Suchergebnisse

This paper deals with the effects of labour market institutions on unemployment in a panel of 19 OECD countries for the period 1960 to 2000. In contrast to many other studies, we use long time series and analyze cyclically adjusted trend values of the unemployment rate. Our novel contribution is the estimation of panel models where we allow for heterogeneous effects of institutions on unemployment. Our main results are that on the average a tighter employment protection, a higher tax burden on labour income and a more generous unemployment insurance system increase, whereas a higher centralization of wage negotiations decreases unemployment. The strength of the effects differs considerably between countries.

The concept of the "employment threshold" plays an important role in the public of unemployment. The employment threshold is defined as that growth rate of output which is necessary to keep employment constant despite the continuous rise in labor productivity. It is related to the Okun coefficient which describes the relationship between the changes of output and unemployment. Many contributions to this debate give the impression that the employment theshold is more or less a structural characteristic which remains constant over time. In this paper we derive short- and long run employment thresholds from an input demand system and show empirically that they depend on factor prices. A moderate wage policy leads to a reduction of the output growth which is necessary for an increase in employment.

"This paper is concerned with the projection of migration flows from Eastern European countries. In the first step, two versions of a stock-adjustment model are estimated explaining the migration history for five Mediterranean countries. The first version uses a simple pooling approach, the second a fixed-effects estimator. Main determinants for the stock of migrants are income differentials, the output gap and dummy variables for EU membership and free labour mobility. In a second step, the estimated parameters are used for a prediction of the level of migration from Eastern European countries to Germany assuming two different convergence hypotheses." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Eine Schätzung der Wanderungsströme aus den osteuropäischen Ländern wird vorgelegt. In einem ersten Schritt werden zwei Versionen eines Bestandsanpassungsmodells geschätzt, die die Wanderungsgeschichte von fünf Mittelmeerländern erklären. Die erste Version stützt sich auf einen einfachen Pooling-Ansatz, die zweite auf einen Fixed-Effect-Schätzer. Die Hauptdeterminanten für den Bestand an Migranten sind die Einkommensunterschiede, die Output-Unterschiede und die Dummy-Variablen für EU-Mitgliedschaft und Freizügigkeit. In einem zweiten Schritt werden die geschätzten Parameter herangezogen, um das Ausmaß der Migration aus osteuropäischen Ländern nach Deutschland vorherzusagen. Dabei wird von zwei unterschiedlichen Konvergenzhypothesen ausgegangen. (IAB)