Matteo Picchio

Are Short-Lived Jobs Stepping Stones to Long-Lasting Jobs?

This article assesses whether short-lived jobs (lasting one quarter or less and involuntarily ending in unemployment) are stepping stones to long-lasting jobs (enduring 1 year or more) for Belgian long-term unemployed school-leavers. We proceed in two steps. First, we estimate labour market trajectories in a multi-spell duration model that incorporates lagged duration and lagged occurrence dependence. Second, in a simulation we find that (fe)male school-leavers accepting a short-lived job are, within 2 years, 13.4 (9.5) percentage points more likely to find a long-lasting job than in the counterfactual in which they reject short-lived jobs.

Labor Supply Effects of Winning a Lottery

This paper investigates how winning a substantial lottery prize affects labor supply. Analyzing data from Dutch State Lottery winners, we find that earnings are affected but not employment. Lottery prize winners reduce their hours of work but they are not very likely to withdraw from the labor force. We also find that the effects of lottery prizes last for several years and materialize predominantly among young single individuals without children.