Essays in Behavioural Labour Economics
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2023-01-24
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Abstract
This thesis consists of three thematically related chapters on behavioral labor economics. The two central recurring themes of this thesis is one, investigations into how non-pecuniary preference components (particularly non-pecuniary factors from self-employment and anticipated bias or discrimination in job applications) affect behaviours, and two, how social interaction and networking considerations affect economic outcomes. Focusing on self-employment, the first two research projects in this thesis provides policy recommendations advocating for promotion of professional networking activities and informational sharing, but with a specific attention to the less productive and successful individuals, avoiding creating further inequalities in economic outcomes. The results are accompanied with appropriately designed and quantified indicators as benefit/cost factors. This is particularly important, since this thesis also provides empirical evidences that self-employed individuals face with significant cost factors early in their spells of self-employment, when they are economically weaker. Chapter 4 presents a research project on the topic of anticipated discrimination. Individuals may pursue an occupation or a university major based on anticipation of how they are being perceived by employers nd decision makers. Social and gender identities and stereotypes related to them may have an impact on these anticipations. I argue that the two channels of taste-based and statistical group biases have different implications on entry decision of applicants to apply for job opportunities, hence producing different welfare effects. This research provides the ability to separately identify (i) anticipated statistical group bias: manager’s belief on agent’s ability, and (ii) anticipated taste-based group bias: manager’s preference to work and identify with an agent as a high ability worker at a specific task.
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Atabati, O. (2023). Essays in behavioural labour economics (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.