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In this paper, we estimate the effect of different macro and micro variables on the distribution of unemployment duration in West Germany using censored quantile regressions. We analyze unemployment periods of more than 91,000 observations from the years 1981 to 1997 drawn from the IAB employment subsample. The latter is an administrative data set that is representative with respect to the socially insured workforce. Surprisingly, we find that the educational degree and variables indicating the macroeconomic environment such as the unemployment rate have a weak effect only. On the other hand, variables reflecting the (un-)employment history of an individual such as the length of tenure, recall to the same employer in the past, recent unemployment, and the position in the population income distribution before unemployment have the strongest effects on unemployment duration. We conclude that work history variables are the ones most suitable in characterizing the unemployment duration of an individual. From a methodological point of view, it is interesting that some regression coefficients have a different sign depending on the quantiles of the unemployment duration distribution. This clearly is a violation of the classical proportional hazard assumption which is very common in unemployment duration analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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]

Against the background of the current discussion of statutory minimum wages in Germany, this paper analyzes the potential employment and fiscal effects of such a policy. Based on estimated labor demand elasticities obtained from a structural labor demand model, the empirical results imply that minimum wages in Germany will be associated with significant employment losses among marginal and low- and semi-skilled full-time workers. Even though minimum wages will lead to increased public revenues from income taxes and social security benefits, they will result in a significant fiscal burden, due to increased unemployment benefits and decreased revenues from corporate taxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When speculative price bubbles on real estate markets burst, the effects for the real economy are often devastating taking the form of substantial losses in production and employment. This paper discusses the degree to which institutional frameworks can prevent speculative bubbles from emerging and expanding. Comparing experiences in different countries indicates that, in Germany, institutional regulations are more likely to counteract the risk of undesirable developments. Despite the recent substantial price increases, no speculative bubble can be identified in Germany so far--but the risk has increased. In times of the euro area debt crisis, real estate is regarded as a safe investment, which boosts demand. And although a reintroduction of the former subsidy for owner-occupied home purchases would create new housing space, it could also lead to price hikes in the property market. A particular problem is the banks' recent tendency to grant mortgages to households on the basis of lower and lower equity capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using longitudinal data, this paper analyses the effect of different forms of social capital on the likelihood of employment and the occupational status of first generation immigrant men in Germany. This allows me to examine to what extent social capital of the bonding and the bridging types yield different returns. The study considers how contacts with natives, co-ethnic ties and family-based social capital are beneficial to the economic position of immigrant men. Random effects and fixed effects models show that strong inter-ethnic ties are beneficial both for employment and occupational status. There is no effect of co-ethnic ties and family-based social capital. It is concluded that, when using panel data, bridging social capital contributes to a better economic position and bonding social capital does not. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Two phenomena make the distinction between services and manufacturing obsolete: the tertiarization of manufacturing and the introduction of information technologies in service industries. Competitiveness of manufacturing firms increasingly depends on the quality of service inputs and on packages of goods and services. Information and communication technologies introduce ‘industrial’ processes of production in service industries. Hence, it does not make sense any more to use categories such as ‘services’ or ‘manufacturing’. Instead, it would be more meaningful to group economic activities according to input configurations. This paper will discuss these issues in the context of the supposed German ‘service gap’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many regions have experienced long-run economic fluctuations generated by the life cycles of their dominant industrial clusters. During the downswings in the 1970s and 1980s, proactive structural policies were typically launched in German regions to combat job losses in their core clusters and to create new jobs in new industries. With respect to the German State of Bremen, this paper provides empirical evidence of: (1) a long-run regional downswing; (2) the potential job effects of proactive regional industrial policy programmes in terms of increasing regional employment, by safeguarding jobs in the regional core industries and creating new jobs in new growth industries; and (3) a time pattern in the job effects, which are related to the different generations of programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the ageing and shrinking labor force, the baby boom cohorts are of increasing importance to the German labor market. This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the work trajectories of two illustrative baby boom cohorts, born in 1959 and 1965. We make use of the new data source BASiD. Using optimal matching methods, we consider clusters to identify typical work trajectories of the two birth cohorts. The clusters are characterized by different degrees of participation in employment. Our results show that work trajectories characterized mainly by full-time employment are declining in relevance and that more diversified work-life concepts are gaining importance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Territorial Agenda of the European Union (Territorial Agenda) document agreed by EU Member States at Leipzig in May 2007 aims at strengthening territorial cohesion in Europe