IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/oslohe/2003_017.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Absenteeism, Health Insurance, and Business Cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Nordberg, Morten

    (The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic)

  • Kverndokk, Snorre

    (The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic)

Abstract

We use a dependent competing risks hazard rate model to investigate individual sickness absence behaviour in Norway, on the basis of register data covering more than 2 million absence spells. Our findings are: i) that business cycle improvements yield lower work-resumption rates for persons who are absent, and higher relapse rates for persons who have already resumed work; ii) that absence sometimes represents a health investment, in the sense that longer absence ‘now’ reduces the subsequent relapse propensity; and iii) that the work-resumption rate increases when sickness benefits are exhausted, but that work-resumptions at this point tend to be short-lived.

Suggested Citation

  • Nordberg, Morten & Kverndokk, Snorre, 2009. "Absenteeism, Health Insurance, and Business Cycles," HERO Online Working Paper Series 2003:17, University of Oslo, Health Economics Research Programme.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2003_017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hero.uio.no/publicat/2003/HERO2003_17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March.
    2. Meyer, Bruce D & Viscusi, W Kip & Durbin, David L, 1995. "Workers' Compensation and Injury Duration: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 322-340, June.
    3. Brinch,C., 2000. "Identification of structural duration dependence and unobserved heterogeneity with time-varying," Memorandum 20/2000, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    4. Jan Erik Askildsen & Espen Bratberg & Øivind Anti Nilsen, 2005. "Unemployment, labor force composition and sickness absence: a panel data study," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(11), pages 1087-1101, November.
    5. J. Heckman & B. Singer, 1984. "The Identifiability of the Proportional Hazard Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 51(2), pages 231-241.
    6. Tim A. Barmby & Marco G. Ercolani & John G. Treble, 2002. "Sickness Absence: An International Comparison," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(480), pages 315-331, June.
    7. Arai, Mahmood & Thoursie, Peter Skogman, 2005. "Incentives and selection in cyclical absenteeism," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 269-280, April.
    8. Gaure, Simen & Røed, Knut, 2003. "How Tight is the Labour Market? A Micro-Based Macro Indicator," Memorandum 09/2003, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    9. Per Johansson & Mårten Palme, 2002. "Assessing the Effect of Public Policy on Worker Absenteeism," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(2), pages 381-409.
    10. repec:bla:scandj:v:96:y:1994:i:4:p:561-66 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Chris Elbers & Geert Ridder, 1982. "True and Spurious Duration Dependence: The Identifiability of the Proportional Hazard Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 49(3), pages 403-409.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ekhaugen, Tyra, 2007. "Long-term Outcomes of Vocational Rehabilitation Programs: Labor Market Transitions and Job Durations for Immigrants," Memorandum 10/2007, Oslo University, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markussen, Simen & Røed, Knut & Røgeberg, Ole J. & Gaure, Simen, 2011. "The anatomy of absenteeism," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 277-292, March.
    2. Nicolas R. Ziebarth & Martin Karlsson, 2014. "The Effects Of Expanding The Generosity Of The Statutory Sickness Insurance System," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(2), pages 208-230, March.
    3. Pouliakas, Konstantinos & Theodossiou, Ioannis, 2010. "An Inquiry into the Theory, Causes and Consequences of Monitoring Indicators of Health and Safety at Work," IZA Discussion Papers 4734, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Vincenzo Scoppa & Daniela Vuri, 2014. "Absenteeism, unemployment and employment protection legislation: evidence from Italy," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 3(1), pages 1-25, December.
    5. Boone, Jan & van Ours, Jan C., 2006. "Are recessions good for workplace safety?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 1069-1093, November.
    6. Zhang, Tao, 2003. "A Monte Carlo study on non-parametric estimation of duration models with unobserved heterogeneity," Memorandum 25/2003, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Per Engström & Bertil Holmlund, 2007. "Worker Absenteeism in Search Equilibrium," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 439-467, September.
    8. Hesselius, Patrik, 2007. "Does sickness absence increase the risk of unemployment?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 288-310, April.
    9. Gaure, Simen & Roed, Knut & Zhang, Tao, 2007. "Time and causality: A Monte Carlo assessment of the timing-of-events approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 1159-1195, December.
    10. Fahr, René & Frick, Bernd, 2007. "On the Inverse Relationship between Unemployment and Absenteeism: Evidence from Natural Experiments and Worker Heterogeneity," IZA Discussion Papers 3171, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Maria De Paola & Valeria Pupo & Vincenzo Scoppa, 2009. "Absenteeism In The Italian Public Sector: The Effects Of Changes In Sick Leave Compensation," Working Papers 200916, Università della Calabria, Dipartimento di Economia, Statistica e Finanza "Giovanni Anania" - DESF.
    12. Jaap H. Abbring, 0000. "Mixed Hitting-Time Models," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-057/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 11 Aug 2009.
    13. Ziebarth, Nicolas R. & Karlsson, Martin, 2010. "A natural experiment on sick pay cuts, sickness absence, and labor costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1108-1122, December.
    14. Escanciano, Juan Carlos, 2023. "Irregular identification of structural models with nonparametric unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(1), pages 106-127.
    15. Nilsson, Martin, 2015. "Economic incentives and long-term sickness absence: the indirect effect of replacement rates on absence behavior," Working Paper Series 2015:17, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    16. Bijwaard, Govert, 2011. "Unobserved Heterogeneity in Multiple-Spell Multiple-States Duration Models," IZA Discussion Papers 5748, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Giovanni Compiani & Yuichi Kitamura, 2016. "Using mixtures in econometric models: a brief review and some new results," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 19(3), pages 95-127, October.
    18. Carlo Alberto Biscardo & Alessandro Bucciol & Paolo Pertile, 2019. "Job sick leave: Detecting opportunistic behavior," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 373-386, March.
    19. Marte Rønning, 2012. "The effect of working conditions on teachers'sickness absence," Discussion Papers 684, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    20. Bertil Holmlund, 2004. "Sickness Absence and Search Unemployment," CESifo Working Paper Series 1227, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Absenteeism; Dependent risks;

    JEL classification:

    • C41 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Duration Analysis; Optimal Timing Strategies
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:oslohe:2003_017. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristi Brinkmann Lenander (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/heuiono.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.