Three Essays on the Impact of Institutions on Workers' Behavior and Job Quality.

Summary This thesis examines the impact of institutions on worker behavior and job quality. The first two chapters use subjective data to assess the impact of employment policies on job quality in a way that takes into account a broader range of relevant working conditions than the existing literature. The first chapter shows that a decrease in unemployment insurance reduces workers' job satisfaction by causing them to accept poorer working conditions. The second chapter shows that the effects of partial job protection on layoffs improve the sense of job security for protected workers, but at the cost of negative externalities for other workers. The third chapter provides new evidence on how institutions affect gender norms by examining women's labor market and marital behavior. Drawing on the 41-year period of Germany's division, we show that the gender-friendly institutions of the GDR created a culture that undid the norm that the man is the primary provider in the household. In contrast, this norm is still prevalent in the former West Germany.