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This paper analyses the impact of industry specific regional specialization on employment growth in German planning regions between 1998 and 2007. The paper investigates Germany as a whole as well as Western and Eastern Germany separately. By using a shift-share regression approach the paper provides new findings about the existence of industry-specific localization advantages. The results show that inverse localization advantages play a major role in explaining regional disparities in Germany. This involves a process of deconcentration of economic activity. In addition, differences between Eastern and Western Germany can also be identified. Resumen Este artículo analiza el impacto de la especialización regional específica por industrias sobre el crecimiento del empleo en las regiones de planificación alemanas entre 1998 y 2007. El artículo estudia Alemania en su totalidad, así como Alemania Occidental y Oriental por separado. Mediante la utilización de un enfoque de regresión shift-share, el artículo aporta nuevos resultados acerca de la existencia de ventajas de localización específicas por industria Los resultados muestran que las ventajas de localización inversa tienen un papel clave a la hora de explicar las disparidades regionales en Alemania. Esto implica un proceso de desconcentración de la actividad económica. Además, también se pueden identificar diferencias entra Alemania Occidental y Alemania Oriental. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at unemployed individuals and investigates wage differences generated by re–employment selection. It shows that discriminatory re–employment selection can result, indirectly, in discriminatory re–employment pay. A Heckman two–stage selection model is combined with an extension of Gomulka–Stern non–linear decompositions to explain how re–employment selection generates indirect discrimination. The paper uses data from pre–unification Germany in the late 1980s and finds that female human capital suffers more from unemployment and that the market is harsher to males for becoming unemployed. New policies should encourage a regime where the hiring process is more transparent and hiring decisions are monitored on a regular basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper applies Verdoorn's and Okun's law to derive efficient estimates of the employment and unemployment threshold in the Unified Germany. The analysis is built on a disaggregated dataset of regional labour markets, where spatial dependencies are taken into account. Especially, a spatial SUR model is proposed utilising the eigenfunction decomposition approach suggested by Griffith (1996, 2000 ). The thresholds turn out to be unstable over time. However, minimum output growth sufficient for a rise in employment is below the level needed for a drop in the unemployment rate. If spatial effects are ignored, the thresholds seem to be markedly overrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the mutual impact channels of Germany's major regional policy instrument (GRW) on regional economic development. Different from earlier studies which have predominately focused on a partial assessment of output effects, we explicitly endogenize the factor inputs of the underlying production function. This allows us to comprehensively assess the role of the GRW in driving per capita output, employment, human and physical capital intensities as well as the region's technological growth. The results from a spatial panel vector autoregressive model show that GRW funding has significant positive effects on regional output, the employment rate and human capital intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional governments' discretion in allocating structural funds is limited by the competences of the European Commission to control fiscal activities of decentralized governments. Regional political behaviour and the complexity of the implementation process shape the policy outcome. Who benefits from structural funds? In this paper, we analyse implementation of ERDF funds in East Germany in the financial perspective 2007 to 2013. We find that less rural regions and some economic sectors benefit by more than others. A few beneficiaries control the highest share of the funds. The Gini coefficients vary by group of actor and show high inequality in the distribution of the funds. This indicates that a few actors have better access to the funds than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT European labour markets have undergone several important innovations over the last three decades. Most countries have reformed their labour markets since the mid-1990s, with the liberalization of fixed-term contracts and temporary work agencies being the common elements to such reforms. This paper investigates the existence of a change in the dynamic behaviour of the aggregate employment for major European Union countries - France, Germany, Italy and Spain. According to our results, partial labour market reforms have made the response of the aggregate employment to output shocks larger and quite comparable to that found for the UK - the most flexible labour market in Europe since the Thatcher reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we employ a wage-setting approach to analyze the labor market effects of immigration into Germany from 1980 to 2004. This enables us to consider labor market rigidities, which are prevalent in Europe. We find that the elasticity of the wage-setting curve is particularly high for young workers. Moreover, natives and foreigners are imperfect substitutes. The wage and employment effects of immigration depend on the skill structure of the immigrant workforce. Because the foreign labor supply shift has mainly affected the high-skilled labor market segment, the 4 percent increase of the workforce through immigration has not increased either aggregate or foreign unemployment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the assumption of strict exogeneity, which is usually invoked in estimating models of state dependence with unobserved heterogeneity, is violated in the poverty context as important variables determining contemporaneous poverty status, in particular employment status and household composition, are likely to be influenced by past poverty outcomes. Therefore, a model of state dependence is developed that explicitly allows for possible feedback effects from past poverty to future employment and household composition outcomes. Empirical results based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) suggest that there are indeed such feedback effects and that failure to take them into account may lead to biased estimates of the state dependence effect. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a large employer–employee matched data-set, the paper investigates the effects of variable enforcement of German dismissal protection legislation on the employment dynamics in small establishments. Specifically, using a difference-in-differences approach, we study the effect of changes in the threshold scale exempting small establishments from dismissal protection provisions on worker flows. In contrast to the predictions of the theory, our results indicate that there are no statistically significant effects of dismissal protection legislation on worker turnover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a large data set of German manufacturing establishments and various panel data models, the authors investigate the relationship between labour productivity and the use of fixed-term employment, taking account of the possible distortions that may result from self-selection into the use of fixed-term contracts. Their empirical results provide no evidence for the expected inverse U-shaped relationship between fixed-term employment and labour productivity, and testing for a linear relationship leads to mostly negative coefficients that are only significant in a few specifications. Overall, their results thus indicate that there is no significant relationship between the use of fixed-term contracts and labour productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend in this analysis an approach introduced by Patterson