The effectiveness of targeted wage subsidies for hard-to-place workers

Targeted wage subsidies paid to employers are an important element of active labour market policies in Germany. This article uses propensity score matching to investigate their effect on the employment and unemployment rates of subsidized hard-to-place workers. In a first scenario, we estimate the average treatment effect of a subsidy on previously unemployed individuals. A second scenario analyses the effects of a subsidy on employment probabilities conditional on taking-up employment. The third scenario investigates the additional effect of a subsidy on individuals, who have participated in a short-term training measure beforehand. Summing up and in line with the literature, the results show that subsidies have a favourable effect on the employment prospects of participants.

Deciphering the regulatory logic of a Drosophila enhancer through systematic sequence mutagenesis and quantitative image analysis

Transcriptional enhancers are short DNA sequences controlling the spatial activity, timing and levels of eukaryotic gene transcription. Their quantitative transcriptional output is thought to result from the number and organization of transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs). Yet, how the various aspects of regulatory information are encoded in enhancer sequences remains elusive. We addressed this question by quantifying the spatial activity of the yellow spot enhancer active in developing Drosophila wings. To identify which enhancer DNA sequence contributes to enhancer activity, we introduced systematic mutations along the enhancer. We developed an analytic framework that uses comprehensive descriptors to quantify reporter assay in transgenic flies and measure spatial variations in activity levels across the wing. Our analysis highlights an unexpected density of regulatory information in the spot enhancer sequence. Furthermore, it reveals an unanticipated regulatory logic underlying the activity of this enhancer, and how it reads the wing trans-regulatory landscape to encode a spatial pattern

Recruitment and selection of older workers

In recent decades there has been a shift in labor market public policy from a culture of early retirement to one centered on hiring older workers, i.e., those aged over 50. The culture of early exit flourished in most major industrialized economies until the 1990s. Previously, older workers who left the workforce prematurely were regarded to be early retirees rather than unemployed. Their joblessness ended not with their reentering the workforce but transferring to pensions (Casey and Laczko 1989). Subsequently, there has been a policy shift towards prolonging working lives that has been generated by population aging in general as well as the aging of workforces in specific industry sectors, such as nursing and teaching