Does it matter where you work?
15 May 2013
Using rich German linked employer-employee data and endogenous switching regression models, this paper shows that large firms and firms with a high export share or a low proportion of fixed-term workers provide higher wage growth for low-wage workers. While having many low-paid co-workers dampens the wage growth of both low-wage workers and higher-wage workers, there are also employers who provide higher wage growth only for higher-wage workers.
IAB-Discussion Paper 4/2013
Effects of participating in skill training and workfare on employment entries for lone mothers receiving means-tested benefits in Germany
18 April 2013
This paper investigates employment effects of further vocational training, short classroom training, as well as One-Euro-Jobs for lone mothers receiving Unemployment Benefit II (UB II) in Germany. Lone mothers receiving UB II participate in these active labor market programs at very high rates. As soon as their youngest child is aged three or above, their program entry rates are as high as for childless singles. This paper examines whether lone mothers can actually profit from partici-pating in these programs, given low levels of childcare provision.
IAB-Discussion Paper 3/2013
Motivated underreporting in screening interviews
08 April 2013
Most surveys begin with questions designed to determine whether the sample household includes any members of the survey's target population. However, the screening questions can miss eligible household members. The underreporting of eligible household members may reflect interviewer motivation, respondent motivation, or some combination of the two. The authors did an experiment to test several hypotheses about this phenomenon, which they call motivated underreporting.
Further information
Evaluating the labor-market effects of compulsory military service
08 April 2013
The authors identify the causal effect of compulsory military service on conscripts' subsequent labor-market outcomes by exploiting the regression-discontinuity design of the military draft in Germany during the 1950s.
Further information
(When) Is job-finding via personal contacts a meaningful concept for social network analysis?
03 April 2013
Chua (2011) argues that in a meritocratic context, institutions restrict the usefulness of social networks in exerting influence on job seekers' earnings. Regressing job-finding via personal contacts on earnings, he finds negative effects of influence via personal contacts, especially for the well-educated and individuals working in the state sector.
Further information
Feature: Flexible forms of employment
03 April 2013
In recent decades, economic policy makers across Europe have sought to increase labour market flexibility by promoting the use of temporary employment. The articles in this Feature provide new results on how fixed-term and agency work contracts affect firm productivity and how the segments of two-tier labour markets interact.
Further information
Patterns of unemployment dynamics in Germany
02 April 2013
This paper studies the patterns of unemployment dynamics in Germany. To provide a deeper insight into the margins of unemployment adjustment, we employ a structural VAR model and identify the effects of a technology shock as well as two policy shocks. The authors find that the worker reallocation process varies substantially with the identified shocks.
IAB-Discussion Paper 2/2013
Does downward nominal wage rigidity dampen wage increases?
25 March 2013
Focusing on the compression of wage cuts, many empirical studies find a high degree of downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR). The authors analyze whether a compression of wage increases occurs when DNWR is binding by applying Unconditional Quantile Regression and Seemingly Unrelated Regression to a dataset comprising more than 169 million wage changes.
Further information
The effects of extended unemployment insurance over the business cycle
25 March 2013
One goal of extending the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) in recessions is to increase UI coverage in the face of longer unemployment spells. Although it is a common concern that such extensions may themselves raise nonemployment durations, it is not known how recessions would affect the magnitude of this moral hazard. To obtain causal estimates of the differential effects of UI in booms and recessions, this article exploits the fact that in Germany, potential UI benefit duration is a function of exact age which is itself invariant over the business cycle.
Further information
Journal for Labour Market Research 1/2013 ( Volume 46)
25 March 2013