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

Stefan Pichler () and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 150016, Working Papers from Canadian Centre for Health Economics

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: sickness insurance; paid sick leave; presenteeism; contagious diseases; infections; negative externalities; shirking; US; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I13 I18 J22 J28 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2015-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hrm, nep-ias and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Published Online, October 2015

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.canadiancentreforhealtheconomics.ca/wp- ... ichler-Ziebarth2.pdf First version, 2015 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior (2015)
Working Paper: The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior (2015)
Working Paper: The Pros and Cons of Sick Pay Schemes: Testing for Contagious Presenteeism and Shirking Behavior (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cch:wpaper:150016

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