Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung

Quantifying the effect of labor market size on learning externalities

We show for Germany that labor productivity as reflected in wage is, ceteris paribus, higher for workers who previously acquired work experience in rather urban labor markets with a large local workforce than in rather rural labor markets which are small in terms of regional employment. Our empirical analysis provides new evidence on the magnitude of these dynamic agglomeration gains by estimating the elasticity of wages with regard to the (cumulated) size of the local labor markets in which workers acquired experience.

IAB-Discussion Paper 31/2017

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German Robots – The Impact of Industrial Robots on Workers

The authors study the impact of rising robot exposure on the careers of individual manufacturing
workers, and the equilibrium impact across industries and local labor markets in Germany.

IAB-Discussion Paper 30/2017

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The creation and resolution of working hour discrepancies over the life course

Studies on labor supply have increasingly taken account of not only the actual working hours, but also of working hour preferences as well as the discrepancy between them. However, longitudinal research on this topic remains scarce. This paper contributes to the analysis of working hour discrepancies by exploring how hours mismatch emerges and resolves with special consideration of the household context.

IAB-Discussion Paper 29/2017

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The impact of the digital revolution on the labour market: an interview with IAB Director Joachim Möller

Is the digital revolution a job-destroyer or a job-creator? How will it change traditional occupational images? In an interview to the IAB-Forum magazine, IAB Director Joachim Möller discusses these questions and argues for a “flexibility compromise” between the social partners as a strategy to organize the consequences of technological change on the labour market in a productive and socially acceptable manner.

The full interview can be found in our magazine IAB-Forum

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Should the US introduce a dual vocational training system following the German example? Four questions to IAB researcher Simon Janssen

In an article in the renowned Wall Street Journal of 8 September 2016 (“Germany offers a promising jobs model”), the American labour market economist Edward Lazear and the IAB researcher Simon Janssen recommend that the US introduce a dual vocational training system following the German example. The US economist Erik A. Hanushek clearly objected to this in another article in the Wall Street Journal (“German-Style Apprenticeships Simply Can’t Be Replicated”).

You can find the full interview in our magazine IAB-Forum.

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The Fall of the Labour Income Share: the Role of Technological Change and Imperfect Labour Markets

The non-constancy of factor shares is drawing the attention of many researchers. We document an average drop of the labour share of 8 percentage points for eight European countries and the US between 1980 and 2007. They investigate theoretically and empirically two mechanisms: the substitution between Information Communication Technology (ICT) and labour and the presence of hiring costs.

IAB-Discussion Paper 28/2017

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Counteracting unemployment in crises: Non-linear effects of short-time work policy

Short-time work is a labor market policy that subsidizes working time reductions among firms in financial difficulty in order to prevent layoffs and stabilize employment. Many OECD countries have used this policy in the Great Recession, for example. This paper shows that the effects of discretionary short-time work are strongly time dependent and non-linear over the business cycle.

IAB-Discussion Paper 27/2017

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Active labour market policy in Germany: an interview with IAB Director Joachim Möller

Active labour market policy plays an important role in Germany. In an interview to the IAB-Forum magazine, IAB Director Joachim Möller discusses its underlying principles such as the idea of “demanding and supporting” (Fordern und Fördern). He emphasizes the fact that evaluation results tend to have a significant impact on the design of labour market policies.

The full interview can be found in our magazine IAB-Forum

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Examining the Link Between Health Measures, Management Practices and Establishment Performance

In this paper they examine the relationship between establishment-level health measures, Anglo-Saxon management practices and labor productivity, as well as median wages. Based on the observation that management practices are positively associated with establishment outcomes, they test whether health measures have a distinct effect on their own, or if they are already comprised in management practices.

IAB-Discussion Paper 26/2017

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