and suggested by Möller and Tassinopoulos. Our approach uses a generalization of an econometric analogue of the common shift-share method, suggested here as a new “workhorse” for regional analyses. The results obtained with this shift-share-regression, and with very differentiated data from the employment statistics of eastern Germany, show that processes of deconcentration play a role in explaining regional disparities, since inverse localization and positive urbanization effects are visible. The relevant processes can be understood by implementing approaches of “new economic geography”, structural change and endogenous growth theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we ask how organizational restructuring towards a network form of service delivery challenges an established form of employment relations in Germany, that is labour–management collaboration. Building on a theoretical discussion of the marketization hypothesis, we develop a structuration perspective on the relationship between network restructuring and labour–management collaboration, which highlights the political economy of inter‐firm networks. Empirically, we focus on two major airport authorities in Germany. Our findings show how these authorities at the core of service delivery networks face a strategic trade‐off between short‐term labour cost reductions and more adversarial employment relations. Apart from coinciding with a deterioration in working conditions for service workers, the handling of this trade‐off depends on managers' and worker representatives' commitment to collaboration across the network. While unions and works councils initially continued with social partnership‐type practices, the more adversarial management practices for enacting the network restructuring cause a fragmentation on the workers' side and increase the conflict potential. We conclude that the agency of management and worker representatives in the enactment of inter‐firm networks oscillates between more partnership‐like and more conflictive practices, which turn the network restructuring into a political process with divergent outcomes for employment relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the potential of immigration to address the labor shortage in the chemical industry in Germany. Topics include the call of federal employers association BAVC to the government to promote Germany as an immigration-friendly country, the factors that affected the labor shortage and the employment opportunities available in the country to encourage foreign workers.

Most Continental European labour markets and welfare states have experienced a substantial transformation. Germany is a case in point as it exhibits increasing levels of employment and a growing share of low pay and non-standard work. The article claims that changes in labour market institutions play a major role, but changes in industrial relations at the sectoral level and individual firms' staffing practices are equally important. Regarding labour market institutions, the pattern found in Germany shows sequences of reforms addressing the margins of the labour market and contributing to a growing dualization of employment. This dualization trend was reinforced by micro-level dynamics in industrial relations and company employment practices, where we can observe growing reliance on mechanisms of internal flexibility for the skilled core workforce and increasing use of non-standard types of employment in less specifically skilled occupations, in particular in the private service sector. Hence, the adjustment of the German model can only be understood by taking into account the interaction of policy change and actors' adaptive behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the channels through which offshoring affects employment in a representative sample of German establishments, using a difference-in-differences matching approach. Offshoring is measured by an increase in the share of foreign to total intermediate inputs at the plant-level. We identify a positive productivity effect and isolate a negative downsizing effect from offshoring on employment, by exploiting differences between offshoring plants that do and do not simultaneously restructure. Furthermore, we cannot find evidence of negative indirect employment effects on domestic suppliers or competitors. ( JEL F16, J23, F23, C21) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although applicant-employee fit has emerged as an important topic in recruitment research, little is known about how job seekers' perceived similarity with the employees working for an organization affects employer attraction. In this research, we introduce temporal construal as a crucial moderating variable and study how the temporal decision context affects the weighting of applicant-employee fit. In particular, we argue that applicant-employee fit is construed in abstract, high-level terms, and exerts a stronger influence when prospective applicants hold a distant time perspective. In contrast, instrumental attributes such as pay level represent low-level construals and gain greater relevance when prospective applicants hold a near time perspective. Two experiments involving a student sample and a sample of unemployed job seekers supported these predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fixed-term contracts (FTCs), an important feature of the employment relationship of the peripheral workforce, are analysed to test the following two hypotheses, which are based on dual labour market theory: (i) Firms use FTCs for the peripheral workforce to adjust the level of employment to the profit maximising level in case of demand fluctuations. (ii) Thanks to the utilisation of FTCs, the core workforce is less exposed to employment adjustment. Both hypotheses are supported by the results of the econometric analysis, which uses a German establishment panel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research on the relationship between alternative employment opportunities and cooperation has neglected the distinction between evaluations and restrictions. Thus, one cannot analyze the relationship between attractiveness of alternative employment opportunities and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) under different levels of perceived ease of finding alternative employment. In a pilot study with N = 149 German employees, we confirm the proposed distinction with confirmatory factor analyses. Based on power-dependence theory and rational choice models, we predict that under high ease the relationship between attractiveness and OCB should be more strongly negative than under conditions of low ease. In addition, we hypothesize that the interaction between attractiveness and ease should be greater for OCB than for task performance because task performance is exchanged in a relationship with an enforceable, binding contract, while OCB is voluntarily. Results from moderated multiple regression analysis on N = 86 German professional-supervisor dyads support our prediction for a negative relationship between attractiveness and OCB under high ease. Under low ease, we find a positive relationship between attractiveness and OCB. Moreover, there was no relationship with the interaction and task performance. Implications of the findings both for extra-role and job mobility theory formation and research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Equal pay for men and women was a principle enshrined in the Treaty of Rome and was the subject of a European Directive in 1975. This investigation of progress towards equal pay in three member-states, Germany, Italy and the UK, reveals the importance of differences in employment structures and reward systems in determining relative pay for women. Differences in the structure and size of pay differentials among countries suggest that more attention needs to be paid to the general system of labour market regulation than to explicit equal-pay policies. Women would be more likely to benefit from a strategy of establishing labour standards and regulation than from equal-pay Directives which have little effect on the general practices and principles of pay determination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]