Temporary agency work and the user firm's productivity: First evidence from German Panel Data

This paper investigates the relationship between the use of temporary agency work and the user firm's productivity. We hypothesise that modest use enhances numerical flexibility and thus productivity, while excessive use mirrors lowproductivity strategies utilising less social and human capital and primarily aims at circumventing labour market regulations. In contrast to the sparse existing literature on this issue, we apply a large panel data set and fixed effects techniques. We find a robust hump-shaped relationship between the extent of temporary agency work use and the user firm's productivity, which corroborates our hypotheses.Das vorliegende Papier untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen Leiharbeitseinsatz und der Produktivität der Entleihfirma. Ausgangspunkt ist die Überlegung, dass moderater Leiharbeitseinsatz die numerische Flexibilität und damit Produktivität des Entleihers erhöht, während exzessive Nutzung von Leiharbeit eine Niedrigproduktivitätsstrategie mit geringem Einsatz von Human- und Sozialkapital widerspiegeln dürfte, die in erster Linie auf die Umgehung von Arbeitsmarktregulierungen abzielt. Im Gegensatz zur spärlichen Literatur zu den Produktivitätseffekten von Leiharbeit nutzen wir einen großen Paneldatensatz und Fixe-Effekte-Schätzungen. Im Einklang mit unseren Hypothesen finden wir einen robusten buckelförmigen Zusammenhang zwischen der Produktivität des Entleihers und dem Anteil an Leiharbeitnehmern in seiner Belegschaft

Firm leadership and the gender pay gap: Do active owners discriminate more than hired managers?

Auf Grundlage eines großen kombinierten Firmen-Beschäftigten-Datensatzes untersuchen wir Unterschiede im unerklärten geschlechtsspezifischen Lohndifferential zwischen eigentümer- und managergeführten Betrieben für Deutschland. Wir stellen die Hypothese auf, dass eigentümergeführte Betriebe höhere Lohndifferentiale aufweisen sollten, da diskriminierende aktive Eigentümer im Vergleich zu diskriminierenden angestellten Managern in der Auslebung ihrer gewinnsenkenden diskriminatorischen Präferenzen weniger eingeschränkt sein dürften. Empirisch finden wir statistisch wie ökonomisch signifikant höhere Lohndifferentiale in eigentümergeführten Betrieben. Eine gründlichere Untersuchung dieser Ergebnisse durch Beschränkung der Stichproben auf hinreichend ähnliche eigentümer- und managergeführte Betriebe lässt diese markanten Lohndifferentiale jedoch verschwinden. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten daher nicht darauf hin, dass aktive Eigentümer per se mehr diskriminieren.Using a large linked employer-employee data set for Germany, we investigate differences in the unexplained gender pay gap between owner-run and manager-run firms. We hypothesise that owner-run firms have higher pay gaps because active owners are less inhibited to live out profit-reducing discriminatory preferences against women than hired managers. We indeed find that the pay gaps are significantly higher in owner-run plants, both statistically and economically. Yet, scrutinising these results by restricting our analysis to plants that only differ in leadership regime, this substantial difference disappears. Therefore, our findings do not support that active owners are more discriminatory per se

Centralized vs. Decentralized Wage Formation: The Role of Firms' Production Technology

This paper is the first to show theoretically and empirically how firms' production technology affects the choice of their preferred wage formation regime. Our theoretical framework predicts, first, that the larger the total factor productivity of a firm, the more likely it is to opt for centralized wage formation where it can hide behind less productive firms. Second, the larger a firm's scale elasticity, the higher its incentive to choose centralized rather than decentralized wage setting due to labor cost and straitjacket effects. As firms in Germany are allowed to choose their wage formation regime, we test these two hypotheses with representative establishment data for West Germany. We find that establishments with centralized bargaining agreements indeed have economically and statistically significantly larger total factor productivities and scale elasticities than comparable establishments outside the centralized bargaining regime

Centralized vs. decentralized wage formation: The role of firms' production technology