and supporting the growth and jobs and sustainable development objectives of the EU's Lisbon and Gothenburg strategies. It seeks to foster and reconcile sustainable economic growth and job creation, as well as social and ecological development in all EU regions. In light of these aspirations, this article assesses: whether the Territorial Agenda document can be considered to represent progress for climate change mitigation and adaptation when its policy goals are set against the climate change dimensions of its predecessor document, the European Spatial Development Perspective; the evidence and impacts of climate change in Europe; and the EU's wider evolving policy response to climate change. It concludes that the Territorial Agenda can be seen to indicate some progress in the treatment of climate change, even if the territorial cohesion thinking and spatial model that underpin the document continue to be viewed, it seems, primarily as prerequisites for achieving a European social model which aims to couple sustainable economic growth with the achievement of social and economic cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cluster concept in economics contributes to new research on the forest sector's role in national and regional economies, yet incompatible cluster definitions and a variety of methodologies impede an objective comparison of findings. However, governmental statistical reporting systems are not well suited for a direct assessment of the forest sector due to classificatory and methodological shortcomings. This research presents a more standardized approach in the form of a statistics-based method for forest sector benchmarking and monitoring. The specification of the method included an extended cluster definition based on the Classification of Economic Activities in the European Union (NACE) and the validation of two suitable national statistical reporting systems. Testing the method in a case study for Germany demonstrates its capacity to provide consistent socioeconomic information on forest and wood-based industries in a sectoral, spatial and temporal dimension. In 2004, the German forest cluster accounted for 100,000 companies, 150 billion Euro gross turnover and over 900,000 employees (approximately 3.5% of the national economy) and ranked among the strongest manufacturing sectors. Individual wood-based industries indicated regional concentrations in federal states of Germany. Over the past decade, the forest sector was marked by considerable losses in turnover and employment, which increasingly deviated from the overall economic development of Germany. The research contributes to a more standardized, empirical understanding of the forest sector's role in national and regional economies, supporting rational decision making in cluster policy and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors fundamentally question the claims that institutional sclerosis explains the present economic stagnation in Germany. Instead, they argue that the combined effects of restrictive monetary policies, restrictive and sometimes pro-cyclical fiscal policies, and overly moderate wage policies in Germany since the mid-1990s explain the stagnation. Finally, they recommend more expansive fiscal and monetary policies in the short run, and conditions that allow for real wage growth in Germany based on long-run national productivity growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Datenspeicher „Gesellschaftliches Arbeitsvermögen“ (Data Fund of Societal Work Power, DS GAV) of the GDR administration is a unique database from the 1980's that comprises a variety of entries on the socio-demographic and socio-economic traits, the qualification, and the employment of more than 7 million former inhabitants of the GDR. The DS GAV was built up and maintained in order to establish a more efficient human resource management in the centralized state economy of the GDR i.e., to guarantee controlled allocation of manpower and fluctuation of personnel between sectors and enterprises, but the potential of the project was most likely never used in a sufficient way. 15 years after the collapse of state socialism in East Germany, the DS GAV serves as a source for quantitative historical social research towards a sociology of GDR society. A research project on GDR elites and processes of societal differentiation which is part of the Sonderforschungsbereich 580 (Collaborative Research Center), Jena, Germany, uses the DS GAV among other databases from GDR times. The paper discusses historical background, data handling, exploration and first sociological analyses based on the DS GAV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 20 years the wage-education relationships in the United States and Germany have evolved very differently, while the education compositions of employment have evolved in a parallel fashion. In this paper, we show how these patterns shed light on the nature of recent technological change and highlight the importance of taking into account movements in the ratio of human capital to physical capital when examining changes in the returns to skill. Our analysis indicates that the United States could have prevented the increase in wage inequality observed in the 1980's by a faster accumulation of physical capital. (JEL J3, 03) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a dynamic decision model of the firm with a delayed adjustment of employment and investment is developed. Special attention is devoted to dynamic inefficiencies, i.e. underutilizations of the capital stock and labour hoarding. Market disequilibrium is introduced by allowing for a sluggish adjustment of wages and prices. The model of the firm is complemented by explicit aggregation, and the aggregate model is estimated for the FRG for the period 1960 to 1989. The empirical results reveal that dynamic adjustment constraints for employment and capital contributed to the persistence of unemployment in Germany in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can participation in job-related training contribute to the formation and maintenance of adults’ literacy skills? Although evidence suggests that participation in training is related to higher literacy skills, it remains unclear whether this association reflects a causal effect of training participation on literacy (training effects), results from the self-selection of more high-skilled individuals into training (selection effects), or is due to other sources of endogeneity (e.g., omitted variable bias). To unravel these possibilities, we used data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) and