Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Simone Moriconi
Author-X-Name-First: Simone
Author-X-Name-Last: Moriconi
Author-Email: simone.moriconi@unicatt.it
Author-Workplace-Name: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Author-Workplace-Name: Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Author-Name: Giovanni Peri
Author-X-Name-First: Giovanni
Author-X-Name-Last: Peri


Title: Country-Specific Preferences and Employment Rates in Europe
Abstract:European countries exhibit significant differences in employment rates of adult
males. Differences in labor-leisure preferences, partly determined by cultural values
that vary across countries, can be responsible for part of these differences. However,
differences in labor market institutions, productivity, and skills of the labor force are
also crucial factors and likely correlated with preferences. In this paper we use variation
among first- and second-generation cross-country European migrants to isolate
the effect of culturally transmitted labor-leisure preferences on individual employment
rates. If migrants maintain some of their country of origin labor-leisure preferences
as they move to different labor market conditions, we can separate the impact
of preferences from the effect of other factors. We find country-specific labor-leisure
preferences explain about 24per cent of the top-bottom variation in employment rates across
European countries.
Length: 49
Creation-Date: 2015-09
File-URL: http://dipartimenti.unicatt.it/economia-finanza-def029.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
File-Function: First version, 2015
Number: def029
Classification-JEL: J22, J61, Z10. 
Keywords: Labor-Leisure Preferences, Cultural Transmission, Employment, Europe, Migrants.
Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie1:def029