Female wage profiles: An additive mixed model approach to employment breaks due to childcare

The paper investigates female wage profiles in West-Germany between 1984 and 2008 using data from the German Socio Economic Panel. The empirical study focuses on the short-run wageloss due to childcare and the long-run wage-profile in post-birth employment, respectivly. This is compared with wage profiles from females who are not mothers. As statistical analysis tool Additive Mixed Models are employed and estimated seperatetly for different levels of educational achievements. The models are dynamic in that main covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with working experience. The intention of the paper is to demonstrate with state of the art statistical models how wages are affected by labour market experience, employment interruptions and other covariates. The educational level of the mother and the time off the job influence the amount of wageloss and the wage profile afterwards. Labour market experience, as one major determinant of human capital, influences wages heavily and follows a dynamic patter. --Additive Mixed Models,Dynamic Effects,Maternity Leave,Panel Data,Employment Interruption,Wage Profiles,Female Labour Supply

Unemployment duration in Germany: A comprehensive study with dynamic hazard models and P-Splines

This paper makes use of data from the German socio-economic panel to gain new insights into the determinants of unemployment duration in Germany. Due to substantial differences with respect to labour market outcomes we follow a stratified approach with respect to gender and ethnicity. To analyze unemployment duration comprehensively, dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with unemployment duration and others enter the model in an a-priori unspecified functional form. We control for unobserved heterogeneity by following a modern frailty approach. As fitting routine we use penalized spline smoothing effects using available software in R. We demonstrate with state-of-the-art regression models how effects of covariables change, either over duration time or within their range and reveal substantial differences across gender end ethnicities for the German labour market. Among others we find large effects of family characteristics for women and a minor importance of formal qualifications for immigrants. --Unemployment,Duration Time Models,Dynamic Effects,Penalized Splines,German Socio-Economic Panel,Ethnic Labour Market Segmentation

Unemployment Duration in Germany – A comprehensive study with dynamic hazard models and P-Splines

This paper makes use of data from the German socio-economic panel to gain new insights into the determinants of unemployment duration in Germany. Due to substantial differences with respect to labour market outcomes we follow a stratified approach with respect to gender and ethnicity. To analyze unemployment duration comprehensively, dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate e.ects are allowed to vary smoothly with unemployment duration and others enter the model in an a-priori unspecified functional form. We control for unobserved heterogeneity by following a modern frailty approach. As fitting routine we employ penalized spline smoothing effects using available software in R. We demonstrate with state-of-the-art regression models how effects of covariables change, either over duration time or within their domain and reveal substantial differences across gender and ethnicities for the German labour market. Among others we find large effects of family characteristics for women and a minor importance of formal qualifications for immigrants.Unemployment, Duration Time Models, Dynamic Effets, Penalized Splines, German Socio-Economic Panel, Ethnic Labour Market Segmentation

Critical thresholds for budget consolidations: a semi-parametric approach

© 2015 Taylor & Francis. While a lot is known regarding the determinants of successful fiscal consolidations, previous studies do not allow for the possibility of nonlinearities in factors impacting budget consolidations. By using a semi-parametric modelling approach employing penalized spline regression on a data-set for 28 OECD countries for the period 1978–2007, we demonstrate the existence of critical thresholds not only for the initial debt level but also for the accompanying monetary policy. The latter result shows when monetary policy matters most and suggests, counter to previous studies, that too lax a monetary policy decreases the success probability of a fiscal adjustment episode

Nonlinear growth effects of taxation: A semi-parametric approach using average marginal Tax Rates

One of the major challenges of empirical tax research is the identification and calculation of appropriate tax data. While there is consensus that average marginal tax rates are most suitable for studying the effects of tax policy on economic growth, because of data limitations the calculation of marginal tax rates has been limited to the USA and the UK. This paper provides calculations of average marginal tax rates for the four Scandinavian countries using the methodologies of Seater (1982, 1985) and Barro and Sahasakul (1983, 1986). Then, by pooling the newly calculated tax rates for the Scandinavian countries with the data for the USA and the UK, we investigate the effects of tax policy shocks on the per capita GDP growth rate. Our results suggest that an increase in average marginal tax rates has a negative impact on economic growth. Employing additive mixed panel models with penalized splines as estimation approach, we show that changes in tax rates have nonlinear effects. Increasing average marginal tax rates turn out to be the most distorting at relatively moderate tax rates. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Working females : a modern statistical approach

Kuhlenkasper T. Working females : a modern statistical approach. Bielefeld (Germany): Bielefeld University; 2010.The thesis analyzes the changing employment and economic situation of females when they become mothers. Two major questions are focused in the thesis: First, when do mothers return to their previous employment after bearing a child? Secondly, what are the individual economic consequences after having returned to the labor market? Both questions are analyzed empirically with latest statistical methods. The first major part of the thesis, corresponding to the above first motivated question, investigates maternity leave behavior in West Germany for females being employed between 1995 and 2006 using data from the German Socio Economic Panel. The observational study focuses on the investigation of individual and family-related covariate effects on the duration of maternity leave following first or second childbirth, respectively. Dynamic duration time models are used in which covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with duration of being in maternity leave. The intention of this part is to demonstrate with state of the art models how effects of covariates change over time and to analyze substantial differences between maternity leaves following first and second childbirth. Particularly the personal income of mothers and the educational attainment influence the decision when to return into employment. The leave period following second birth is influenced by the mothers attachment to the labor market between their two maternity leave periods. As fitting routine penalized spline smoothing effects is employed using available software in R (www.r-project.org), controlling for unobserved heterogeneity with a discrete mixture approach. The second major part of the thesis, corresponding to the secondly motivated question, investigates female wage profiles in West-Germany between 1984 and 2008 using again data from the German Socio Economic Panel. The empirical study focuses on the short-run wage loss due to childcare and the long-run wage-profile in post-birth employment, respectively. This is compared with wage profiles from females who are not mothers. As statistical analysis tool Additive Mixed Models are employed and estimated separately for different levels of educational achievements. The models are dynamic in that main covariate effects are allowed to vary smoothly with working experience. The intention of this chapter is to demonstrate with state of the art statistical models how wages are affected by labor market experience, employment interruptions and other covariates. The educational level of the mother and the time off the job influence the amount of wage loss and the wage profile afterwards. Labor market experience, as one major determinant of human capital, influences wages heavily and follows a dynamic pattern. Unobserved heterogeneity is taken into account by including individual random effects yielding an Additive Mixed Model. The fitting routine, employing penalized splines, is again carried out using the software package R