Effects of government spending on employment: Evidence from winners and runners-up in procurement auctions

Christine Zulehner, Klaus Gugler and Michael Weichselbaumer

No 12548, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: To estimate demand for labor, we use a combination of detailed employment data and the outcomes of procurement auctions, and compare the employment of the winner of an auction with the employment of the second ranked firm (i.e. the runner-up firm). Assuming similar ex-ante winning probabilities for both firms, we may view winning an auction as an exogenous shock to a firm's production and its demand for labor. We utilize data from almost 900 construction firms and about 3,000 auctions in Austria in the time period 2006 until 2009. Our main results show that the winning firm significantly increases labor demand in the weeks following an auction. In the years before the recent economic crisis, it employs about 80 workers more two months after the auction than the runner-up firm. Winners predominantly fire fewer workers after winning than runner-up firms. In the crisis, however, firms do not employ more workers than their competitors after winning an auction. We discuss explanations like labor hoarding and productivity adjustments induced by the crisis for these results.

Keywords: Labor demand; Labor hoarding; Construction procurement; First-price auctions; Recent economic crisis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D44 L10 L13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec
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Working Paper: Effects of government spending on employment: Evidence from winners and runners-up in procurement auctions (2018)
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