Full Citation
Title: Three Essays in Macroeconomics
Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis
Publication Year: 2022
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Abstract: This dissertation is comprised of three divergent chapters in macroeconomics. In the first chapter, I document how many countries have employment protections that create two-tiered labor markets in which some jobs are more secure than others. I model the selection of younger workers into more precarious jobs, as documented empirically. I then estimate the effects of changes to employment protection legislation. By including human capital accumulation in employment and human capital loss during unemployment, the effects of reducing employment protections differ qualitatively from previous work, which ignores the human capital channel. Reducing employment protections increases the job-finding rate for young workers while reducing average income and employment. This result is driven by lower average human capital in the economy without employment protections. The second chapter discusses how wage-proportional staffing fees provide motivation for domestically outsourced workers to invest less in human capital under certain conditions. This may partially explain why, after controlling for observables, workers in these positions earn about 10% less. I document wage and wage growth differences among workers in the employment services industry. A simple model with firm-specific skill investment is then used to generate endogenous firm-specific skill and wage differences between outsourced and non-outsourced workers. Additionally, the model shows how the prevalence of outsourcing responds to changes in policy and aggregate conditions. The third chapter considers policies to promote the spread of technologies that drive the growth of whole eras and entire sectors. Recent years have seen interest in using regulatory power to internalize the benefits of one such technology: broadband internet. This chapter develops a framework to study how competition among providers affects firm and household technology adoption and subsequent macroeconomic outcomes. With a novel data set on broadband availability, speed, and prices, a model of broadband provider entry and quality choice relates prices to market structure. These pricing results then inform a model of household and firm decisions. An additional provider is estimated to be most effective in boosting firm profitability in markets with relatively educated populations with previously few to no providers. In terms of increasing household adoption, an additional low-speed provider is most effective where median household income is low. An additional high-speed provider is most effective in markets with no high-speed and few low-speed providers.
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Authors: Kaiser, Rosemary
Institution: University of Wisconsin- Madison
Department: Economics
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Publisher Location: Madison
Pages: 1-203
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure
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