Exploiting unique German administrative data, we estimate the association between an expansion in maternity leave duration from two to six months in 1979 and mothers' post-birth long-term sickness absence over a period of three decades after childbirth. Using a regression discontinuity design,...

Der vorliegende Beitrag liefert eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse der Evaluation der Einführung des Mindestlohnes in der Abfallwirtschaft zum 01.01.2010. Die Evaluation setzt sich aus einem Branchenbild sowie einer kausalen Wirkungsanalyse des Mindestlohnes auf Basis einer...

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper studies the relationship between job reallocation, worker reallocation and the flexibility of wages in western German manufacturing. Using the plant-specific residual wage dispersion as a proxy for wage flexibility, we find that more...

Ziel dieses Beitrags ist die Quantifizierung der mit der Einführung des Arbeitslosengeldes II verbundenen Arbeitsangebots- und Beschäftigungseffekte. Zusätzlich wird ein Reformszenario simuliert, welches die Anreizstruktur im Niedriglohnbereich verbessern soll. Methodisch wird ein...

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper studies the extent to which employers insure workers against transitory and permanent firm-level shocks. Particular emphasis is given to the question of whether the amount of wage insurance depends on the nature of industrial relations....

This paper studies the importance of employer-specific determinants in escaping low earnings in Germany. To address the initial conditions problem and the endogeneity of employer retention, we model (intra-firm) low-pay transitions using a multivariate Probit model that accounts for selection...

Using a linked employer-employee dataset, this paper analyses the relationship between firm profitability and wages. Particular emphasis is given to the question of whether the sensitivity of wages to firm-specific rents varies with collective bargaining coverage. To address this issue, we...

The purpose of this article is to quantify the employment effects of the recent German welfare reform. The key element of this reform was to merge the coexisting transfer systems Social Assistance (SA) and Unemployment Assistance (UA) into one unified benefit (Arbeitslosengeld II -- ALG II). We...

This paper studies the relationship between wages and the degree of firm heterogeneity in a given industry under different wage setting structures. To derive testable hypotheses, we set up a theoretical model that analyses the sensitivity of wages to the variability in productivity conditions in...