The economic crisis has given rise to significant challenges to the welfare state. Given that welfare expenses account for a large proportion of all state spending in the member countries of the European Union, reducing government spending means cutting welfare measures. Yet social protection,...

In many countries, social security insures firms against their workers' sickness absences. The insurance may create a moral hazard for firms, leading to inefficient monitoring of absences or to an underinvestment in the prevention of absences. We exploit an administrative threshold in the...

The female labour force participation rate (LFPR) displays a high degree of variation across regions. Our paper contributes to an understanding of regional determinants of female labour supply by looking at Austria’s 121 political districts. As predicted by theory, the aggregate wage level has...