Suchergebnisse

Die sogenannten HartzReformen beinhalten eine Umstrukturierung und Reorganisation der Tätigkeit der Bundesagentur für Arbeit und eine Reform von Instrumenten der Arbeitsmarktpolitik. Trotz der seinerzeitigen Skepsis führender Ökonomen stellen diese Reformen einen bedeutenden Fortschritt in der Arbeitsmarktpolitik dar. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt zunächst die Arbeitsmarktentwicklung und die Arbeitsmarktprobleme in Deutschland. Vor diesem Hintergrund erfolgt eine Analyse und Bewertung der Reform von Instrumenten der Arbeitsmarktpolitik im Rahmen der HartzReformen. Abschließend diskutiert der Beitrag einige Politikempfehlungen und weist auf wichtige ungelöste Probleme hin. Hierbei ist die Wichtigkeit der empirischen Evaluation der Wirkungen der HartzReformen zu betonen. Diese Evaluation sollte im Sinne eines dauerhaften Monitorings fortgeführt werden.

This paper studies the relationship between employment and wage structures in West Germany based on the IAB employment subsample 1975{1997. It extends the analytical framework of Card and Lemieux (2001) which simultaneously includes skill and age as important dimensions of heterogeneity. After having identified cohort effects in skill wage premia and in the evolution of relative employment measures, we estimate elasticities of substitution between employees in three different skill groups and between those of different age, taking account of the endogeneity of wages and employment. Compared to estimates in the related literature, we find a rather high degree of substitutability. Drawing on the estimated parameters, we simulate the magnitude of wage changes within the respective skill groups that would have been necessary to halve skill-specific unemployment rates in 1997. The required nominal wage reductions range from 8.8 to 12.2% and are the higher the lower the employees' skill level.

Equilibrium search theory suggests that the wage distribution in a cross section of workers is closely related to labor market transitions and associated wage changes. Accordingly, jobtojob transitions are central in explaining the wage distribution. This paper uses the IAB employment subsample to describe the empirics of labor market transitions and the wage structure in Germany. Motivated by search theory, we use the data to explore descriptively labor market transitions and features of the wage structure. We find that labor market transition rates vary substantially over the business cycle and with individual characteristics. Regarding jobtojob transitions, we find considerable wage changes. Most job changes involve considerable gains, but a number of individuals incurs a remarkable loss. Regarding the wage structure, we find strong effects of jobtojob transitions, age, and education on wage mobility. Based on our descriptive analysis, we conclude that indeed a close relationship exists between wages and labor market transitions as predicted by search theory. However, the noticeable share of wage losses following jobtojob changes contradicts a simple search theoretic perspective.

"Inhalt / Contents" -- "Guest Editorial" -- "Abhandlungen / Original Papers" -- "Intergenerational Transmission of Unemployment - Evidence for German Sons" -- "Physical Activity of Adults: A Survey of Correlates, Determinants, and Effects" -- "Youth Unemployment in the OECD: The Role of Institutions" -- "Youth Unemployment After Apprenticeship Training and Individual, Occupation, and Training Employer Characteristics" -- "Career Planning, School Grades, and Transitions: The Last Two Years in a German Lower Track Secondary School" -- "Coaching Disadvantaged Young People: Evidence from Firm Level Data" -- "Are there Long-Term Earnings Scars from Youth Unemployment in Germany?

This paper provides new estimates of a timevarying NAIRU for Germany taking account of the structural break caused by German unification based on the Kalman Filter and on a partially linear model as two alternatives. Estimating a standard Phillips curve, the sum of coefficients associated with expected inflation is far beyond unity, whatever measure of expected inflation rates is employed. Therefore, either the NAIRU concept is not applicable to Germany or, as it is our suggestion, one estimates the unemployment rate that is compatible with a tolerable inflation rate of say 2 percent following roughly the inflation target put forward by the European Central Bank. The estimates presented in this paper suggest that the NAIRU compatible with 2 percent inflation in Germany is currently around 7 percent if the definition of unemployment follows the concept of the ILO. In contrast to the consensus in the literature, our estimates suggest furthermore that the NAIRU in Germany has not increased since the early 1990's.

Long-term public sector sponsored training programs often show little or negative short-run employment effects and often it is not possible to assess whether positive long-run effects exist. Based on unique administrative data, this paper estimates the long-run differential employment effects of three different types of training programs in West Germany. We use inflows into unemployment for the years 1986/87 and 1993/94 and apply local linear matching based on the estimated propensity score to estimate the effects of training programs starting during 1 to 2, 3 to 4, and 5 to 8 quarters of unemployment. The results show a negative lock-in effect for the period right after the beginning of the program and significantly positive treatment effects on employment rates in the medium- and long-run. The differential effects of the three programs compared to one another are mainly driven by differences in the length of the lock-in periods.

The education variable in the IAB employment subsample has two shortcomings: missing values and inconsistencies with the reporting rule. We propose several deductive imputation procedures to improve the variable. They mainly use the multiple education information available in the data because the employees' education is reported at least once a year. We compare the improved data from the different procedures and the original data in typical applications in labor economics: educational composition of employment, wage inequality, and wage regression. We find, that correcting the education variable: (i) shows the educational attainment of the male labor force to be higher than measured with the original data, (ii) gives different values for some measures of wage inequality, and (iii) does not change the estimates in wage regressions much.

Short-term training has recently become the largest active labor market program in Germany regarding the number of participants. Little is known on the effectiveness of different types of short-term training and on their longrun effects. This paper estimates the effects of short-term training programs in West Germany starting in the time period 1980 to 1992 and 2000 to 2003 regarding the two outcomes employment and participation in longer training programs. We find that shortterm training shows mostly persistently positive and often significant employment effects. Short-term training focusing on testing and monitoring search effort shows slightly smaller effects compared to the pure training variant. The lockin periods lasted longer in the 1980s and 1990s compared to the early 2000s. Short-term training results in higher future participation in longer training programs and this effect was much stronger for the earlier time period.