The DENeB seminar series gives invited senior researchers the opportunity to present and discuss their current work and is open to everyone interested in ongoing research in development economics.
The Development Economics Network Berlin (DENeB) is a network for early career researchers in development economics. The network’s main purpose is to be a platform for knowledge exchange related to development economics. We achieve this through coordinating and promoting events, facilitating research collaborations, and research dissemination. While DENeB has its roots in Berlin, its activities are open to every interested researcher.
DENeB offers a wide range of activities, including the DENeB Seminar Series, an annual PhD workshop, and the Digital Development Dialogue (3D) seminar series. DENeB gratefully acknowledges funding provided by the following institutes during the last years: WZB, DIW Berlin; RWI, GIGA, PIK, ISDC.
Every junior researcher living or working in the Berlin area, and interested in and committed to development economics, can join the DENeB organizing committee. Current and past members include master’s students, pre-docs, PhDs, and junior post-docs. As a member of the organizing committee, you …
The DIW Berlin sponsors DENeB and hosts on a regular basis events organized by this network. We encourage in particular Ph.D Students and Post-Docs from DIW Berlin to join this event and to consider affiliating to DENeB.
Suanna Oh (Paris School of Economics) will present some of her current work with the title: Worker Absences and Demand for Flexible Contracts (joint work with Sampreet Goraya and Yogita Shamdasani).
Her research is at the intersection of development and behavioral economics. Suanna studies how social norms and behavioral frictions shape decision-making in the labor market.
Our speaker will be available for further discussion during in person/virtual office hours after the seminar and lunch before the seminar. If you are interested in participating in office hours and/or lunch, please sign up with your name and email address by Thursday here. In case all slots are booked, please sign up for office hours in the waiting list in the same file, indicating your name and email address. We will inform you by Monday morning if any slots open up.
Abstract:
Worker absenteeism and high turnover remain common problems in developing labor markets, even while involuntary unemployment is prevalent. In India, the absence rate stands at 8% of worker-days among permanent manufacturing employees, and a majority of unskilled workers continue to be employed in casual labor. We hypothesize that worker demand for flexibility affects labor supply decisions, both in terms of absence and selection into regular work arrangements. We test for the existence of a demand for flexible work among unskilled casual laborers in Odisha, India, and investigate the underlying motivations. We use an incentive-compatible choice experiment, which elicits preferences over pairs of contracts which vary in flexibility and the amount of attendance bonus. This allows us to empirically document workers’ willingness to pay for flexibility in terms of forgone wages. We also provide empirical evidence that social commitments are an important component of this demand. Then, as network-based social obligations could have differential impacts on social groups’ labor supply, we compare WTP for flexibility across caste groups, when the job is proximate (or not) to their village network. We combine the experimental findings with detailed survey data on the causes of absences, social network and practices, as well as risk and time preferences. This allows us to investigate: 1) how much workers value different dimensions of flexibility; 2) what drives workers’ need for flexibility; and 3) how the need for flexibility differs across caste networks.
The seminar on November 18 is sponsored by Vereinigung der Freunde e.V. (VdF).
Themen: Arbeit und Beschäftigung , Persönlichkeit , Wohlbefinden