Weber, Sylvain

2018-7, Hediger, Cécile, Farsi, Mehdi, Weber, Sylvain

This paper investigates how households respond to efficiency improvements of their heating system. The analysis is based on the stated preference approach with an innovative choice experiment. The design includes questions to quantify both the direct and indirect rebounds. A series of easy discrete possible changes have been suggested to prime the respondents for deciding on potential actions impacting their heating service demand. Responses to these qualitative choices are moreover used to cross-validate the quantitative results. Overall, we find relatively low direct rebound effects. However, after accounting for the indirect rebound calculated using energy embodied in goods and services purchased by re-spending initial savings, we estimate an average total rebound of about one third. The econometric analysis points to substantial variations across individuals that are partly explained by observed characteristics. The results are consistent with the conjunction that heating is a basic need which calls for little rebound in high-income groups.

2017-10, Weber, Sylvain, Puddu, Stefano, Pacheco Barzallo, Diana

Photovoltaic systems generate electricity around noon, when many homes are empty. Conversely, residential electricity demand peaks in the evening, when production from solar sources is impossible. Based on a randomized control trial, we assess the effectiveness of alternative demand response measures aimed at mitigating these imbalances. More precisely, through information feedback and financial rewards, we encourage households to shift electricity consumption toward the middle of the day. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that financial incentives induce a significant increase of the relative consumption during the period of the day when most solar radiation takes place. Information feedback, however, pushes households to decrease overall consumption, but induces no load shifting.

2014, Weber, Sylvain, Ferro Luzzi, Giovanni

Using data over 1991–2008 for Switzerland, we investigate job stability through a series of Cox proportional hazards models. Our baseline results show that employment has become less stable for older male workers, with less noticeable change for other groups. However, when destination states are considered in the model, results indicate that younger workers face more transitions towards unemployment than before, whereas older male workers’ greater instability is caused by an increase in transitions to inactivity. It thus appears that the situation of young workers has deteriorated, while the evolution of older men’s job stability is at least partly explained by the increasing number of early retirements. For women, our results are largely consistent with their increasing participation rate and attachment to the labor market.

2012, Weber, Sylvain, Garibian, Vahan, Ferro Luzzi, Giovanni, Falter, Jean-Marc

We investigate the specific situation of youth with regard to unemployment. Even though Switzerland is known to suffer from low unemployment in international comparison, young and unskilled workers are the most vulnerable and therefore deserve attention. Using data from the Swiss Labour Force Survey over the period from 1991 to 2008, we conduct several statistical analyses to investigate the labour market situation of unskilled youths and its evolution. The results show that the situation of unskilled young workers has significantly worsened over the last two decades. Transition analysis and logistic regressions indicate more resilient unemployment for unskilled youths. The business cycle, bilateral agreements with the EU granting free movement of labour and technological changes are all potential explanations of this phenomenon.

2017-12, Lopez, Luciano, Weber, Sylvain

With the development of large and long panel databases, the theory surrounding panel causality evolves quickly, and empirical researchers might find it difficult to run the most recent techniques developed in the literature. In this article, we present the community-contributed command xtgcause, which implements a procedure proposed by Dumitrescu and Hurlin (2012, Economic Modelling 29: 1450–1460) for detecting Granger causality in panel datasets. Thus, it constitutes an effort to help practitioners understand and apply the test. xtgcause offers the possibility of selecting the number of lags to include in the model by minimizing the Akaike information criterion, Bayesian information criterion, or Hannan–Quinn information criterion, and it offers the possibility to implement a bootstrap procedure to compute p-values and critical values.

2017-3-1, Farsi, Mehdi, Hediger, Cécile, Weber, Sylvain

2014, Weber, Sylvain

We investigate the link between human capital depreciation and education level through a nonlinear wage equation, using data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLFS) over the period 1998-2008. Instead of using a purely quantitative approach to separate workers by years of education, qualitative aspects of educational system are taken into account. Taking advantage of the Swiss educational system characteristics, workers are separated on the basis of their education type. Workers with vocational education (apprenticeships, professional and technical schools, and universities of applied sciences) are assumed to possess a relatively specific human capital, compared to those with academic education (high schools and universities). Human capital depreciation is found to be significantly related to education type. Academic ("concept-based") education protects workers more effectively against depreciation than vocational ("skill-specific") education.

2017-12, Weber, Sylvain, Péclat, Martin

Obtaining the routing distance between two addresses should not be a hassle with current technology. Unfortunately, this is more complicated than it first seems. Recently, several commands have been implemented for this purpose (traveltime, traveltime3, mqtime, osrmtime), but most of them became obsolete only a few months after their introduction or appear complicated to use. In this article, we introduce the community-contributed command georoute, which retrieves travel distance and travel time between two points defined either by their addresses or by their geographical coordinates. Compared with other existing commands, it is simple to use, efficient in terms of computational speed, and versatile regarding the information that can be provided as input.

2015, Weber, Sylvain, Ferro Luzzi, Giovanni, Ramirez, José

Le capital humain et les politiques visant à sa création et à sa préservation prennent de plus en plus d’importance dans les sociétés industrialisées. Cet article propose un survol de la littérature économique récente dans ce domaine. Le défi majeur qui occupe aujourd’hui le marché du travail est l’accélération du progrès technique, qui s’accompagne d’effets différenciés suivant le niveau de qualification des travailleurs. Deux théories sont évoquées pour analyser ces effets. D’une part, le progrès technique est vu comme biaisé en faveur des travailleurs qualifiés et défavorable aux moins qualifiés. D’autre part, et suite au phénomène de polarisation du marché du travail récemment observé, on peut cependant penser que la technologie est surtout substituable aux emplois du milieu de l’échelle. De ces constatations découlent plusieurs recommandations de politiques économiques, la principale étant de donner aux travailleurs les moyens d’être flexibles et polyvalents, ce qui passe par une éducation relativement générale plutôt que trop spécifique et cantonnée à un secteur ou une profession.

2013-10, Baranzini, Andrea, Weber, Sylvain

Using cointegration techniques, we investigate the determinants of gasoline demand in Switzerland over the period 1970–2008. We obtain a very weak price elasticity of −0.09 in the short run and −0.34 in the long run. For fuel demand, i.e. gasoline plus diesel, the corresponding price elasticities are −0.08 and −0.27. Our rich dataset allows working with quarterly data and with more explicative variables than usual in this literature. In addition to the traditional price and income variables, we account for variables like vehicle stocks, fuel prices in neighbouring countries, oil shocks and fuel taxes. All of these additional variables are found to be significant determinants of demand.