Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025What's remarkable is that these gaps are there even when both workers are displaced from the same firm but then re-hired into the same firm! In other words, the immigrant is paid far less than his co-worker at the same company even when they were paid the same before the layoff! 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025By the 4th year after the layoff, gaps even in the most concentrated labor markets close, implying the discrimination is based on beliefs about the average productivity differences between immigrants & natives. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025Competition STRONGLY reduces discrimination among employers, but does not quite completely eliminate it (call it win for Becker). Next we measure if this is labor market power or product market power that matters. Looks like it's loading entirely on labor market power. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025We find fairly small discriminatory gaps between non-Western immigrants & other workers in competitive markets, but large gaps in concentrated (less-competitive) markets. At HHI=0.25 (~4 equally sized employers for that occupation) the immigrants earn 26% less! 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025Suddenly, their firm closes, & they are forced to look for a new job. Prior to the firm closing, the market valued their skills EXACTLY the same. Immigrant-native gaps after their search can tell us about discrimination--especially the difference between the two pairs. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025Imagine you have four workers-2 immigrants & 2 natives working at the same firm doing the same job for the same pay. One pair (1 immigrant & 1 native) work in a city where there are lots of employers that will hire for their occupation. For the other, there are fewer employers. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025Our context is Norway--long considered one of the most egalitarian societies in the world--and discrimination against immigrants from outside of 'the West.' If we can find discrimination there, it's likely to be in other places. So how do we investigate this? 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 16/04/2025🚨🚨 Does labor market discrimination drive economic gaps? Can market competition eliminate discrimination like economic theory suggests? What *kind* of discrimination are we talking about. In a new paper, Alex Willen & I explore the question. #Econsky 1162
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025So what happened in Norway? We are not able to detect any measurable effect of the incoming commuters on mortality events, physician retention, or other metrics in Norway. There appears to have been no offsetting gain in Norway. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025The effects hit hardest in areas with lower physician density before the commuting started. So the out-commuting of doctors increased inequality across classes and across places within Sweden. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025These illnesses are more likely to require emergency care. Guess which physicians were most likely to commute? High-skilled, young, generalists--those most likely to staff emergency departments. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025The effects are driven by lower-income people who are most dependent on the public healthcare system. The same is true for education, but the gradient is less steep. The effects are mostly drive by respiratory, infection, & circulatory illnesses. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025In a dose-response diff-in-diff, areas with lower baseline physician wages lost more doctors to commuting and had significant increases in their mortality rates, particularly people age 65+. 1 log point lower baseline earnings increased 65+ mortality by 3 per 1,000. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025Places with lower physician earnings in 2003 saw the biggest increases in this 'out-commuting' of physicians. These municipalities lost a substantial amount of human capital--brain drain--but not due to permanent migration. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025Doctors were unique though. While nearly everyone else who started commuting to Norway lived near the border, doctors started doing more frequent and longer short stints in Norway--weekends, full weeks, or even months on end--coming from all over Sweden. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025In 2004, wages in Norway started surging due to oil prices & major growth in labor demand. This made it highly attractive for Swedes to work in Norway. Suddenly, you could make nearly double your Swedish wage, and people responded! www.iza.org/publications... 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/04/2025🚨🚨 What happens when you take a bunch of human capital out of a local economy? Is brain drain a real thing? And what are the consequences? In a new paper, we shed light on this in the context of highly developed economies: Sweden and Norway. #Econsky 1146
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 23/11/2024If you're at #SEA2024 come to our session! It's going to be awesome. I'll presenting new evidence of oabory market discrimination and how competition strongly reduces it. 141
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023On the Norwegian side, (especially high HHI) firms take advantage of cheaper Swedish labor & possibly reduce hiring of domestic workers. Value added per domestic worker & per NOK goes up. Higher-income Norwegians loss a skill monopoly, leading to wage compression from the top. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023As a result, the municipalities lose firms, workers, and population, & inequality increases because the commuters disproportionately come from the upper half of the income distribution. Losing firms this way destabilizes the community. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023Swedish firms lose (better) workers: avg productivity goes down, but pay is same—so workers are paid more relative to their value added & gap between their VA & avg earnings goes down. Most of the action is in high concentration firms! 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023We take advantage of this in a difference-in-differences design to compare border municipalities to towns in the next county over on both sides of the border in the populated southern regions. We test firm-level & municipality-level outcomes. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023These higher wage opportunities put additional pressure on firms on the Swedish side to compete, but essentially only for firms located in towns near the border, where these commuters disproportionately originated. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023Beginning in 2005, Norway’s economic growth took off relative to the rest of the OECD, leading to a big wedge in earnings between Norway & neighboring Sweden. This led a lot of Swedes to start commuting to Norway (daily or seasonally) to take advantage. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 14/11/2023The world is becoming more connected, as are our labor markets—increasing labor market competition. What are the consequences for firms & communities? We look at the border of Sweden & Norway using cool admin data from both sides to find out! samueldodini.com/files/Dodini... #EconSky 📉📈 1136
