Federica Maria Origo

Public Sector Pay and Regional Competitiveness: A First Look at Regional Public-Private Wage Differentials in Italy

In this paper we investigate regional public–private wage differentials in Italy. Following the recent wave of reforms that significantly changed wage setting and employment relations in both sectors—increasing decentralization in collective bargaining and enforcing a ‘privatization’ of public sector employment contracts—we present new estimates of the public–private wage gap by geographical location. We report both ‘standardized’ public–private wage differentials and estimates obtained using geographically weighted regression methods. We show that significant differences exist in public–private wage differentials across Italian regions, and that the latter can be partly explained by local labour market conditions affecting the private sector and only marginally the public sector. Differences in public–private wage differentials across regions are expected to determine several imbalances in terms of ‘wait’ unemployment and recruitment problems in the different areas.

Dreaming of a permanent job: the transitions of temporary workers in Italy and Spain

Aim of this paper is to shed further light on the transitions of temporary workers towards stable employment in Italy and Spain. The analysis is focused on the transitions of involuntary temporary workers (i.e., those choosing to work on a fixed-term basis only because they could not find any permanent job), comparing their performance with both voluntary temporary workers and the unemployed. The share of involuntary temporary employment is in fact particularly relevant both in Italy and Spain (respectively, 41% and 70% of total temporary workers aged 15-64, against the EU average around 34% in 2002), despite the different incidence of overall temporary work. The institutional similarity between Italy and Spain (tight labour market regulation, extended family networks with low female participation rates, relevant internal regional differences), accompanied by quite different policies for (and subsequent use of) temporary employment, represent an interesting ground to study the transitions of temporary workers towards more stable jobs. The empirical analysis, based on longitudinal micro-data from the Italian and the Spanish Labour Force Survey, actually reveals two different models. Italian unemployed are in fact less likely to find a job than the Spanish unemployed, but the first are more likely to get a stable job than a temporary one. Furthermore, temporary employees in Italy are characterized by a significant probability to get a stable job and a relatively low probability to fall into unemployment. On the contrary in Spain the unemployed are more likely to find temporary jobs rather than remaining in their initial state, but once there they seem to be stuck. Econometric estimates point out that temporary workers in both countries are actually more likely to get a stable job than the unemployed, while no significant differences seem to emerge between involuntary and other temporary employees. Nonetheless, the marginal effect of temporary work experience (holding other factors constant) is much higher in Italy than in Spain (0.25 vs 0.03). Furthermore, the positive effect of temporary work experience may be lower if endogeneity of the initial condition is taken into account, suggesting that temporary workers are from the beginning “stronger” than the unemployed and for this reason, rather than for the temporary work experience itself, they are more likely to get a permanent job.

The effect of comprehensive smoking bans in European workplaces

Abstract Many European countries have recently implemented comprehensive smoking bans to reduce exposure to tobacco smoke in public places and all indoor workplaces. We use a difference-in-differences approach and comparable microdata for a number of European countries to evaluate the impact of national comprehensive smoking bans on workers’ perceived health. Results show that the introduction of comprehensive smoking bans has a significant effect on the probability of both exposure to smoke and work-related respiratory problems. We also highlight unintended effects in terms of mental distress. The impact across countries is shown to vary with the degree of strictness of the bans.

Flexicurity and Workers’ Well-Being in Europe: Is Temporary Employment Always Bad?

In the last decades, many EU countries have registered an increasing share of temporary employment. The incidence of temporary employment in the EU has a marked age profile, and it is characterised by relevant differences by gender and education, with temporary workers more concentrated among the young, women and low-skilled workers. This increase in flexibility could produce a negative effect on workers’ perceived security and, as a result, on job satisfaction. However, the “flexicurity” approach is based on the idea that flexibility and security are not conflicting when proper labour market policies are in place. Using micro-data from the Eurobarometer survey, in this chapter, we estimate the effect of a micro-level measure of flexicurity on overall job satisfaction by gender, age and education. Moreover, we study whether this effect changes when considering workers’ satisfaction with different aspects of the job more closely related to job security. Our results show that for all workers’ types, flexible work arrangements do not negatively affect job satisfaction if the worker perceives that he/she is not at risk of losing his/her job: temporary workers are not less satisfied than permanent ones when they feel secure. On the other hand, for some groups of workers, specifically males, older and low-educated workers, the feeling of insecurity has a negative effect on job satisfaction even when it is not combined with contractual flexibility. JEL Code: J28, J81

Where Women Make the Difference. The Effects of Corporate Board Gender Quotas on Firms' Performance across Europe

We study the effect of corporate board gender quotas on firm performance in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain. The empirical analysis is based on accounting panel data from Bureau Van Dijk’s Amadeus. Our identification strategy relies on both double and triple difference estimators with ex-ante matching. We find that gender quotas had either a negative or an insignificant effect on firm performance in the countries considered with the exception of Italy, where we find a positive impact on productivity. We then focus on Italy and offer possible explanations for the positive effect of gender quotas using detailed information on board members’ characteristics.

Temporary Help Workers in Italy. Where Do They Come From and Where Do They Go

This paper aims at empirically studying the probability of exiting temporary help work in Italy by modelling both the transition to different labour market states and the effect of state dependence by using an ad hoc survey conducted on a representative sample of around 2,300 temporary help workers in Italy. Confirming previous empirical findings, this study suggests in general that, in Italy, temporary help work is not per se a ‘trap’. However, its effect as a ‘stepping-stone’ towards stable employment depends strictly not only on workers’ characteristics but also on those of firms and jobs. In particular, too many short temporary help work experiences and too many employing firms have a negative impact on transitions to stable jobs. These contracts are also used as screening devices and transition to permanent employment is more likely in low unemployment regions, while transitions (back) to either unemployment or education are more likely in high unemployment ones. The probability of moving from temporary help work to a stable job is higher for workers with previous stable work experiences, mainly in manual jobs in manufacturing. The probability of moving from temporary jobs to unemployment is higher for women and for individuals with low levels of education. Women are also more likely to remain in temporary help employment than to move to a stable job.