Maria Navarro Paniagua

Does Raising the School Leaving Age Reduce Teacher Effort? Evidence from a Policy Experiment

This paper examines the impact of an increase in the school leaving age on high school teachers’ absence behaviour. We estimate differ- ence in difference models of absenteeism using count data approaches. Employing data from the Spanish Labour Force Survey, our findings suggest that high school teachers reduced their effort due to the re- form that raised the age of compulsory education commencing in the academic year 1998-1999 in Spain. In particular, they take 15% more sickness absence in the posttreatment period. This result should be of interest to both policy makers and researchers who rely upon com- pulsory school law changes as a source of exogenous variation in edu- cational attainment.

Play Hard, Shirk Hard? The Effect of Bar Hours Regulation on Worker Absence

The regulation of alcohol availability has the potential to influence worker productivity. This paper uses legislative changes in bar opening hours to provide a potential quasi-natural experiment of the effect of alcohol availability on working effort, focusing on worker absenteeism. We examine two recent policy changes, one in England/Wales and one in Spain that increased and decreased opening hours respectively. We demonstrate a robust positive causal link between opening hours and absenteeism, although short-lived for Spain. The effect is long lasting for the UK where we provide evidence which suggests that increased alcohol consumption is a key mechanism.