Layoff Tax and the Employment of the Elderly

In 1996 Austria introduced a tax for the layoff of older workers, which was tightened in 2000. The regulation requires employers to pay a tax of up to 170 percent of the gross monthly income when they give notice to employees aged 50 or more. We use data from Austrian social security records to investigate if such layoff taxes lead to less firing of older workers. We compare a control group of workers aged nearly 50 with the treatment group above 50. We apply a difference-in-difference approach to analyze the difference in the displacement probability of all prime aged workers. Results show substantial reductions in layoff behavior for workers aged 50 and above after the tightening of the tax.Layoff tax, labor demand, employment, elderly workers

Who is on the rise in Austria: Wage mobility and mobility risk

In this paper we investigate earnings mobility in Austria from the angle of individual persons: earnings mobility over time has two aspects: positional changes and the volatility of earnings over time. Whereas the further is a positive outcome, more volatility as such can be seen as negative. We use Austrian data from tax authorities to find out how population characteristics are related to these two concepts of earnings mobility.Earnings mobility, earnings volatility, relative income positions

Do Austrian Men and Women Become more Equal? At Least in Terms of Labor Supply!

We study the development of wage elasticity of labor supply for Austrian men and women over time using comparable and representative survey data for the 1980s and 1990s. The elasticity of men is relatively low and constant over time, similar to the behavior of single women. Most remarkable is the almost continuous reduction in the labor supply reactions of married women: while their elasticity was still several times larger at the beginning of the 1980s, they approached rapidly the much less elastic behaviour of men. These developments are important for the analysis of deadweight losses of taxation as well as the effects of tax reforms and wage subsidy programs.Labor supply, gender, wage elasticity

Peer effects in Austrian schools

This study deals with educational production in Austria and is focused on the potential impact of schoolmates on students’ academic outcomes. We used PISA 2000 data to estimate peer effects for 15 and 16 year old students. The estimations yield substantial positive effects of the peer groups’ socioeconomic composition on student achievement. Furthermore, quantile regressions suggest peer effects to be asymmetric in favor of low-ability students, meaning that students with lower skills benefit more from being exposed to clever peers, whereas those with higher skills do not seem to be affected much. Social heterogeneity, moreover, has no big adverse effect on academic outcomes. These results imply considerable social gains of reducing stratification in educational settings.

Public funding and enrolment into higher education in Europe

In this paper we provide evidence for the impact of public funding on enrolment of students in college. We use a panel for European countries and apply instrumental variables techniques to find that public funding for schooling - regardless at what level - does increase college enrolment alike with an elasticity of about one. A second issue concerns the impact of tuition fees, which are found to reduce college enrolment.College enrolment; public funding; tuition costs

Why Do Students Expect to Stay Longer in College? Evidence from Europe

We investigate the expected college completion time of European college students by using data from a survey of more than 3000 students in 10 countries. We explain observed excess time to graduation by paying special attention to labor market variables, such as unemployment, wage differentials and employment protection, and to the funding of tertiary education.College completion; wage inequality; college; expectations

Peer Effects in Austrian Schools

This study deals with educational production in Austria and is focused on the potential impact of schoolmates on students’ academic outcomes. We used PISA 2000 data to estimate peer effects for 15 and 16 year old students. The estimations yield substantial positive effects of the peer groups’ socioeconomic composition on student achievement. Furthermore, quantile regressions suggest peer effects to be asymmetric in favor of low-ability students, meaning that students with lower skills benefit more from being exposed to clever peers, whereas those with higher skills do not seem to be affected much. Social heterogeneity, moreover, has no big adverse effect on academic outcomes. These results imply considerable social gains of reducing stratification in educational settings.Peer effects, Education, PISA data

Firm-specific training: Consequences for job mobility

This paper analyzes the impact of formal training on worker mobility. Using data from the Swiss Labor Force Survey, we find that on-the-job search activities and, to a smaller extent, actual job separations are significantly affected by both employer-provided and general training. Moreover, while the separation probability of searching workers is strongly affected by previous firm-provided training, no such effect shows up for non-searchers. This is consistent with the hypothesis that workers bear most of the cost of specific training.firm-specific training; on-the-job-search; turnover.

A meta-analysis of the international gender wage gap

Since the early seventies, hundreds of authors have calculated gender wage differentials between women and men of equal productivity. Consequently, estimates for the gender wage gap have been published for the most diverse countries at different points in time. This metastudy provides a quantitative review of this vast amount of empirical literature on gender wage discrimination as it concerns differences in methodology, data, countries and time periods. We place particular emphasis on a proper consideration of the quality of the underlying study which is done by a weighting with quality indicators. The results show that data restrictions have the biggest impact on the resulting gender wage gap. Moreover, we are able to show what effect a misspecification of the underlying wage equation-like the frequent use of potential experience-has on the calculated gender wage gap. Over time, raw wage differentials world-wide have fallen substantially; however, most of this decrease is due to an increased labor market productivity of females.Gender wage differential; meta-analysis