Giacomo Marcolin

I am a PhD student in Economics at Northwestern University. My research interests are in labor economics and public economics. In the 2026–27 academic year, I will be a NBER Gender in the Economy dissertation fellow.

I am on the 2026-2027 job market. My job market paper studies gender discrimination based on fertility expectations, using a policy experiment to quantify its contribution to gender gaps in labor market outcomes.

Before starting my PhD, I received my MSc in Economics from Bocconi University and my BSc in Economics from the University of Padova.

For more information, you can find my CV here and contact me at gmarcolin@u.northwestern.edu.

Giacomo Marcolin

Job Market Paper

Fertility-Based Discrimination (with Andrea Di Giovan Paolo)

Abstract

We study employer discrimination based on expectations about women’s future fertility. The identification challenge is that expectations about fertility cannot be varied independently of the characteristics from which employers infer them. We show that discrimination can be identified from variation in employers’ cost of future fertility, without requiring variation in fertility expectations. We exploit the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which first provided federal employment protection to pregnant workers, raising firms’ expected costs of employing women more likely to become pregnant. Using a difference-in-differences design comparing newly affected states with states that already had comparable protections, we find that the PDA reduced employment among women of childbearing age by 6.6%, primarily through lower hiring. The decline is concentrated among women with higher predicted future fertility, while employment of men and older women is largely unaffected. Our estimates imply that expected-fertility discrimination accounts for at least 27% of the observed gender employment gap.

Selected Work in Progress

Heterogeneous Enforcement Within a Common Tax System: Tax Office Aggressiveness and Firm Outcomes (with Mario Cannella)

Gig Work as Income Insurance during Unemployment: Evidence from Germany (with Valentin Kecht)

Abstract

Despite the rapid growth of the gig economy, there is limited evidence on its impact on the labor force. This paper shows that gig work can act as a source of a supplementary income during job transitions. Matching a large sample of administrative employment data with information on platform entry, we demonstrate that individuals tend to take up gig work following a job separation when the opportunity arises. The effects on labor markets are persistent and vary across socioeconomic dimensions, while for the individual workers gig work is only a transitory occupation. Our identification relies on a difference-in-differences strategy, exploiting the staggered entry of gig platforms across German districts. We find some evidence of substitution with other forms of employment, but detect no reduction in receipt of unemployment benefits, suggesting that gig work does not replace traditional unemployment insurance schemes. However, we observe increased job-seeking activity and participation in active labor market policies in response to platform availability. Our results partly contrast existing evidence, highlighting the role of contextual factors in designing adequate labor market policies.

Policy Work