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023We put this all together in a tidy partial equilibrium model where we can explain the results via this reallocation of pricing power and/or improvements in productivity/product quality. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023What happens when we zoom out to the whole private sector, which should be more competitive in both labor & products? We find reductions in employment & no price effects, & retaining only higher-productivity workers, consistent with typical tradeoffs in a competitive market. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023So how can firms become more profitable when unionization goes up? Let's look across firm size! The bigger firms are where we see the profits go up. Smaller firms scale BACK their production & larger firms take a bigger share of the product market, increasing their price power! 101
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023For exporters, their prices increase by about the same amount as the markup we measure (good news!), & firms shift their exports to more expensive products. They likely are able to raise domestic prices by more than exported prices because export shares of their revenues go down. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023We use production functions to estimate price markups & wage markdowns. The firms are marking up prices by essentially the entirety of the labor cost increase despite lowering wage markdowns. Their profits don't change (or even go up). 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023While earnings go up by 1% for each percentage point increase in union density, the avg firm responds by *increasing* employment, consistent with significant monopsony power. They *also* scale up capital, materials, total sales, & value added per worker! 101
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023Firms more vs less exposed to the tax deductions were trending very closely in earnings, productivity, & profits prior to 2002 and after 2010 when the deductions were essentially static. Low-exposure firms are a good counterfactual for high-exposure firms. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/20232) From 2002-2010, Norway quadrupled the max tax deduction workers could take against their union dues. This gives us a clean natural experiment to see how firms respond when their workers are induced to unionize more base on if their dues were above vs below that cap. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 08/11/2023I am super excited to share my JMP coauthored with the awesome @annastansbury.bsky.social & Alex Willen: How Do Firms Respond to Unions? We do a deep dive into how firms respond when unionization increases in that firm. #EconSky 📉📈 samueldodini.com/files/Dodini... 36221
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 02/11/2023Overall, the results point to very similar dynamics. The only main difference is we find more responses on consumer finance balances & past due loans. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 02/11/2023People over 50 are never subject to work requirements. So we also use a difference-in-discontinuities design where we compare changes at the age 50 cutoff when the requirements kicked in for 18-49-year-olds only. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 02/11/2023There is an immediate uptick when the requirements start in inquiries & a gradual increase in past due cards by 1 ppt (4%) by the end of the 2nd year. Card balances increase faster in states with asset limits for SNAP benefits. Credit scores also decline. 111
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 02/11/2023Work requirements for “Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents” lead to significant increases in credit-seeking behavior (inquiries, new accounts) & sizable increases in card debt, consumer finance loans, & past due card debt. 111
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 02/11/2023Do work requirements for social programs lead to self-sufficiency for low-income people? One way to check is to look at the financial lives of people that might be affected by work requirements. Come with me as we explore, will you? 111
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023On net, the subsidies significantly raised creditworthiness for people from about 500 to 700 in the credit score distribution—opening up more access to credit and possibly reducing the cost of the credit they have. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023What about the *amounts* of debt people have? The subsidies significantly lowered extreme debt levels on mortgages, third-party collections, credit cards, and auto debts. The insurance value of coverage is really apparent at the high end. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023Surprisingly, there was no effect on the likelihood that people had debt sent to collections (more on this). Severe auto delinquency fell significantly, which is extremely important because access to a vehicle is essential for economic flexibility in most of the US. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023In a difference-in-differences setup, what do I find? The ACA subsidies had no significant effect on mortgage delinquency or foreclosures but significantly impacted bankruptcy risk. For every $100 per capita spent, bankruptcy risk fell by 8%. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023To adjust for these, I use a LASSO model to select characteristics of the ZIP codes that predict them being in the top quartile of subsidy recipiency after 2014 (compared to the bottom quartile), then use a propensity score reweighting procedure to adjust for these different trends. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023One challenge to measuring the effects is that areas with higher recipiency were hit harder by the Great Recession in 2009-2010 & were recovering faster prior to the 2014 rollout of the subsidies (a violation of parallel trends). Especially notable in foreclosures. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023I use the NY Fed/Equifax Consumer Credit Panel to measure the financial outcomes of possible recipients aggregated to ZIP codes & IRS data on tax credits after 2013 & estimated CSR payments to calculate how much those residents received in subsidies. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 24/10/2023The Affordable Care Act capped individual & family contributions to health insurance depending on the income of the family & their family size. The govt made up the difference to the insurer through “Premium Tax Credits” & paid to lower their deductibles via “Cost Sharing Reduction” subsidies. 110
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 11/10/2023The net effect of these effects suggests that inequality might be going up. What would inequality within occupations be if licensing were abolished? Inequality would fall by nearly 7%. For every extra $1 earned via the own-occupation licensing premium, approx. $2.23 is lost via spillover effects. 100
Sam Dodini @microsamonomics.bsky.social · 11/10/2023What about employment? Maybe people are pushed into the unlicensed occupations, increasing employment? Surprisingly, no! The opposite is true. When other occupations in your skill cluster are licensed, employment in your occupation actually decreases—by about 11% for a SD increase in exposure. 100