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

Stefan Pichler () and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 15-239, Upjohn Working Papers from W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research

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 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.

Keywords: Sickness Insurance; Paid Sick Leave; Presenteeism; Contagious Diseases; Infections; Negative Externalities; Shirking; United States; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I13 I18 J22 J28 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art ... ext=up_workingpapers (application/pdf)
This material is copyrighted. Permission is required to reproduce any or all parts.

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)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upj:weupjo:15-239

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Upjohn Working Papers from W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 300 S. Westnedge Ave. Kalamazoo, MI 49007 USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().