The Healthy Fright of Losing a Good One for a Bad One

18 Pages Posted: 25 Feb 2012

See all articles by Annalisa Cristini

Annalisa Cristini

University of Bergamo

Federica Origo

University of Bergamo

Sara Pinoli

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Abstract

In this paper we study the effect of different degrees of employment protection on absenteeism, paying attention to differences between workers moving from protected jobs to insecure jobs, on the one hand, and workers moving from insecure to secure jobs, on the other hand. Using a large representative sample of Italian workers, we show that workers' reaction in terms of sickness leave is not symmetric: losing protection (bad news) is more effective than gaining it (good news). We claim that this asymmetry is consistent with the behavior of financial markets responding to good and bad news. In our case, workers react in a more prudential way to improvements in their employment status ("wait and see" strategy), while they do immediately adjust to worsening job security by showing off healthy behavior.

Keywords: absenteeism, employment protection, delayed reaction

JEL Classification: J22, J41

Suggested Citation

Cristini, Annalisa and Origo, Federica and Pinoli, Sara, The Healthy Fright of Losing a Good One for a Bad One. IZA Discussion Paper No. 6348, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2010943 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2010943

Annalisa Cristini (Contact Author)

University of Bergamo ( email )

Federica Origo

University of Bergamo ( email )

Via Salvecchio, 19
Bergamo, 24129
Italy

Sara Pinoli

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

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