This paper is the first to show theoretically and empirically how firms' production technology affects the choice of their preferred wage formation regime. Our theoretical framework predicts, first, that the larger the total factor productivity of a firm, the more likely it is to opt for centralized wage formation where it can hide behind less productive firms. Second, the larger a firm's scale elasticity, the higher its incentive to choose centralized rather than decentralized wage setting due to labor cost and straitjacket effects. As firms in Germany are allowed to choose their wage formation regime, we test these two hypotheses with representative establishment data for West Germany. We find that establishments with centralized bargaining agreements indeed have economically and statistically significantly larger total factor productivities and scale elasticities than comparable establishments outside the centralized bargaining regime.Diese Studie zeigt erstmals theoretisch und empirisch, wie die Produktionstechnologie die betriebliche Wahl des Lohnfindungssystems beeinflusst. Unser theoretisches Modell erlaubt zwei Vorhersagen: Erstens, je höher die totale Faktorproduktivität einer Firma ist, desto wahrscheinlicher entscheidet sie sich für eine zentralisierte Lohnfindung auf Branchenebene, wo sie sich hinter weniger produktiven Firmen verstecken kann. Zweitens, je höher die Skalenelastizität einer Firma, desto höher ist aufgrund von Arbeitskosten- und Zwangsjacken-Effekten ihr Anreiz, eine zentralisierte statt einer dezentralisierten Lohnfindung zu wählen. Da Arbeitgeber in Deutschland das Lohnfindungsregime frei wählen können, überprüfen wir diese Hypothesen mit repräsentativen Betriebsdaten für Westdeutschland. Es zeigt sich, dass Betriebe mit zentralisierten (Branchen-)Tarifverträgen tatsächlich ökonomisch und statistisch signifikant höhere totale Faktorproduktivitäten und Skalenelastizitäten aufweisen als vergleichbare Betriebe mit dezentraler Lohfindung

Centralized vs. decentralized wage formation: The role of firms' production technology

This paper is the first to show theoretically and empirically how firms' production technology affects the choice of their preferred wage formation regime. Our theoretical framework predicts, first, that the larger the total factor productivity of a firm, the more likely it is to opt for centralized wage formation where it can hide behind less productive firms. Second, the larger a firm's scale elasticity, the higher its incentive to choose centralized rather than decentralized wage setting due to labor cost and straitjacket effects. As firms in Germany are allowed to choose their wage formation regime, we test these two hypotheses with representative establishment data for West Germany. We find that establishments with centralized bargaining agreements indeed have economically and statistically significantly larger total factor productivities and scale elasticities than comparable establishments outside the centralized bargaining regime

Über die Nutzung der fehlerhaften DNA-Reparatur BRCA1 defizienter Pankreaskarzinomzellen in der medikamentösen Therapie

In this study we show that BRCA1-deficient murine pancreatic carcinoma cells are sensitive to DNA damaging drugs like Mitomycin C and Cisplatin

Phase Transitions from Saddles of the Potential Energy Landscape

The relation between saddle points of the potential of a classical many-particle system and the analyticity properties of its thermodynamic functions is studied. For finite systems, each saddle point is found to cause a nonanalyticity in the Boltzmann entropy, and the functional form of this nonanalytic term is derived. For large systems, the order of the nonanalytic term increases unboundedly, leading to an increasing differentiability of the entropy. Analyzing the contribution of the saddle points to the density of states in the thermodynamic limit, our results provide an explanation of how, and under which circumstances, saddle points of the potential energy landscape may (or may not) be at the origin of a phase transition in the thermodynamic limit. As an application, the puzzling observations by Risau-Gusman et al. on topological signatures of the spherical model are elucidated.Comment: 5 pages, no figure

Thermally Assisted Spin Hall Effect

The spin polarized charge transport is systematically analyzed as a thermally driven stochastic process. The approach is based on Kramers' equation describing the semiclassical motion under the inclusion of stochastic and damping forces. Due to the relativistic spin-orbit coupling the damping experiences a relativistic correction leading to an additional contribution within the spin Hall conductivity. A further contribution to the conductivity is originated from the averaged underlying crystal potential, the mean value of which depends significantly on the electric field. We derive an exact expression for the electrical conductivity. All corrections are estimated in lowest order of a relativistic approach and in the linear response regime.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur