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In this study we evaluate the impact of a literacy program for internally displaced female refugees in Afghanistan. The results of the evaluation show that the program was beneficial both for the w...

Building on Lazear's skill weights approach, we study the effect of having more or less heterogeneity in the training curriculum on the demand for and supply of apprentices. Modernizations of training curricula provide us with a quasi-experimental setting as these modernizations can be seen as a relatively exogenous shock. We argue that firms will train more apprentices when they have more choice options in the training curriculum because of (1) the higher productivity of graduates who have acquired more skills that are relevant for the firm, and (2) firms’ higher market power in the wage bargaining process with graduates. We test this hypothesis on data on the demand for apprentices in Germany in all occupations from 2004 to 2014. We find that a more heterogeneous curriculum increases both firms’ demand for and the supply of apprentices.

In this paper, we investigate the effects of works councils on apprenticeship training in Germany. The German law attributes works councils substantial information and co-determination rights to training-related issues. Thus, works councils may also have an impact on the cost-benefit relation of workplace training. Using detailed firm-level data containing information on the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training, we find that firms with works councils make a significantly higher net investment in training compared to firms without such an institution. We also find that the fraction of former trainees still employed with the same firm 5 years after training is significantly higher in the presence of works councils, thus enabling firms to recoup training investments over a longer time horizon. Furthermore, all works council effects are much more pronounced for firms covered by collective bargaining agreements.

This paper analyses the impact of risk attitudes on the decision to become self-employed among individuals who grew up under the communist regime in Ukraine, which banned self-employment so that individuals could not observe what it is like to be self-employed. Since the intra-family transmission of self-employment experiences was largely shut down, the observed correlation between risk preferences and self-employment after transition is unlikely to be driven by parents transmitting self-employment experience and risk preferences to their children. Robustness checks on a sample of East Germans confirm that such a third factor explanation is implausible, thus shedding light on the causal nature of the relation between risk preferences and the decision to become self-employed.

In this article we study the joint decision process of changing the structure of jobs and laying off individual workers in a firm that downsizes its workforce. A hierarchical decision model is proposed and estimated using personnel data from a firm in demise comparing the characteristics of the individual workers and the structure of the firm's labour force before and after its reorganization. Our results show that workers in jobs in the top levels of each skill group's hierarchy are better protected against downsizing due to larger productivity shocks and larger firing costs.

Een eerdere versie van dit artikel is gepresenteerd tijdens de Nederlandse ArbeidsmarktDag (NAD), 6 oktober 2011.

Welche Effekte hat die Zuwanderung nach Deutschland auf Wachstum und Beschäftigung? Schließen Zuwanderer die Fachkräftelücken? Ist Deutschland ein Einwanderungsland? Die Studie entwickelt ein empirisch fundiertes Bild über die Veränderungen in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Deutschland bis 2030. Sie identifiziert die sich abzeichnenden Arbeitskräfteengpässe und empfiehlt Maßnahmen zur Arbeitskräftesicherung. Dazu gehören die Integration der Migranten, der Ausbau der Erwachsenenbildung und eine langfristige Familienpolitik auf der Basis einer verbesserten Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf. Die Studie wurde im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums für Arbeit und Soziales erarbeitet. What are the effects of migration into Germany on growth and employment? Can immigrants close the skilled worker gap? Is Germany an immigration country? The study develops an empirically founded profile of changes in the economy and society in Germany until 2030. It identifies skilled worker bottlenecks and offers recommendations for ensuring a sufficient supply of workers. That includes the integration of migrants, an expansion of the adult education system and a long-term, forward-looking family policy on the basis of an improved compatibility of family and work life. The study was commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Bundesministerium für Arbeit und Soziales).

This paper compares results from the empirical literature on internal labor markets with outcomes from analyzing personnel data of the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It sheds light on differences in the functioning of internal labor markets between periods of workforce growth and decline. Despite substantial variation in individual wages, careers are important as wages are strongly related to job levels. Promotion rates fall and demotion rates rise when the firm enters the stage of demise. Vertical and lateral job mobility are important in internal labor market careers as they stimulate wage growth and reduce the lay-off risk.

We relate risk attitudes and patience of young graduates from high-school, college and university, measured around the time that they start their labor market career in a large representative survey, to the riskiness and timing of earnings in the occupations they choose to work in. We find a systematic positive and significant relation between willingness to take risks and measures of occupational earnings risks and employment risk that we derive from a large administrative data set. Patient individuals are significantly more likely to choose for occupations with a steep earnings profile. Individuals whose economic preferences are not well aligned with the riskiness and timing of earnings in their initial occupation are more likely to change to an occupation that better matches their economic preferences.

Der Bericht führt die Überlegungen der Publikation 'Arbeitsmarkt 2030 - Eine strategische Vorausschau auf Demografie, Beschäftigung und Bildung in Deutschland' durch eine Differenzierung nach Betriebsgröße fort. Die Autoren gehen zwei Hauptfragen nach: Wie wird sich der sektorale, berufliche und qualifikationsspezifische Strukturwandel in der Nachfrage nach Arbeitskräften der Betriebe unterschiedlicher Größe niederschlagen? Und wie werden sich die verschieden großen Betriebe im Wettbewerb um Arbeitskräfte behaupten?

We investigate the effects of works councils on apprenticeship training. The German law attributes works councils substantial information and co-determination rights on training-related issues. Thus, works councils may also have an impact on the cost-benefit relation of workplace training. Using detailed firm-level data containing information on the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training in Germany, we apply econometric matching methods to identify works council effects. We find that firms with works councils make a significantly higher net investment in apprenticeship training compared to firms without such an institution. However, we also find that the fraction of workers still employed with the same firm five years after training is significantly higher in the presence of works councils, enabling firms to recoup training investments over a longer time horizon. All works council effects, however, are much more pronounced for firms covered by collective bargaining agreements.

