You are invited to join the weekly Nuremberg Research Seminar in Economics on 3 June 2026, from 13.15 to 14.45 pm. The seminar will be held in room LG 0.423. Nicolas Ziebarth (ZEW) will be talking about “Public Paid Leave and Private Benefits: Evidence on Crowd-Out and Welfare” (joint with J. Maclean et al.).
More information can be found here:
How do firms respond to state-level paid family and medical leave (PFML) programs financed by payroll taxes? Over the last decade, 10 U.S. states and D.C. have implemented PFML, expanding access to paid leave for caregiving needs. Using 2009–2023 firm-job level data from the National Compensation Survey, we estimate event-study and difference-indifferences models to assess how public PFML crowds out private benefits. We find clear evidence of fringe benefit crowd-out through public paid leave programs: family leave declines by five percentage points, personal leave by seven, and vacation by four. PFML raises welfare if employees value benefits at least $0.95 per dollar.