This paper investigates the functioning of regional labour markets in Italy and Germany for different employee groups. In the light of high and persistent differences in unemployment and wage rates between the North and South of Italy and the West and East of Germany, we first derive theoretical...

This paper investigates regional public-private wage differentials in Italy. Following the recent wave of reforms that significantly changed wage setting and employment relations in both sectors increasing decentralisation in collective bargaining and enforcing a privatisation of public sector...

In recent years many countries of the European Union (EU) have implemented comprehensive smoking bans to reduce exposure to tobacco smoke in public places and all indoor workplaces. Despite the intense public debate, research on the impact of smoking regulation on health, particularly within the...

A growing number of firms offer compensation packages that link pay to performance. The aim is to motivate workers to be more efficient while also increasing their attachment to the company, thereby reducing turnover and absenteeism. The effects of performance-related pay on productivity depend...

This paper investigates the causal effect of a switch from fixed wages to collective performance-related pay on firm productivity, exploiting an exogenous variation in the institutional environment regulating collective bargaining. We find that the introduction of collective performance related...

We investigate how firms adjust to demand shocks when wages and employment determination are regulated. Using firm-level data for the Italian metal engineering industry from 2009 to 2021, we estimate the elasticity of the wage bill to changes in firm's real sales. We disentangle the effect on...

Short-time work (STW) has been widely used, both during the Great Recession and the COVID crisis, to preserve jobs. In most European countries, the implementation of STW schemes is often the result of bargaining between trade unions and employers, yet very little is known about the role of...

On the basis of a theoretical model, we argue that higher aggregate unemployment affects individual returns to education. We therefore include aggregate unemployment and an interaction term between unemployment and the individual education level in a standard Mincer equation. Our results show...

We estimate the effects of hiring subsidies for older workers on transitions from unemployment to employment in Germany. Using a natural experiment, our first set of estimates is based on a legal change extending the group of eligible unemployed persons. A subsequent legal change in the opposite...

Dieses Papier beschreibt Ergebnisse einer Evaluation von Eingliederungszuschüssen (EGZ) und Entgeltsicherung für ältere Arbeitnehmer. Es wird untersucht, ob förderberechtigte Personen im Vergleich zur Situation ohne diese Instrumente früher aus Arbeitslosigkeit in Beschäftigung wechseln....