How EU member states have tried (and failed) to reach agreement on GMOs - and what it could mean for EU decision-making

The regulation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is a controversial topic across the EU, and member states have repeatedly failed to reach decisions on the issue. This deadlock led in part to a proposal by the European Commission in February 2017 to fundamentally change the EU's comitology procedure, with new rules being established for votes in the Council of the ..

Learning to keep the faith? Further education and perceived employability among young unemployed

To keep up job search motivation and maintain re-employment chances, it is important that unemployed individuals do not stop believing in their ability to (re)gain satisfying employment. This article examines whether further education during unemployment has a positive effect on perceived employability (i.e. the subjective assessment of one’s chances to obtain the desired job), based on a panel survey of unemployed young adults in Austria. The article finds that educational activities – either on own initiative or as part of an active labor market program – indeed help to sustain or even increase perceived employability. However, only for long-term programs do the effects persist beyond the duration of the activity. This study thus identifies substantial psychological side effects of active labor market policies involving further education, which could be used to increase actual employability

Got used to make less: the lasting earnings losses of COVID-19 short-time work

This study is the first to investigate the impact of short-time work (STW) schemes on earnings during the COVID-19 pandemic. STW schemes have been implemented to preserve employee-employer matches, support workers' incomes and uphold consumption. By construction, affected workers suffer temporary earnings losses, yet an important question is whether negative earnings effects of STW persist beyond the STW period or are limited to the STW spell. Using a dynamic difference-in-difference (DiD) identification strategy on administrative data, this study aims to identify any lasting causal STW effects on earnings, accounting for the factors that influence the selection of workers into STW and testing for heterogeneous effects across subgroups of workers. We find lasting earnings losses that persist beyond the actual STW participation. First and foremost, these earnings losses depend on the duration of STW exposure, with greater negative effects especially in the case of long-term or recurring STW spells. In general, lasting earnings losses post STW tend to be more pronounced in white-collar jobs, where women incur larger losses than men. The largest losses, however, are observed among men in blue-collar jobs with long STW spells of more than one year

Risk Preferences in the Delegation Process

Political decisions usually involve risks regarding potential outcomes. In an ideal representative system, voters should therefore evaluate politicians not only according to the policies they support, but also according to their inclination to take risks. In this study, we examine whether risk preferences affect voting decisions in an incentivized online experiment. Subjects assigned the role of politicians decide for the voters how much to invest in a risky policy, whereas subjects assigned the role of voters learn about the risk profiles of the politicians and decide whether to re-elect the incumbent or to elect the challenger. The treatments vary the risk and potential reward of the policy politicians can implement as well as the information voters receive about the consequences of a politician’s decision. We find that voters are significantly more likely to elect politicians who propose policies that are in line with the voters’ risk preferences and that politicians adapt to the assumed risk preferences of the voters. If a voter learns that the politician’s decision led to a negative outcome, despite a low probability of such an outcome, she is less likely to re-elect this politician. Furthermore, the results suggest an incumbency advantage independent of institutional advantages

Scarring Dreams? Young People’s Vocational Aspirations and Expectations During and After Unemployment

Young people’s early‐career unemployment experience has been found to have long‐lasting effects, resulting in lower earnings even decades later. However, while this so‐called “scarring effect” is well established, there is still little knowledge about the mechanisms through which it comes about. We take a closer look at the period that produces the wounds that later turn to scars. Drawing on a panel survey in which young adults in Austria were interviewed once at the beginning of an unemployment period and again one year later, we study how job aspirations and expectations changed during this period. We find that respondents on average lowered their aspirations and expectations over time, particularly those who experienced latent deprivation during unemployment. Furthermore, while the aspirations and expectations of those who were unemployed at the time of the second interview remained relatively unchanged, those who were employed lowered their expectations and to some extent also their aspirations. Our results suggest that research should pay more attention to the heterogenous effects of early‐career unemployment: It produces scarred dreams for some while others manage to keep their aspirations and expectations alive

So geht’s uns heute: die sozialen Folgen der Corona-Krise. Ergebnisse einer Statistik-Austria-Befragung im vierten Quartal 2021

Der vorliegende Bericht gibt einen Überblick über die Ergebnisse der von Statistik Austria zum Jahresende 2021 durchgeführten Befragung „So geht’s uns heute“. Im Mittelpunkt der Analyse stehen rezente Einkommensverluste und finanzielle Schwierigkeiten in den Privathaushalten Österreichs sowie das Wohlbefinden und die Zufriedenheit der Bevölkerung

Analyse des Fachkräftebedarfs in Österreich anhand ökonomischer Knappheitsindikatoren

Die vorliegende Studie widmet sich dem Zusammenspiel von Angebot und Nachfrage nach Fachkräften am österreichischen Arbeitsmarkt. Auf Basis mehrerer ökonomischer Knappheitsindikatoren erfolgt eine Einschätzung eines möglichen Fachkräftemangels in verschiedenen Berufsgruppen, wobei die Berufsgattungen der ISCO-Klassifikation (ISCO-4-Steller) herangezogen werden

So geht’s uns heute: die sozialen Krisenfolgen im zweiten Quartal 2023 – Schwerpunkt: Zukunftserwartungen. Ergebnisse einer Statistik-Austria-Befragung

Der vorliegende Bericht beruht auf den Ergebnissen der von Statistik Austria quartalsweise durchgeführten Befragung „So geht’s uns heute“. Im Mittelpunkt der Analysen stehen finanzielle Schwierigkeiten in den Privathaushalten Österreichs, deren Entwicklungen im Zeitverlauf – insbesondere im Vergleich zum Vorjahr (Q2/2022) und zum Vorquartal (Q1/2023) – nachgezeichnet werden. Darüber hinaus wird in diesem Bericht ein Fokus auf die Zukunftserwartungen gelegt