Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
Trade Union Institute for Economic Research

No 167: Incentives and Selection in Cyclical Absenteeism

Mahmood Arai and Peter Skogman Thoursie
Additional contact information
Mahmood Arai: Trade Union Institute for Economic Research, Postal: FIEF, Wallingatan 38, SE-111 24 Stockholm, Sweden
Peter Skogman Thoursie: Trade Union Institute for Economic Research, Postal: FIEF, Wallingatan 38, SE-111 24 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Procyclical absenteeism might be due to higher sick-rates of marginal workers, or a consequence of procyclical sick-report incentives. These hypotheses predict opposite signs for the correlation between sick-rates and shares of temporary contracts. This is the case, when the share of temporary contracts is a proxy for the share of marginal workers, and an indicator of stronger incentives for job presence of temporary employees who have generally weaker job security than those on permanent contracts. Using industry-region panel data, we find a stable negative correlation between sick-rates and shares of temporary contracts implying that procyclical sick-rate is compatible with the idea that sick-report incentives are procyclical.

Keywords: Absenteeism; Temporary Employment

JEL-codes: J22

16 pages, March 5, 2001

Full text files

WP167.pdf PDF-file (146kB) 

Download statistics

Fortchoming as
Mahmood Arai and Peter Skogman Thoursie, 'Incentives and Selection in Cyclical Absenteeism', Labour Economics

Questions (including download problems) about the papers in this series should be directed to Sune Karlsson ()
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ().

RePEc:hhs:fiefwp:0167This page generated on 2024-09-13 22:14:33.