Mandated sick pay: Coverage, utilization, and welfare effects

Catherine Maclean, Stefan Pichler () and Nicolas Ziebarth ()

No 21-083, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This paper evaluates how sick pay mandates operate at the job level in the United States. Using the National Compensation Survey and difference-in-differences models, we estimate their impact on coverage rates, sick leave use, labor costs, and non-mandated fringe benefits. Sick pay mandates increase coverage significantly by 18 percentage points from a baseline level of 66% in the first two years. Newly covered employees take two additional sick days per year. We find little evidence that mandating sick pay crowds-out non-mandated fringe benefits. Finally, we develop a model of optimal sick pay provision and illustrate the trade-offs when assessing welfare.

Keywords: sick pay mandates; take-up; social insurance; fringe benefits; moral hazard; unintended consequences; medical leave; National Compensation Survey; optimal social insurance; Baily-Chetty; welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H75 I12 I18 J22 J28 J32 J38 J88 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-hrm, nep-ias and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/247692/1/1780021550.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Mandated Sick Pay: Coverage, Utilization, and Welfare Effects (2020)
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:zbw:zewdip:21083

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().