Flexible jobs make up a larger share of the Dutch labour market than in almost any other Western country. Recent graduates in the Netherlands are particularly likely to take flexible jobs. In this study we examine why recent graduates enter into temporary contracts and whether flexible jobs offer a poorer match for graduates' qualifications than permanent jobs. We find that recent graduates that enter into flexible jobs face large wage penalties, a worse job match and less training participation than graduates who take permanent jobs, even after correcting for differences in ability. When the labour market situation for a particular field of education deteriorates, more recent graduates are forced into flexible jobs, threatening their position on the labour market in the long run. Flexible work among recent graduates is unrelated to their willingness to take risks. Only for university graduates is there any indication that flexible jobs may provide a stepping stone to permanent employment.

In this paper, we compare experience-earnings profiles of employees with vocational and general education background in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, three countries with fundamentally different education systems. Using Mixed-Effects Linear Regression Models we show that earnings of vocationally educated employees are higher in the initial phase of their career. However, those with a general education background catch up over time in the labor market. Life-cycle differences in earnings are more pronounced in Germany than in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

The porter hypothesis postulates that the costs of compliance with environmental standards may be offset by adoption of innovations they trigger. We model this hypothesis using a game of timing of technology adoption. We will show that times of adoption will be earlier if the non-adoption tax is higher. The environmental tax will turn the preemption game with low profits into a game with credible precommitment generating higher profits (pro-porter). If there is a precommitment game without environmental taxes, the introduction of a tax will lead to lower profits (anti-porter). An evaluation of the empirical literature indicates that the porter hypothesis will hold even for profit-maximizing firms under multiple market imperfections such as imperfect competition, x-inefficiency, and agency costs. These are more likely to be present in sectors with large firms. In many case studies that we have evaluated, though, we detected an element of explicit or implicit subsidies for environmentally friendly behaviour, which is in line with pigovian policies.

In this paper we document the wage structure and labor mobility in the Netherlands in the period 1999-2003. We explain the importance of wage-setting institutions in the Netherlands and the main actors. The analyses are based on administrative sources allowing for comparisons between and within firms, and in which workers can be followed over time. In the period investigated the Netherlands experienced an increase in wage inequality. Despite the centralized system of wage negotiations in the Netherlands, our findings suggest that market forces were the main determinant of wage growth. Workers with similar wages experienced similar wage increases in firms of different sizes. Wages increases were larger for low-skilled workers in industries with large increases in demand than in other industries. Variation in wage growth was mainly at the individual level. Firm-level wage increases accounted for only 12 % of the total variation.

In this paper we document the wage structure and labor mobility in the Netherlands in the period 1999-2003. We explain the importance of wage-setting institutions in the Netherlands and the main actors. The analyses are based on administrative sources allowing for comparisons between and within firms, and in which workers can be followed over time. In the period investigated the Netherlands experienced an increase in wage inequality. Despite the centralized system of wage negotiations in the Netherlands, our findings suggest that market forces were the main determinant of wage growth. Workers with similar wages experienced similar wage increases in firms of different sizes. Wages increases were larger for low-skilled workers in industries with large increases in demand than in other industries. Variation in wage growth was mainly at the individual level. Firm-level wage increases accounted for only 12 % of the total variation.

We combine post-displacement survey data with information from personnel files of a displacing firm in order to reveal sources of worker heterogeneity in search time and wage losses. The Fokker Personnel Files and Survey are described in detail. We develop a dynamic reservation wage with updating. The method of updating is based on the simple idea that job seekers are informed about successful matches of their former colleagues similar to them. The data off er empirical support for the updating model. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Displaced workers experience significant and long-lasting wage losses. However, the average wage losses hide the tremendous differences among workers. So far, the differences are explained by differences in accumulated on-the-job experience, educa- tion level, age, and so on, but a large variation among similar workers remain. In this paper we investigate the effect of general and specific human capital on the unemployment duration and wage losses during the first three years following displacement. Information on the specificity of a job or function allows us to quantify the impact on the wage losses. We are able to rank positions in terms of the specificity of accumulated human capital.

In this paper, we compare experience-earnings profiles of employees with vocational and general education background in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, three countries with fundamentally different education systems. Using Mixed-Effects Linear Regression Models we show that earnings of employees with vocational education are higher in the initial phase of their career. However, generally educated catch up over the time on the labor market. Lifecycle differences in earnings are more pronounced in Germany and the United Kingdom than in the Netherlands.

Employees who work in complex environments are often evaluated by their supervisors. Data on these evaluations promise to be valuable for analyzing career dynamics and human resources practices. However, existing literature on subjective evaluations is based on data from individual firms. Furthermore, how supervisors evaluate workers and how firms use these evaluations might vary substantially with context, precisely because these evaluations are subjective. Thus, little is known regarding whether findings from single-firm studies generalize to broader settings. We examine personnel data from six large companies and establish how subjective performance ratings correlate with objective career outcomes. We find many similarities across firms in how these ratings correlate with base pay, bonuses, promotions, demotions, separations, quits, and dismissals and cautiously propose these as empirical regularities.

This paper shows that flexible jobs are very common among graduates entering the Dutch labour market, and that these jobs are generally less attractive relative to permanent jobs. Our main conclusion is that the selection of recent graduates into either permanent or flexible jobs in the Netherlands mainly takes place at the demand side of the labour market, i.e., by employers. There is no indication that flexible work among graduates entering the labour market is related to their willingness to take risks. Only at university level are there any indications that the selection process is different.