Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/58688 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 6245
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
In many countries, sickness absence financed by generous insurance benefits has become an important concern in the policy debate. It turns out that there are strong variations in absence behavior between local geographical areas, and it has been difficult to explain these variations by observable socioeconomic factors. In this paper we investigate whether such variation is related to group effects in the form of social interaction among individuals within neighborhoods. Well-known methodological problems arise when trying to answer such a question. A special feature of our attempt to deal with these problems is that we adopt several alternative approaches to identify group effects. We base the study on a rich set of Swedish panel data, and we find indications of group effects in each one of our approaches.
Subjects: 
sick-pay insurance
work absence
moral hazard
reflection problem
social norms
JEL: 
H56
I38
J22
Z13
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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