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Adult education may keep older workers productive if they voluntarily engage in learning. Examining a generous partial retirement reform in Germany that encouraged early retirement among male workers, we estimate voluntary adult education activities for early retirees. Using county-level administrative data on all public adult education centers (Volkshochschulen; VHS), we employ a difference-in-differences approach exploiting the predetermined county-specific age structure of men for identification. The results show a strong increase in participation in adult education, specifically in cognitively demanding courses. This supports an intrinsic willingness of older workers to acquire skills and abilities independent of financial incentives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language skills are central to refugee integration and the availability of language courses could thus be a limiting factor. We explore how the most important provider of language courses in Germany, adult education centers (VHS), adapted their course supply to the refugee wave of 2015/2016. Our results highlight two channels through which the local environment can affect opportunities for participation in adult learning: First, exploiting the quasi-random allocation of refugees to counties, we causally estimate by how much VHS scaled up their German language course (DAF) supply as a reaction. Moreover, we show that DAF courses were created almost exclusively at the cost of other courses, that is, by crowding out. Second, we uncover heterogeneities in scaling success. VHS with more prior DAF course experience and larger VHS adapted better, which shows the relevance of initial conditions in course offers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a regression-adjusted matched difference-in-differences framework to estimate pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns to adult education. This approach combines kernel matching with entropy balancing to account for selection bias and sorting on gains. Using data from the German SOEP, we evaluate the effect of work-related training, which represents the largest portion of adult education in OECD countries, on individual social capital and earnings. As the related literature, we estimate positive monetary returns to work-related training. In addition, training participation increases participation in civic, political, and cultural activities while not crowding out social participation. Results are robust against a variety of potentially confounding explanations. These findings imply positive externalities from work-related training over and above the well-documented labor market effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the effects of learning intensity and duration of high school on students' motivation, abilities and achievements at university. The empirical analysis is based on primary panel data from an education reform in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt that reduced university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years but left the curriculum unchanged. The estimates show some impacts on students' perceptions of learning abilities, but the probability of university drop-out and the final grade remain unchanged. By and large, the findings indicate that students affected by the reform are similarly motivated and skilled compared to the counterfactual situation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Growing demands and expectations on the side of policy makers and the public have changed the conditions for academics' engagement in public discussions. At the same time, risks related to this engagement for the professional and even private lives of academics have become apparent. Conducting a survey experiment among 4091 tenured professors in Germany, we study how these conditions causally affect academics' attitudes toward engaging. Consistent with the crowding-out of intrinsic motivation, we find less-positive attitudes when emphasizing demands for engagement by public authorities and public expectations toward science's societal relevance. Effects are particularly strong among professors endorsing science–society relations. Moreover, effects are similar when highlighting risks associated with engagement, but more pronounced for females and younger professors. Emphasizing public support for academics' engagement has no discernible effects. We conclude that considering individual incentive structures and safeguarding against negative repercussions may promote academics' engagement and an adequate representation of the diversity of academics in the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from dictator (DG) and public goods (PGG) game experiments run in classrooms with German pupils (ages 10–16) we analyze the differences in other-regarding behavior across two distinct school tracks which are entered at age 10. We find that pupils in the academic track give more and choose the equal split more often than pupils in the vocational track in the DG, but there are no robust track differences in the PGG. Selection into tracks results in differences in IQ, in personality and in socio-economic background, but these differences appear insufficient to account for the DG differences. A propensity-score-matching econometric model, based on a rich set of individual characteristics, provides evidence that the DG behavior of pupils with similar endowments is directly affected by the distinct track environments. We conclude that the existence of a treatment effect of tracks on other-regarding behavior in the DG of pupils is likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries provide a number of different active labor market policy programs to reduce the risk and the amount of long-term unemployment. Programs focus on particular sets of barriers to employment, such as lack of motivation (via sanctions), lack of job search skills (via job search assistance), lack of experience (via wage subsidies), or lack of marketable skills (via training programs). Numerous studies have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of these activities. The results clarify that a number of programs are not very successful in reaching the intended goals. The major reason may be that the available programs do not (or do not fully) meet the needs of the unemployed. In this paper, differences in the employability between short-term and long-term unemployed persons are studied in order to reveal the crucial factors of job-finding chances. Analyzing the factors driving employment chances is a necessary step to shed light on the needs of job seekers and to derive recommendations for a (re-)arrangement of active labor market policy according to those needs. The empirical analysis is based on unique survey data of short-term and long-term unemployed persons merged with administrative data for Germany, including usually unavailable information. The results highlight three significant and important findings. First, differences in formal skills could only explain a small part of the employability gap between short-term and long-term unemployed persons. Hence, providing courses that aim at increasing skills of the individuals (at least in Germany) may reduce the employment gap, but the scope is limited. Second, differences in obstacles to employment – in particular care obligations – are relevant. If long-term unemployed persons were equal in characteristics to the short-term unemployed, the employability gap between both groups would clearly be narrower. Third, differences in the state of health, and in particular limitations in working ability, largely account for the employment gap. For this reason, policy makers should pay more attention to the last two findings when designing the placement process. The set of active labor market programs should be revised addressing these aspects in order to increase the employability of the participants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines cooperation patterns of firms in the German low-technology region of Lower Bavaria. Particular emphasis is placed on the interplay among the spatial scale of cooperation, the form of cooperation and the type of innovation. Generic results show that overall, firms with a spatially more diverse set of cooperation linkages have a higher likelihood of innovating. However, the innovation outcomes differ depending on the spatial scale of cooperation. While cooperation with regional partners positively correlates with low-threshold innovations, cooperation with spatially distant partners positively correlates with product innovations. Surprisingly, it is application-oriented cooperation that channels the relation in both cases. The findings support the view that innovation of firms in low-technology regions is driven by ‘development’ rather than ‘research’. It also suggests that innovation-driven growth may even be possible in regions with limited values on the traditional innovation-supporting factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the effects of right-wing extremism on the well-being of immigrants based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel ( SOEP) for the years 1984 to 2006 merged with state-level information on election outcomes. The results show that the life satisfaction of immigrants is significantly reduced if right-wing extremism in the native-born population increases. Moreover, the life satisfaction of highly educated immigrants is affected more strongly than that of low-skilled immigrants. This supports the view that policies aimed at making immigration more attractive to the high-skilled have to include measures that reduce xenophobic attitudes in the native-born population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]