Essays in Labour Economics

This thesis consists of three chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 estimate how starting one’s career during a recession affects subsequent labour market outcomes while Chapter 3 estimates the causal effects of the Irish medical card system on financial security. In Chapter 1, scarring effect are measured among a sample of long-standing European Union member countries. The analysis examines college graduates, who finished education from 1987 to 2014. I find that unlucky recession cohorts tend to have lower earnings and employment rates for up to a decade. These negative penalties are significantly larger in countries which experienced a sovereign debt crisis during the 2008 financial crisis. The results also highlight that controlling for the path of unemployment rates post-graduation does not materially affect the scarring estimates. This is relevant to policy makers at present, as unlucky graduates began their careers during the pandemic will likely experience scarring effects in spite of the post-Covid rebound globally. In Chapter 2, scarring effects are estimated using register panel data for from Denmark for all those born between 1980 to 1992 and finished education at ages 18 to 21. The detailed panel data is very useful as it allows for tracking of individuals through time and space. It also for measurement of their socio-economic status in childhood. Our most important contribution is to show that scarring effects tend to have a stark socio-economic gradient. Young adults from low-income households- bottom 20% of the income distribution at age 16- incur the largest scarring effects from finishing school at an inopportune sign. Those from middle- and high-income backgrounds incur less severe, and more transitory income and employment losses from graduating into a recession. In Chapter 3, we analyze how medical cards- the Irish public health insurance scheme- affect financial and health outcomes using survey data. In contrast to the literature in the United States, we do not find that public health insurance improves financial outcomes. In common with that literature though, we do observe that individuals are less likely to be privately insured if eligible for public insurance.