50 research outputs found
A New Targeting - A New Take-Up? Non-Take-Up of Social Assistance in Germany after Social Policy Reforms
Wages in high-tech start-ups - do academic spin-offs pay a wage premium?
Due to their origin from universities, academic spin‐offs operate at the forefront of the
technological development. Therefore, spin‐offs exhibit a skill‐biased labour demand, i.e. spin‐offs
have a high demand for employees with cutting edge knowledge and technical skills. In order to accommodate
this demand, spin‐offs may have to pay a relative wage premium compared to other
high‐tech start‐ups. However, neither a comprehensive theoretical assessment nor the empirical
literature on wages in start‐ups unambiguously predicts the existence and the direction of wage differentials
between spin‐offs and non‐spin‐offs. This paper addresses this research gap and examines
empirically whether or not spin‐offs pay their employees a wage premium. Using a unique linked
employer‐employee data set of German high‐tech start‐ups, we estimate Mincer‐type wage regressions
applying the Hausman‐Taylor panel estimator. Our results show that spin‐offs do not pay a
wage premium in general. However, a notable exception from this general result is that spin‐offs that
commercialise new scientific results or methods provide higher wages to employees with linkages to
the university sector – either as university graduates or as student workers
Optimal Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance in a Life-Cycle Model of Family Labor Supply and Savings
Selektivität und direkte Wirkungen von Vermittlungsgutscheinen: Empirische Befunde aus der Einführungsphase
In April 2002 German government introduced job placement vouchers as a new instrument of active labour market policy to foster the transition of unemployed to jobs. This paper investigates the demand, the treatment effect of the treated and the economic efficiency of job placement vouchers issued from May 2003 to June 2004. The analysis employs a large sample of unemployed individuals from administrative data collected by the German Federal Employment Agency. 20 percent of the West German and 37 percent of the East German unemployed demanded a voucher. According to the microeconometric results the treatment impact of the treated is positive. 5 out of 100 voucher recipients found a job as a result of the instrument. An additional analysis of the cost and returns of the voucher scheme reveals that the return remains positive if no more than 70 per cent of the direct effects are compensated by indirect (substitution) effects. Copyright Verein für Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006