Labour participation and unempoyment; a comparison of developments and institutions in Germany and The Netherlands

Political Scienc

The Importance of Spatial Autocorrelation for Regional Employment Growth in Germany

In analyzing the disparities of the regional developments in the volume of employment in Germany, in the recent empirical literature so called shift-share-regression-models are frequently applied. However, these models usually neglect spatial interdependencies, even though such interdependencies are likely to occur on a regional level. Therefore, this paper focuses on the importance of spatial dependencies using spatial autocorrelation in order to analyze regional employment development. Spatial dependency in the form of spatial lag, spatial error and cross regressive model are compared. The results indicate that the exogenous variables' spatial lag sufficiently explains the spatial autocorrelation of regional employment growth

Employer wage subsidies and wages in Germany: empirical evidence from individual data

In Germany, targeted wage subsidies to employers are an important instrument of active labor market policy. This paper compares the wages of individuals taking up a subsidized job with those of otherwise similar individuals who found an unsubsidized job, combining propensity score matching with a differences-in-differences strategy. The results indicate for the short-run that subsidized jobs are not associated with gains or losses regarding daily wages. Nonetheless, because subsequent employment rates of subsidized persons are higher on average, we find a positive relationship between cumulated wages and subsidization

Regional Unemployment and New Economic Geography

Regional labor markets are characterized by huge disparities. The literature on the wage curve argues that there exists a negative relationship between unemployment and wages. However, this literature cannot explain how disparities of these variables between regions endogenously arise. In contrast, the New Economic Geography analyzes how disparities of regional goods markets endogenously arise, but usually ignores unemployment. Therefore, this paper discusses regional unemployment disparities by introducing efficiency wages into the New Economic Geography. This model shows how disparities of regional goods and labor markets endogenously arise through the interplay of increasing returns to scale, transport costs and migration

Arbeitsmarkt und Demographie

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden die wechselseitigen Beziehungen von demographischen Veränderungen und Arbeitsmarktentwicklungen anhand eines Literaturüberblicks diskutiert. Insbesondere werden die Effekte von demographischen Strukturen und Prozessen auf die Lohnstruktur und auf die Arbeitslosigkeit präsentiert, wobei sowohl Mikro- als auch Makroansätze diskutiert und die Implikationen der Bevölkerungsalterung für den Arbeitsmarkt besprochen werden. In Mikroansätzen werden z.B. altersspezifische Profile der Humankapitalbildung als optimale Lösung eines individuellen Entscheidungsproblems modelliert. Im Gegensatz dazu werden in Makroansätzen die Beziehung von Makrovariablen, z.B. Jugendarbeitslosigkeit und Besetzungsstärke der eigenen Kohorte, modelliert. Schließlich stellen wir verschiedene theoretische Perspektiven vor, welche Effekte arbeitsmarktrelevanter Faktoren auf die Fertilität untersuchen

Arbeitslosigkeit und Stellenannahmebereitschaft: Erste Ergebnisse eines Faktoriellen Survey Moduls

Matching individuals to jobs is a fundamental problem in any labour market. This paper focuses on job characteristics, such as wages, job quality, and distance from the current place of residence, and the impact of these characteristics on the willingness of employed and unemployed individuals to accept new job offers. Using an experimental factorial survey module (FSM) implemented in the fifth wave of a large population survey (Panel Study Labour Market and Social Security), the willingness of employed and unemployed labour market participants to accept new job offers was compared while considering job characteristics like gain of income or commuting distance. In this study, unemployed and employed individuals received the same set of hypothetical job offers. Consistent with theoretical arguments, the about 20,000 evaluations provided by about 4,000 respondents showed that unemployed participants generally exhibit a greater willingness to accept new job offers than employed ones. Moreover, unemployed individuals were likely to make more concessions than employed individuals with respect to job quality, such as accepting fixed-term job offers. Interestingly, little evidence for different decision-making or weightings of mobility costs was found, which enables us to conclude that interregional unemployment disparities can scarcely be explained by unemployed individuals lacking the willingness to work or relocate