Theory suggests that firms confront a hold-up problem in dealing with workplace unionism: unions will appropriate a portion of the quasi rents stemming from long-lived capital. As a result, firms may be expected to limit their exposure to rent seeking by reducing investments, among other things....

Using a large panel data set we investigate whether works councils act as sand or grease in the operation of German firms. Stochastic production frontier analysis indicates that establishments with and without a works council do not exhibit significant differences in efficiency.

The macro evidence of increased adjustment pressure since the early seventies suggests that job mobility should have increased. Hence, retrospective and spell data from the German Socio-Economic Panel are combined in order to test the hypothesis that job stability for German workers declined...

Trade and migration have become more important in recent years for Austria and Germany. The transition in Central and Eastern Europe has played an important role in this development. The derived labor market consequences are not fully clear so far. This paper presents the results of econometric...

The paper investigates the relative importance of job mobility for wages in comparison with the human capital framework and the industry approach. Using German panel data, changes of workplaces within the firm as well as between the firms are carefully separated from occupational changes....

A number of studies suggest that mortality rates among East German men increased in the wake of reunification, in particular between 1989 and 1991, in some age groups by up to thirty percent. This study first examines the developments of mortality and cause of death statistics based on detailed...

Mit dem Arbeitnehmer-Entsendegesetz (AEntG) vom 29. Februar 1996 hat der deutsche Gesetzgeber eine Mindestlohnregelung eingeführt, die den Arbeitsmarkt in der Baubranche entlasten soll, der sich nach dem ersten Bauboom der deutschen Vereinigung seit wenigen Jahren in einer konjunkturellen und...

Using standard as well as recently developed univariate and bivariate count data models, this paper analyzes the determinants of workplace accidents using a firm data set for Germany. Given the tight system of public workplace safety regulation, introduced partly as early as in 1869, and the...

One cornerstone of current attempts to reform the German public health care system by introducing private insurance schemes is the assumption that economic incentives play an important role in individual decision-making about using medical help. This hypothesis is examined for the case of demand...

Using a stochastic frontier approach this paper evaluates the effects of substantial changes in the teaching material on students learning efficiency. The results indicate that the main effects of the re-organization on the learning efficiency was a decreasing importance of students? attendance...