companies have increased their spending on subcontracting while reducing the diversity of occupations they employ in-house. At the same time, employment in non-core occupations has become increasingly concentrated in companies specializing in outsourcing services. Finally, we show that workers in high-skilled occupations have benefited from wage gains from outsourcing, while workers in low-skilled occupations have lost out. Overall, we show that the deployment of new technologies such as ADSL has stimulated domestic outsourcing, with important implications for labor market inequality.

Contribution of International Students to the U.S. Labor Market, Morgan Raux (Aix-Marseille School of Economics)
While U.S. universities attract millions of international students, we don’t know how many of them work in the U.S. after graduation. In this paper, we implement instrumental variable estimation, using quasi-random variation in tuition fees, and estimate that between 2003 and 2017, an additional international master’s (or bachelor’s) student attracted by a university increased the supply of skilled labor in the U.S. in the year of graduation by about 0.23 (0.08) employees. Only STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) students had a positive and significant effect on labor supply, particularly after the Optional Practical Training reform of 2008.

Pedagogical inspections and teacher productivity, Simon Briole (Université de Montpellier)
Secondary school teachers are assessed every five to six years by academic inspectors in France. These inspections include observation of a class session, a debriefing interview and the drafting of an official evaluation report. The results of these evaluations are used to determine teachers’ career advancement. We show that these repeated evaluations contribute to improving teachers’ productivity (measured by their pupils’ performance) at all stages of their careers. The impact on pupil performance is particularly strong in priority education schools, and remains significant several years after the inspection. Feedback from inspectors probably plays a key role in this effect.