LIDAM Events

Alexander Yarkin

(LISER and UC Davis)

will give a presentation on 

Does the "Melting Pot" Still Melt? Internet and Immigrants' Integration

Abstract

The global spread of the Internet and the rising salience of immigration are two of the biggest trends of the last decades. And yet, the effects of new digital technologies on immigrants - their social integration, spatial segregation, and economic outcomes - remain unknown. This paper addresses this gap: it shows how home-country Internet expansion affects immigrants’ socio-economic integration in the US. Using DID and event-study methods, I find that home-country Internet expansion lowers immigrants’ linguistic proficiency, naturalization rates, and economic integration. The effect is driven by younger and less educated immigrants. However, home-country Internet also decreases spatial and occupational segregation, and increases the subjective well-being of immigrants. The time use data suggests that the Internet changing immigrants’ networking is part of the story. I also show the role of return intentions and Facebook usage, among other factors. These findings align with a Roy model of migration, aug mented with a choice between host- vs. home-country ties. Overall, this paper shows how digital technologies transform the immigration, diversity, and social cohesion nexus.

Nikolaos Prodromidis

(Universität Duisenburg Essen)

will give a presentation on 

Working hours and workers’ health: Evidence from a national experiment in Sweden

Abstract

Despite the importance of regulating working hours for workers’ health and maintaining labour productivity, the literature lacks credible causal estimates for the short- and particularly long-run. We provide new evidence for the causal effect of reduced working hours on mortality using full population register data, exploiting a nation-wide policy in Sweden that reduced the weekly working hours from 55 to 48 hours for certain occupations only in 1920. Using difference-in-differences and event-study models, we show that lower working hours decreased mortality by around 15% over the first six years, with effects primarily driven by reductions in heart diseases and workplace accidents. Causal forest estimators indicate particularly strong effects for older workers. The reform had substantial and persistent long-term effects, increasing longevity of affected workers over the next 50 years by around one year. Our results imply that many lives could be saved worldwide by reducing long working hours for labour-intensive occupations.

Seminar co-organized by CORE.