Essays on Labor Economics

PhD Candidate Yin Zhang of the School of Economics will be defending her dissertation proposal titled, “Essays on Labor Economics” on Friday, February 7, 2025.

Many thanks to Yin’s dissertation committee:

• Committee Chair – Ricardo Serrano-Padial, Associate Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Sebastien Bradley, Associate Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Ohyun Kwon, Assistant Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member Tristan Potter, Associate Professor, Drexel University
• Committee Member: Mark Stehr, Professor, Drexel University

Abstract:

This dissertation includes three chapters on labor economics.

The first chapter investigates the effects of paid family leave (PFL) policies, focusing on the demand side of the labor market. I examine whether and to what extent PFL policies influence employers’ hiring behaviors with a dataset containing the near-universe of online job postings. I use a novel stacked Difference-in-Difference method to address the staggered treatment setting.

The second chapter (joint with Ricardo Serrano-Padial) answers the question of whether changing the composition of the menu of labor contracts will affect male and female contract choices. To measure contract choice differences, we design a two-stage experiment with real-effort tasks that vary in pay and duration. We elicit reservation wages from participants as a function of the number of appointments in the first stage and allow participants to choose their most preferred contracts from various menus in the second.

The third chapter (joint with Kamyar Kamyar and Tristan Potter) analyzes the effect of recent state- and city-level salary history inquiry bans with an online job ad dataset. We are interested in how such bans affect employers’ decisions in compensation offered, the number of job ads available, and more.