IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/fistud/v46y2025i1p91-123.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Job competition in civil service public exams and sick leave behaviour

Author

Listed:
  • Grace Armijos Bravo
  • Judit Vall Castelló

Abstract

In several countries, a traditional public exam system is the way to secure a job in the civil service. In this setting, candidates have to take and pass exams that involve studying large quantities of material, and this takes up a large amount of time. Candidates who are working while preparing for public exams may find it difficult to find time for both tasks. Thus, they might experience increased stress/anxiety related to the high stakes nature of the civil service recruitment process. In this paper, we investigate the impact of new openings for civil service positions on sickness absences. Using a unique administrative data set on the universe of sickness absences and civil service positions offered in Spain from 2009 to 2015, we find a significant increase in health‐related absences several months before the exam date. In particular, this effect is stronger for individuals working in the educational sector as well as for calls offering a large number of positions. An important element is that our results are mostly driven by stress‐related absences. To corroborate the health‐related origins of our results, we use data on visits to general practitioners and specialists and show a significant deterioration in the health of public‐sector workers. Our results are important from a policy perspective as they highlight the existence of important negative consequences of the civil service recruitment process that have been previously overlooked.

Suggested Citation

  • Grace Armijos Bravo & Judit Vall Castelló, 2025. "Job competition in civil service public exams and sick leave behaviour," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(1), pages 91-123, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:fistud:v:46:y:2025:i:1:p:91-123
    DOI: 10.1111/1475-5890.12392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-5890.12392
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1475-5890.12392?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier Marie & Judit Vall Castelló, 2023. "Sick Leave Cuts and (Unhealthy) Returns to Work," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 41(4), pages 923-956.
    2. Clemens Fuest & Andreas Peichl & Sebastian Siegloch, 2018. "Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(2), pages 393-418, February.
    3. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    4. Mathilde Godard & Pierre Koning & Maarten Lindeboom, 2024. "Application and Award Responses to Stricter Screening in Disability Insurance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 59(5), pages 1353-1386.
    5. Marcella Alsan & Marianne Wanamaker, 2018. "Tuskegee and the Health of Black Men," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(1), pages 407-455.
    6. Bratberg, Espen & Monstad, Karin, 2015. "Worried sick? Worker responses to a financial shock," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 111-120.
    7. Roth, Jonathan & Sant’Anna, Pedro H.C. & Bilinski, Alyssa & Poe, John, 2023. "What’s trending in difference-in-differences? A synthesis of the recent econometrics literature," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2218-2244.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sónia Cabral & Joana Garcia & Raquel Miranda & Susana Peralta & João Pereira dos Santos, 2024. "Treasure Islands, Real Jobs? Workers and Anti-Avoidance Policies in a Tax Paradise," Working Papers w202416, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    2. Jerg Gutmann & Matthias Neuenkirch & Florian Neumeier, 2024. "Do China and Russia undermine Western sanctions? Evidence from DiD and event study estimation," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 132-160, February.
    3. Ines Helm & Jan Stuhler, 2024. "The Dynamic Response of Municipal Budgets to Revenue Shocks," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 484-527, October.
    4. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    5. Elisa Casi & Mohammed Mardan & Rohit Reddy Muddasani, 2022. "So close and yet so far: the ability of mandatory disclosure rules to crack down on offshore tax evasion," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-116, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Cl'ement de Chaisemartin & Xavier D'Haultf{oe}uille, 2020. "Difference-in-Differences Estimators of Intertemporal Treatment Effects," Papers 2007.04267, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    7. Löffler, Max & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2015. "Property Taxation, Local Labor Markets and Rental Housing," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112967, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Montrone, Lorenzo & Steckel, Jan Christoph & Kalkuhl, Matthias, 2022. "The type of power capacity matters for economic development – Evidence from a global panel," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. Kurt Schmidheiny & Sebastian Siegloch, 2023. "On event studies and distributed‐lags in two‐way fixed effects models: Identification, equivalence, and generalization," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(5), pages 695-713, August.
    10. Geschwind, Stephan & Roesel, Felix, 2022. "Taxation under direct democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 536-554.
    11. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Ingo E. Isphording & Thu-Van Nguyen & Felix Poege & Sebastian Siegloch, 2025. "Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 432-463, February.
    12. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2019. "Police reorganization and crime: Evidence from police station closures," Working Papers 07/2019, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.
    13. Suhonen, Tuomo & Karhunen, Hannu, 2017. "The intergenerational effects of parental higher education: Evidence from changes in university accessibility," Working Papers 100, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    14. Gabriel Loumeau, 2020. "Metropolitan Structures," KOF Working papers 20-473, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    15. Kathrine von Graevenitz & Elisa Rottner, 2024. "Climate Policies and Electricity Prices: To Abate or to Generate?," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2024_504, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    16. Alex Armand & Paul Atwell & Joseph F. Gomes & Yannik Schenk, 2023. "It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s Superman! Using Mass Media to fight Intolerance," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2023012, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    17. Annika Havlik & Friedrich Heinemann & Justus Nover, 2021. "Election Cycles in European Public Procurement," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 77(4), pages 376-407.
    18. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2024. "Sick leave and medical leave in the United States: A categorization and recent trends," ZEW Discussion Papers 24-011, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Dolls, Mathias & Fuest, Clemens & Krolage, Carla & Neumeier, Florian, 2025. "Who bears the burden of real estate transfer taxes? Evidence from the German housing market," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    20. Suhonen, Tuomo & Karhunen, Hannu, 2019. "The intergenerational effects of parental higher education: Evidence from changes in university accessibility," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 195-217.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:fistud:v:46:y:2025:i:1:p:91-123. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1475-5890 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.