Essays in Applied and Labor Economics

This thesis consists of three self-contained papers. In the first paper I analyze the labor supply behavior of Bologna Pizza Delivery Vendors. Recent influential papers analyze labor supply behavior of taxi drivers (Camerer et al., 1997; and Crawford and Meng, 2011) and suggest that reference-dependence preferences have an important influence on drivers’ labor-supply decisions. Unlike previous papers, I am able to identify an exogenous and transitory change in labor demand. Using high frequency data on orders and rainfall as an exogenous demand shifter, I invariably find that reference-dependent preferences play no role in their labor’ supply decisions and the behavior of pizza vendors is perfectly consistent with the predictions of the standard model of labor’ supply. In the second paper, I investigate how the voting behavior of Members of Parliament is influenced by the Members seating nearby. By exploiting the random seating arrangements in the Icelandic Parliament, I show that being seated next to Members of a different party increases the probability of not being aligned with one’s own party. Using the exact spatial orientation of the peers, I provide evidence that supports the hypothesis that interaction is the main channel that explain these results. In the third paper, I provide an estimate of the trade flows that there would have been between the UK and Europe if the UK had joined the Euro. As an alternative approach to the standard log-linear gravity equation I employ the synthetic control method. I show that the aggregate trade flows between Britain and Europe would have been 13% higher if the UK had adopted the Euro.

Essays in Applied and Labor Economics

This thesis consists of three chapters. First and second chapter include original research papers with the focus of health behavior and refugee migration. In the context of a high-income developing country, Turkey, I provide new insights for the established policy discussions in the literature. Then, third chapter reviews the literature and perspectives on the determinants of attitude formation towards migration policy and migrants. This chapter extends the discussion in Chapter 2 and aims at understanding the reasons of recent global trends in anti-migration attitudes. In Chapter 1, I investigate the effects of education on the early investments of mothers in their children aged between 0-5. Exploiting a compulsory schooling reform, I document the causal effects of education on young mothers' health investments during pregnancy and postnatal period. Results suggest that there are positive effects on the use of health care services, while no effects on breast- feeding or vaccination take-ups. These results can be put into context through newly implemented Health Transformation Program in the country. I show that educated mothers use new services more and empowerment effects of the education have a role in the service use. This study gives important policy lessons to improve mothers' health care use and early child conditions in developing countries. In Chapter 2, I investigate the effects of refugee inflow on the voting behavior of natives. I use a novel data provided by a telecommunication company, focus on pre and post refugee inflow elections and investigate the vote share of the party announced "open-door" policy. Analysis suggests that although refugees and natives are culturally closer than the Western country contexts, small negative effects documented are likely be driven by non-economic reasons. These findings bring a new perspective to understand why anti-immigrant sentiments are easy to use and manipulate.