Subsidizing Extra Jobs: Promoting Employment by Taming the Unions

We study the subsidization of extra jobs in a general equilibrium framework. While the previous literature focuses on symmetric marginal employment subsidies where firms are rewarded when they increase employment but punished when they reduce their workforce, we consider an asymmetric scheme that only rewards employment expansion. This changes the incidence substantially. In the asymmetric case without punishment, it becomes less costly for firms to lay off a substantial fraction of their workforce when trade unions raise wages. This tames the unions, which causes wage moderation and raises aggregate employment and welfare. For moderate subsidy rates, all unions prefer to restrain their wage claims. At sufficiently high subsidy rates, labor market conditions improve so much that some unions enforce higher wages and let their firms shrink. This displacement of firms might have a negative impact on employment and welfare.unemployment, marginal employment subsidies, general equilibrium

Better an insecure job than no job at all? Unemployment, job insecurity and subjective wellbeing

We analyze the impact of a person’s current employment status and expectations about his or her future labor market status on life satisfaction, using long -run panel data for Germany. Our findings suggest that future expectations (measured by perceived job security for the employed and chances to find a new job for the unemployed) are at least as important for a person ’s subjective well-being as his or her current employment status. This implies that an unemployed person who thinks it will be easy to find a new job might be happier than if he had an insecure job. There might be circum¬stances under which having no job is less harmful for subjective well-being than being employed in an insecure one.Financial Development

Subsidizing Extra Jobs: Promoting Employment by Taming the Unions

We study the subsidization of extra jobs in a general equilibrium framework. While the previous literature focuses on symmetric marginal employment subsidies where firms are rewarded when they increase employment but punished when they reduce their workforce, we consider an asymmetric scheme that only rewards employment expansion. This changes the incidence substantially. In the asymmetric case without punishment, it becomes less costly for firms to lay off a substantial fraction of their workforce when trade unions raise wages. This tames the unions, which causes wage moderation and raises aggregate employment and welfare. For moderate subsidy rates, all unions prefer to restrain their wage claims. At sufficiently high subsidy rates, labor market conditions improve so much that some unions enforce higher wages and let their firms shrink. This displacement of firms might have a negative impact on employment and welfare.marginal employment subsidies, unemployment, general equilibrium

Quantifying the psychological costs of unemployment: the role of permanent income

Unemployment causes significant losses in the quality of life. In addition to reducing individual income, it also creates non-pecuniary, psychological costs. We quantify these non-pecuniary losses by using the life satisfaction approach. In contrast to previous studies, we apply Friedman’s (1957) permanent income hypothesis by distinguishing between temporary and permanent effects of income changes. This allows us to account for intertemporal spillovers of income compensations. Our results show that, without this distinction, the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment are overestimated by roughly one-third. Nevertheless, the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment with this modified quantification method still amount to 2.3 (1.5) times the pure pecuniary costs of unemployment for men (women).This confirms the high value of work for life satisfaction.unemployment, happiness, life satisfaction, permanent income

Quantifying the Psychological Costs of Unemployment: The Role of Permanent Income

Unemployment causes significant losses in the quality of life. In addition to reducing individual income, it also creates non-pecuniary, psychological costs. We quantify these non-pecuniary losses by using the life satisfaction approach. In contrast to previous studies, we apply Friedman's (1957) permanent income hypothesis by distinguishing between temporary and permanent effects of income changes. This allows us to account for intertemporal spillovers of income compensations. Our results show that, without this distinction, the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment are overestimated by roughly one-third. Nevertheless, the non-pecuniary costs of unemployment with this modified quantification method still amount to 2.3 (1.5) times the pure pecuniary costs of unemployment for men (women).This confirms the high value of work for life satisfaction.unemployment, happiness, life satisfaction, permanent income

Low-Wage Jobs - Stepping Stone or Poverty Trap?

We examine whether low-paid jobs have an effect on the occupational advancement probability of unemployed persons to obtain better-paid jobs in the future (stepping-stone effect). We make use of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and apply a dynamic random-effects probit model. Our results suggest that low-wage jobs can act as stepping stones to better-paid work. The improvement of the chance to obtain a high-wage job by accepting low-paid work is particularly large for less-skilled persons and for individuals with longer unemployment experiences. Low-paid work is less beneficial if the job is also associated with a low social status.low pay dynamics, unemployment dynamics, dynamic random effects models, state dependence

Wage and Employment Effects of Non-Binding Minimum Wages

Common wisdom holds that the introduction of a non-binding minimum wage is irrelevant for actual wages and employment. Empirical and experimental research, however, has shown that the introduction of a minimum wage can raise even those wages that were already above the new minimum wage. In this paper, we analyze how these findings can be explained by theoretical wage bargaining models between unions and firms. While the Nash bargaining solution is unaffected by minimum wages below initially bargained wages, we show that such minimum wages can drive up wages – and be harmful to employment – when bargaining follows the Kalai-Smorodinsky solution.minimum wage, bargaining, Kalai-Smorodinsky solution

Income, Happiness, and the Disutility of Labour

We reexamine the claim that the effect of income on subjective well-being suffers from a systematic downward bias if one ignores that higher income is typically associated with more work effort. We analyze this claim using German panel data, controlling for individual unobserved heterogeneity, and specifying the impact of working hours in a non-monotonic form. Our results suggest that the impact of working hours on happiness is rather small and exhibits an inverse U-shape. We do not find evidence that leaving working hours out of the analysis leads to an underestimation of the income effect.Happiness, Life Satisfaction, Income, Working Hours

Changing identity: Retiring from unemployment

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984-2009, we follow persons from their working life into their retirement years and find that, on average, employed people maintain their life satisfaction upon retirement, while long-term unemployed people report a substantial increase in their life satisfaction when they retire. These results are robust to controlling for changes in other life circumstances and suggest that retiring is associated with a switch in the relevant social norms that causes an increase in identity utility for the formerly unemployed. This is supportive of the idea that, by including identity in the utility function, results from the empirical life satisfaction literature can be reconciled with the economic theory of individual utility. --life satisfaction,retirement,unemployment,identity,social norm

Warum Zuverdienstregeln und Kinderzuschlag negative Arbeitsanreize setzen (Negative Arbeitsanreize durch Zuverdienstregeln und Kinderzuschlag) : Themenschwerpunkt Arbeitslosengeld II [zwei]

Der Artikel beschreibt, warum es nach der bisherigen Freibetragsregelung zu nicht beabsichtigten, 100% übersteigenden Transferentzugsraten kam und wie die Neuregelung dieses Problem vermeidet. Darüber hinaus wird das weiterhin bestehende Problem beim Kinderzuschlag dargestellt und es werden entsprechende Lösungsmöglichkeiten entwickelt.Arbeitslosigkeit; Sozialhilfe; Deutschland