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PhD thesis defense

Natnael Simachew Nigatu defends his PhD thesis at the Department of Economics

PhD thesis defense — Natnael Simachew Nigatu defends his PhD thesis "Essays on Globalization and Labor Markets. Gender Gap, Re-training, and Immigrant Integration".

Info

Date & Time:

Place:
University of Copenhagen, Centre for Health and Society, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K, building 26, Det Store Seminarrum (the big seminarroom, room 26.2.21), 2nd floor.

Hosted by:
Department of Economics

Cost:
Free

Candidate
Natnael Simachew Nigatu

Time and venue
Wednesday 21 February 2018 at 14.00. University of Copenhagen, Centre for Health and Society, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1353 Copenhagen K, building 26, Det Store Seminarrum (the big seminarroom, room 26.2.21), 2nd floor.

Title
Essays on Globalization and Labor Markets. Gender Gap, Re-training, and Immigrant Integration“. Prior to the defence, copies of the dissertation are available at the Information Desk at the Department of Economics, room 26.0.20.

  • Assessment committee 
    Professor Mette Ejrnæs, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen (chair)
  • Professor Beata Javorcik, University of Oxford, UK
  • Associate Professor Georg Schaur, University of Tennessee, USA

Abstract
The thesis consists of three self-contained chapters on topics related with globalization and labor markets based on Danish matched worker-firm data. Chapter 1 investigates the effect of offshoring on the gender wage gap and the gender composition within manufacturing firms. By exploiting exogenous variation in firm level offshoring, I find that offshoring increases the share of female workers within firms. In addition, offshoring increases the gender wage gap . I provide evidences that suggest the share of female workers within offshoring firms increases due to the decline in manual content of tasks within such firms. On the other hand, the gender wage gap increases due to firms’ discriminatory practices following the productivity gain from offshoring. Chapter 2 examines if providing re-training programs is more beneficial to workers displaced from offshoring firms than for others. Recent empirical studies find that workers displaced from offshoring firms experience large earning losses and longer unemployment spells due to the mismatch between their skills and the current demand of the economy. I find that the earnings gap between displaced workers from offshoring and non-offshoring firms is lower among trained workers compared to those who are not trained, which implies the training programs are more beneficial to mitigate earning losses of workers displaced from offshoring firms. Chapter 3 studies the effect of time varying economic shocks on immigrants’ integration behavior which is measured by their participation in Danish language training programs. We find that when the currency of an immigrant’s home country depreciates, she reduces her language training participation and instead increases her working hours as well as probability of participating in additional part-time jobs. Similarly, an immigrant who works in a firm which experience an exogenous export shock  reduces her training participation. The result suggest immigrants could have high discount rate or they are uncertain about their future stay.       Det vil være muligt før forsvaret at rekvirere en kopi af afhandlingen ved henvendelse til Informationen (26.0.20), Økonomisk Institut.

The thesis consists of three self-constrained chapters on topics related with globalization and labor markets based on Danish matched worker-firm data. Chapter 1 investigates the effect of offshoring on the gender wage gap and the gender composition within manufacturing firms. By exploiting exogenous variation in firm level offshoring, I find that offshoring increases the share of female workers within firms. In addition, offshoring increases the gender wage gap . I provide evidences that suggest the share of female workers within offshoring firms increased due to the decline in manual content of tasks within such firms. On the other hand, the gender wag gap is raising due to firms’ discriminatory practices following the productivity gain from offshoring. Chapter 2 examines if providing re-training programs is more beneficial to workers displaced from offshoring firms than for others. Recent empirical studies find that workers displaced from offshoring firms experience large earning losses and longer unemployment spells due to the mismatch between their skills and the current demand of the economy. I find that the earnings gap between displaced workers from offshoring and non-offshoring firms is lower among trained workers compared to those who are not trained, which implies the training programs are more beneficial to mitigate earning losses of workers displaced from offshoring firms. Chapter 3 studies the effect of time varying economic shocks on immigrants’ integration behavior which is measured by their participation in Danish language training programs. We find that when the currency of an immigrant’s home country depreciates, she reduces her training participation and instead increases her working hours and probability of participation in additional part-time jobs. Similarly, an immigrant who works in a firm which experience and exogenous export shock, reduces her training participation. The result suggest immigrants could have high discount rate or they are uncertain about their future stay.

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