its German follow-up, PIAAC-Longitudinal (PIAAC-L). As these unique data offer repeated measures of literacy skills, spaced three years apart, in a large and representative sample, they allowed us to disentangle training effects from selection effects and to account for potential endogeneity. Analyses revealed that, even after taking account of formal education and a host of job characteristics, individuals with higher literacy skills were more likely to participate in training. By contrast, no evidence for effects of training on literacy skills emerged in any of our models, which comprised lagged-dependent, fixed effects, and instrumental-variable models. These findings suggest that, rather than job-related training contributing to literacy development, individuals with higher literacy skills are more likely to participate in training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes announcement effects of the new statutory minimum wage on employment expectations and uncertainties in Germany. Using a difference-in-differences approach applied to the IAB Establishment Panel, employers affected by the minimum wage show an increased employment uncertainty and a 0.9% points drop in their expected employment growth. Using the same identification strategy with data from 2015, the treatment effect on actual employment growth of affected employers matches the employers' expectation. Hence, an analysis of employer expectations seems to be promising to detect employment effects of policy changes before they come into force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore the effects of higher bodymass index (BMI) or obesity on different labourmarket outcomes. Weextend the present literature by investigating the effect of obesity on (i) promotion likelihood and (ii) unemployment duration, in addition to the effect on (iii) wages and (iv) probability of being employed. Wefind an obesity penalty on wages,employment likelihood, promotion likelihood and unemployment duration among females in Germany taking into account of endogeneity of BMI and sample selection. We are also able to identify an unexplained effect of obesity on wages, employment and promotion likelihood for females using decomposition techniques that can be attributed to weight discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The (German) market for law professors fulfils the conditions for a hog cycle: In the short run, supply cannot be extended or limited; future law professors must be hired soon after they first present themselves, or leave the market; demand is inelastic. Using a comprehensive German dataset, we show that the number of market entries today is negatively correlated with the number of market entries eight years ago. This suggests short-sighted behavior of young scholars at the time when they decide to prepare for the market. Using our statistical model, we make out-of-sample predictions for the German academic market in law until 2020. [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]

This article explores how institutional differences matter to the quality of a nation’s jobs; job quality is conceived as a dimension of a national economy’s social performance and thus defined in accordance with civic principles. Focus is on the two archetypical varieties of capitalism, the United States and Germany. Using data from a 2009 telephone survey of U.S. and German workers, we find that the overall attainment of civic principles, as perceived by workers, is no different in Germany than in the United States, even though the German institutional environment should be more conducive to them. This is due to higher worker expectations in Germany and a tendency for employer practices to compensate for the weaker (liberal) institutional environment in the United States. Once these are controlled, German workers report substantially more positive outcomes. We find that institutional differences also matter in how various employer practices are adopted and hence have indirect as well as direct implications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Migrants must often negotiate their rights while being hampered by their precarious resident status, within contexts where the overlap of migration, welfare, labour and gender regimes lead to incoherent and contradictory institutional set-ups that hinder their claiming of rights. The analysis of the legal consciousness of undocumented migrants in Germany reveals a complex set of orientations. On some occasions they waive their rights, accepting lower working conditions in order not to lose their jobs - a finding that confirms existing research. At the same time, they also informally 'enact' rights and access to institutions themselves. They appeal to the experiences of undocumented migrants with laws and access to social services in other countries. The finding of relatively widespread transnational legal consciousness adds a new dimension to the scholarship on migrant legal consciousness and claims-making, which has hitherto portrayed undocumented migrants as living in a legal limbo between their countries of origin and destination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the Czech Microcensus, I investigate differences in the regional impact of open borders on different skill groups in the Czech labour market. According to my results, there are no indications of disproportionate shifts in the skill structure of employment in the districts neighbouring western Germany and Austria compared to non-border districts. However, regarding spatial wage gaps, I find evidence that from 1996 until 2002 the workers in the border region with the lowest degree of skills have a positive wage differential compared to their counterparts in the non-border region, while all other skill groups in the border region have negative values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since unification, the debate about Germany's poor economic performance has focused on supply-side weaknesses, and the associated reform agenda sought to make low-skill labour markets more flexible. We question this diagnosis using three lines of argument. First, effective restnicturing of the supply side in the core advanced industries was carried out by tie private sector using institutions of the coordinated economy, including unions, works councils and block-holder owners. Second, the implementation of orthodox labour market and welfare state reforms created a flexible labour market at the lower end. Third, low growth and high unemployment are largely accounted for by the persistent weakness of domestic aggregate demand, rather