IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ubs/wpaper/1008.html

Why does the private sector react like the public to law 133? A microeconometric analysis of sickness absence in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandra Del Boca
  • Maria Laura Parisi

Abstract

The problem of absenteeism has taken the centre of the stage of public attention when Renato Brunetta, the Public Employment Secretary, launched a reform of the public sector which started with a law on absenteeism. After the law was passed, the first evidence collected showed an average drop of 47% in sickness absence. This result was received with scepticism, but now we have enough evidence and research to draw some firm conclusions. This paper plans to investigate the effects of the Law 133/2008 and the shocks occurred after the changes in the law itself. We will study how employees characteristics in the private and public sector are related to absentee behaviour. The relationship between individual characteristics, such as wage, gender, age, tenure, education and the labor-leisure decision made by workers will be estimated in a micro-data model. The data come from a panel of individuals working in a large private company, operating all over Italy in the security sector, and one public sector institution,(AE) the tax collection Agency. The results indicate a remarkable direct and indirect reaction to the law in the public and also private sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandra Del Boca & Maria Laura Parisi, 2010. "Why does the private sector react like the public to law 133? A microeconometric analysis of sickness absence in Italy," Working Papers 1008, University of Brescia, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ubs:wpaper:1008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unibs.it/on-line/dse/Home/Inevidenza/PaperdelDipartimento/documento12983.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrea Ichino & Giovanni Maggi, 2000. "Work Environment and Individual Background: Explaining Regional Shirking Differentials in a Large Italian Firm," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 1057-1090.
    2. Richard Blundell & Monica Costa Dias, 2009. "Alternative Approaches to Evaluation in Empirical Microeconomics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(3).
    3. Tim A. Barmby & Marco G. Ercolani & John G. Treble, 2002. "Sickness Absence: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(480), pages 315-331, June.
    4. Barmby, Tim & Orme, Chris & Treble, John, 1995. "Worker absence histories: a panel data study," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 53-65, March.
    5. Andrea Ichino & Regina T. Riphahn, 2001. "The Effect of Employment Protection on Worker Effort. A Comparison of Absenteeism During and After Probation," CESifo Working Paper Series 596, CESifo.
    6. De Paola, Maria, 2010. "Absenteeism and peer interaction effects: Evidence from an Italian Public Institute," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 420-428, June.
    7. Maria De Paola & Valeria Pupo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2009. "Absenteeism In The Italian Public Sector: The Effects Of Changes In Sick Leave Compensation," Working Papers 200916, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    8. Andrea Ichino & Regina T. Riphahn, 2005. "The Effect of Employment Protection on Worker Effort: Absenteeism During and After Probation," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 120-143, March.
    9. Magnus Henrekson & Mats Persson, 2004. "The Effects on Sick Leave of Changes in the Sickness Insurance System," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 87-114, January.
    10. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    11. Lusine Lusinyan & Leo Bonato, 2007. "Work Absence in Europe," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(3), pages 475-538, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. D'Amuri, Francesco, 2011. "Monitoring and monetary incentives in addressing absenteeism: evidence from a sequence of policy changes," ISER Working Paper Series 2011-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.

    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. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2010. "An Inquiry into the Theory, Causes and Consequences of Monitoring Indicators of Health and Safety at Work," IZA Discussion Papers 4734, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. De Paola, Maria, 2010. "Absenteeism and peer interaction effects: Evidence from an Italian Public Institute," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 420-428, June.
    3. Lindbeck, Assar & Palme, Mårten & Persson, Mats, 2006. "Job Security and Work Absence: Evidence form a Natural Experiment," Seminar Papers 743, Stockholm University, Institute for International Economic Studies.
    4. Ziebarth, Nicolas R. & Karlsson, Martin, 2010. "A natural experiment on sick pay cuts, sickness absence, and labor costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1108-1122, December.
    5. Nicolas R. Ziebarth & Martin Karlsson, 2014. "The Effects Of Expanding The Generosity Of The Statutory Sickness Insurance System," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 208-230, March.
    6. Per Engström & Bertil Holmlund, 2007. "Worker Absenteeism in Search Equilibrium," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 439-467, September.
    7. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodoropoulos, Nikolaos, 2009. "Performance Pay as an Incentive for Lower Absence Rates in Britain," MPRA Paper 18238, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2010. "Worker absenteeism and incentives: evidence from Italy," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(8), pages 503-515, December.
    9. W.H.J. Hassink & P. Koning, 2005. "Do Financial Bonuses to Employees Reduce their Absenteeism? Outcome of a Lottery," Working Papers 05-27, Utrecht School of Economics.
    10. Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2013. "Long-term absenteeism and moral hazard—Evidence from a natural experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 277-292.
    11. Bradley, Steve & Green, Colin & Leeves, Gareth, 2007. "Worker absence and shirking: Evidence from matched teacher-school data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-334, June.
    12. Maclean, J. Catherine & Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2020. "Mandated Sick Pay: Coverage, Utilization, and Welfare Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13132, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Pichler, Stefan & Ziebarth, Nicolas R., 2019. "Reprint of: The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: Testing for contagious presenteeism and noncontagious absenteeism behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 86-104.
    14. Elisabeth Fevang & Simen Markussen & Knut Røed, 2014. "The Sick Pay Trap," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 32(2), pages 305-336.
    15. Bryson, Alex & Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2017. "Does Sick Pay Affect Workplace Absence?," IZA Discussion Papers 11222, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. repec:lan:wpaper:3018 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Vincenzo Scoppa & Daniela Vuri, 2014. "Absenteeism, unemployment and employment protection legislation: evidence from Italy," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    18. Martin Ljunge, 2011. "Sick of Taxes? Evidence on the Elasticity of Labor Supply when Workers Are Free to Choose," Discussion Papers 11-27, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    19. Evangelos C. Alexopoulos & Georgios Merekoulias & Dimitra Tanagra & Eleni C. Konstantinou & Efi Mikelatou & Eleni Jelastopulu, 2012. "Sickness Absence in the Private Sector of Greece: Comparing Shipyard Industry and National Insurance Data," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-11, April.
    20. Harald Dale-Olsen, 2014. "Sickness Absence, Sick Leave Pay, and Pay Schemes," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 28(1), pages 40-63, March.
    21. Blanchard, Pablo & Burdin, Gabriel & Dean, Andrés, 2025. "Property rights, sick pay and effort supply," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

    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:ubs:wpaper:1008. 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: Matteo Galizzi The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Matteo Galizzi to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/febreit.html .

    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.