Firms' labor demand responses to wage changes are of key interest in empirical research and policy analysis. However, despite extensive research, estimates of labor demand elasticities remain subject to considerable heterogeneity. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive meta-regression...

It is widely believed that globalization affects the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. To provide evidence for this, we analyze the effect of firms' exporting behavior on the elasticity of labor demand. Using rich, German administrative linked employer-employee panel...

We structurally estimate an equilibrium search model using German administrative data and use this for counterfactual analyses of a uniform minimum wage. The model with worker and firm heterogeneity does not restrict the sign of employment effects a priori and allows for different job offer...

There is still considerable dispute about the magnitude of labor supply elasticities. While differences in micro and macro estimates are recently attributed to frictions and adjustment costs, we show that relatively low labor supply elasticities derived from microeconometric models can also be...

This article describes ZEW-EviSTA®, the microsimulation model developed and used at ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim. The model simulates the German tax and transfer system using household micro level data. By estimating fiscal effects, labor market outcomes as well as...

Based on a detailed model of the German tax-benefit system, this paper simulates private and fiscal returns to education for college graduates and college dropouts. Completing a five-year college degree is found to be associated with an internal rate of return (IRR) of 14.2% for gross earnings,...

Previous reviews of static labor supply estimations concentrate mainly on the evidence from the 1980s and 1990s, Anglo-Saxon countries and early generations of labor supply modeling. This paper provides a fresh characterization of steady-state labor supply elasticities for Western Europe and the...

This paper asks whether the gap in subjective happiness between spouses matters per se for a couple's risk of separation. We use three panel databases to explore this question. Controlling for the level of life satisfaction of spouses, we find that a higher satisfaction gap, even in the first...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, the present paper studies whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. The effect of immigration...

Based on a structural model of fertility and female labour force supply with unobserved heterogeneity and state dependence, we evaluate the 2007 reform of parental leave benefits in Germany, which replaced a flat, means-tested benefit by a generous earnings-related transfer. The model predicts a...