The pros and cons of sick pay schemes: testing for contagious presenteeism and shirking behavior

"This paper proposes a test for the existence and degree of contagious presenteeism and negative externalities in sickness insurance schemes. First, we theoretically decompose moral hazard into shirking and contagious presenteeism behavior and derive testable conditions. Then, we implement the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: KOF Swiss Economic Institute, Zurich, Pichler, Stefan, Ziebarth, Nicolas R.
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Zürich 2015
KOF
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Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19108467124919266499-The-pros-and-cons-of-sick-pay-.htm
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Summary:"This paper proposes a test for the existence and degree of contagious presenteeism and negative externalities in sickness insurance schemes. First, we theoretically decompose moral hazard into shirking and contagious presenteeism behavior and derive testable conditions. Then, we implement the test exploiting German sick pay reforms and administrative industry-level data on certified sick leave by diagnoses. The labor supply adjustment for contagious diseases is significantly smaller than for non-contagious diseases. Lastly, using Google Flu data and the staggered implementation of US sick leave reforms, we show that flu rates decrease after employees gain access to paid sick leave."
Physical Description:47 p.
Digital