than by the failure to reform the supply side. Strong growth in recent years reflects the successful restructuring of the core economy. To explain these developments, we identify the external pressures on companies in the context of increased global competition, the continuing value of the institutions of the coordinated market economy to the private sector and the constraints imposed on the use of stabilizing macroeconomic policy by these institutions. We also suggest how changes in political coalitions allowed orthodox labour market reforms to be implemented in a consensus political system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates whether and to what extent employment policy measures (co-) financed by the European Social Fund in Germany meet their objective. Specifically, it is analysed whether qualification programs for employed workers in the German state of Saxony were effective in terms of employment protection. To this end, a control function approach is implemented which utilizes a unique firm-level dataset. This model explicitly accounts for unobserved heterogeneity between participating and nonparticipating companies by modelling the participation decision process. Our results suggest a positive effect of program participation. However, this positive treatment effect varies considerably across different sub-groups of the treatment as well as the comparison group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Blanchflower and Oswald, a "wage curve" describes the wage level as a down- ward-sloping convex curve of the regional unemployment rate. This article makes two major contributions in the analysis of the wage curve. First, it is recognized that potential endo-geneity of the regional unemployment rate should be subject to testing not only in combination with regional-specific effects but also in combination with time-specific effects. For this purpose, the authors develop a new estimator the spatial first difference 2SLS estimator Second, it is recognized that wages may not only respond to the regional but also to the national unemployment rate. In the empirical analysis, the wage curve for East Germany is estimated using a comprehensive database that provides panel data classified into 114 administrative districts during the 1993 to 1999 period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of play regarding the interaction of labour market and regional economics, in particular the New Economic Geography, was discussed at an international workshop organised by the DIW Berlin, Germany. New theoretical ideas and the more powerful sets of microdata available to scientists today signal an increasing significance of this area of research. An important insight recognised at this workshop was that the labour market does not exist. Individual labour markets develop in very different ways. Wage levels and employment opportunities depend on the regional concentration of these markets. Empirical studies show, for example, that those with higher qualifications in particular benefit from the strength of economic activity in a region. Theoretical studies have concluded that investment in human capital is worthwhile particularly in markets with a high degree of concentration. Labour market policy would be ill advised to rashly follow economic policy recommendations emphasising only regionally undifferentiated measures.

Addresses the issue of whether the 2001 German model of employee relations will resemble a more flexible version of the current one or whether it will emerge as an Anglo-Saxonized German model. Main characteristics and track record of the model of labor relations; Economic effects of a strong employment protection legislation; Assessment of the series of reforms throughout the 1990s.

The persistence of high unemployment has been one of the most important economic problems in Germany for many years. The rise in the unemployment rate was associated with a substantial increase in the share of long-term unemployed people, that is those who have already been unemployed for at least one year. The average monthly hazard rate from unemployment, that is the unemployment outflow in a given month relative to the stock of unemployed people at the end of the previous month, declined from about 30 percent at the beginning of the early eighties to about 15 percent in the mid-eighties, increased somewhat during the strong economic upswing in the mid-eighties and declined again strongly after the recession at the beginning of the nineties. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development almost every second unemployed person has been unemployed for more than a year in Germany, which is about the average in the European Union. One popular hypothesis for the observed decline in the hazard rate is that an individual's employment prospects deteriorate with the duration of the unemployment spell, which is termed negative duration dependence in the literature. An individual's human capital may deteriorate during unemployment and this effect may be the stronger the longer unemployment lasts.

The article evaluates the periodical "Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung," published by the Institute of Employment Research. Some of the topics discussed in the volume 26 issue are as follows: the dual system of vocational training in Germany; employment prospects; changing status passages and structural changes in initial vocational training; case studies on the willingness of East German firms to provide vocational training; unemployment among foreign workers; unemployment rates and developments in labor market policies.

Starting in 1985, (West) German unions began to reduce standard hours on an industry-by-industry basis, in an attempt to raise employment. Whether this ''work-sharing'' works is theoretically ambiguous. I exploit the cross-industry variation in standard hours reductions to examine their impact on actual hours worked, wages, and employment. Analysis of industry-level data suggests that ''work-sharing'' may have reduced employment in the period 1984–1994. Using individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, I substantiate the union claim of ''full wage compensation:'' the hourly wage rose enough to offset the decline in actual hours worked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the labor market aspects of the economic situation in Germany. Examination of one instrument of reform which is the employment promotion companies; Purpose of employment promotion companies; Characteristics of employment promotion companies; Controversy over the value of these companies.