The case for presenteeism — Evidence from Norway's sickness insurance program

Markussen, Simen; Mykletun, Arnstein; Røed, Knut

doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.08.008

Cited by 91 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…However, none of these papers estimates labor supply effects by disease groups. In particular, this paper extends the small economic literature on presenteeism at the workplace (Aronsson et al 2000;Chatterji and Tilley 2002;Brown and Sessions 2004;Pauly et al 2008;Barmby and Larguem 2009;Johns 2010;Böckerman and Laukkanen 2010;Markussen et al 2012;Pichler 2015;Hirsch et al 2015;Ahn and Yelowitz 2015). With one exception, none of the empirical studies on presenteeism just cited identifies or intends to identify causal effects of sick leave schemes on presenteeism.…”

mentioning

confidence: 72%

The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior

Pichler¹,

Ziebarth²

2015

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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 noncontagious diseases. Lastly, using Google Flu data and the staggered implementation of U.S. sick leave reforms, we show that flu rates decrease after employees gain access to paid sick leave. JEL Classification Codes: I12, I13, I18, J22, J28, J32

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mentioning

confidence: 72%

The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior

Pichler¹,

Ziebarth²

2015

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“…The policy of encouraging physicians to issue graded rather than full time absence certificates can be thought of as an attempt to reconcile these goals (Markussen et al 2012). Ideally, grading should reduce the costs to the public of sickness absence, while still providing a high level of insurance to workers with poor health.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The policy of issuing graded rather than full time absence certificates has been found to lead to shorter absences and higher re-employment probabilities (Høgelund et al 2010, Viikari-Juntura et al 2012, Markussen et al 2012) reducing the cost of sickness absence to the public. To get a more complete view of the economic consequences of grading, we should also look at costs incurred by the employers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Profiting from presenteeism? Effects of an enforced activation policy on firm profits

Godøy

2016

Labour Economics

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Activation requirements and graded benefits are strategies for reducing social insurance costs in comprehensive welfare states. In Norway, a policy of issuing graded rather than full time sickness absence certificates, is viewed as a strategy not just to reduce direct costs of sick pay but also to facilitate returns to work and reduce inflows to permanent disability. This paper analyzes effects of graded sick leave on firm profits, on average and across different firm groups. A series of panel data models are formulated to estimate the effects of grading on firm profits. In these models, grading is found to mitigate the negative effects of sickness absence on firm profit. A one percentage point increase in full time sickness absence leads to a 1.7% reduction in return on assets relative to the sample mean; this negative effect is reduced by 70% when absence is graded. Effects are robust to inclusion of firm fixed effects as well as time-varying proxies for labor demand.

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“…This is handled by exploiting the variation in gradingpropensity across family physicians, generating a significant source of randomassignment-like (from the employee's point of view) variation in the probability of being subject to activity requirements during spells of sickness. Based on an instrumental variables model, Markussen et al (2012) conclude that the use of graded instead of non-graded sickness absence certificates reduces the length of absence spells, and significantly improves the likelihood that the absentees are employed in subsequent years. The effects are large, both from an economic and a clinical perspective.…”

Section: Activation In Disability Insurancementioning

confidence: 98%

“…And -perhaps even more importantthat it also leads to lower social insurance dependency in the longer run? These questions are addressed by Markussen et al (2012), who investigate the causal impacts of issuing graded rather than full-time sick leave certificates for workers in Norway who had been temporary disabled for at least 8 weeks. Since the use of graded (as opposed to full-time) absence certificates is anything but randomly assigned, the authors face an obvious endogeneity problem.…”

Section: Activation In Disability Insurancementioning

confidence: 99%

Active social insurance

Røed¹

2012

IZA J Labor Policy

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The paper argues that a comprehensive activation strategy is called for -in both unemployment and disability insurance -to minimize the conflict between income insurance and work incentives and to prevent the economic crisis from causing a long-lasting decline in labor force participation. A review of recent empirical evidence, particularly from the Scandinavian countries, indicates that "mild" activation requirements effectively counteract moral hazard problems in social insurance. The paper also argues that the distinction between unemployment and disability is blurred, and that both temporary and permanent disability insurance programs should be designed to encourage and support the use of remaining (partial) work capacity.

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The case for presenteeism — Evidence from Norway's sickness insurance program

Cited by 91 publications

References 22 publications

The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior

The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior

Profiting from presenteeism? Effects of an enforced activation policy on firm profits

Active social insurance

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