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Due to the fact that the unemployment rate of high skilled labour in Germany is about 3% in the last 30 years, this paper deals with theories that account for heterogeneous labour. The main finding is that the reduction of the labour costs cannot reduce the aggregated unemployment rate substantially. An important conclusion is that the skill upgrading of the labour force is slower than that of labour demand. The future of work in Germany lies not in low paid low skilled jobs, but in high(er) skilled occupation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper deals with a critical assessment of the‘non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment’ (NAIRU) for Germany. There are quite a few obstacles to perceiving the NAIRU as an easy-to-use analytical instrument: the possibility of a non-vertical Phillips curve, the occurrence of shocks and hysteresis effects, and the (mis-)measurement of important variables, cointegration issues and a time variability of the NAIRU. A new attempt is made to estimate a NAIRU for Germany using direct measures of inflationary expectations. However, by any method, the NAIRU is very hard to determine and subject to considerable arbitrariness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German labour market is in dire need of regulatory changes. The Hartz Commission was assigned the task to provide measures for the reform of German labour market policy. This paper, analyses whether the suggestions of the commission promise a substantial improvement of labour market policy with the intended effect of a large decrease in unemployment. To check this, results from theoretical and empirical labour market research are used to create a benchmark. The suggestions of the commission are checked against this benchmark. The result is, however, that the suggested policies of the commission are not well suited to provide a substantial reduction of unemployment. In the final part of the paper, the reason for political failure in this area is analysed as well as the role of commissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and evaluates two interpretations of the eastern German labour market. These interpretations are called ‘wage gap’ and ‘innovation gap’. The former follows standard neoclassical thinking and regards high eastern German unemployment as the consequence of too high a wage level. The latter follows endogenous growth theory and regards a lack of product innovations as the main constraint on output and employment growth in the eastern German economy. The paper argues that the ‘innovation gap’ explains the facts much better than the ‘wage gap’. From this, the paper draws conclusions for economic policy: given the high interregional mobility of the workforce and the erosion of collective bargaining in eastern Germany, the wage level is not an appropriate policy instrument anymore. Instead, policy should aim at strengthening the innovative power of the eastern German economy by supporting research and development in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Using the variation across space, age and sex and the variation across space and sectors, we analyse the relationship between the minimum wage and (un)employment growth in 2015. We use difference-in-differences specifications and instrument the bite of the minimum wage by the lagged bite. The results provide stable evidence that a higher minimum wage bite is related to a higher growth rate of regular employment. We also find stable evidence that a higher minimum wage bite is related to a lower growth rate of marginal employment. These results are consistent with a transformation of marginal to regular jobs. The relationship to total employment is slightly positive in our preferred specification but insignificant or negative in others. For unemployment, we find a positive relationship between the bite of the minimum wage and unemployment growth in our preferred specification but insignificant or negative results in others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift fur Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Sozialreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper exploits the significant reduction in impediments to labor mobility in the process of German re-unification in order to identify labor supply shocks in the West German labor market. The focus is on the quasi-experiment of the border removal in the regions situated at the German–German border that faced a massive increase of cross-border labor supply. The results indicate that despite a gain in employment, the border removal was accompanied by a decline in wages and an increase in unemployment relative to other West German regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the effects of social assistance reform proposals are discussed for the case of Germany using a computable general equilibrium model that incorporates a discrete choice model of labour supply. This allows us to identify general equilibrium effects of the reforms on wages and unemployment. The simulation results show that general equilibrium wage reactions mitigate labour supply effects and that unemployment in fact decreases. Wage reactions are thus sufficiently strong to prevent additional labour supply from translating into higher unemployment. The simulations indicate that major cuts in welfare payments are necessary to produce substantial employment effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The situation on the German labour market is still a catastrophe. The institutional set-ups on the labour market and the welfare state obviously no longer fit the fundamentally changed economic environment. There is next to no competition on the labour market and unions and employers' associations use the generous welfare state to transfer the burden of adjustment to changes in the economic environment onto the public at large. Institutional mismatch is prevalent. The red-green coalition government has not only realized that persistently high unemployment inflicts tremendous economic damage but that it is also politically destabilizing. It has therefore announced that the performance on the labour market during its term of office shall be its own measure of success or failure. This paper discusses whether the regulatory steps taken by the red-green coalition government, like implementing stricter employment protection legislation, reintroducing full pay when sick, and changing the law concerning low-paid jobs, are suitable for reducing this institutional mismatch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaningful estimates of the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) within a Phillips curve framework require an identified tradeoff between inflation and unemployment. However, observations of inflation and unemployment are equilibrium points giving rise to a simultaneity problem. We assess conventional identifying assumptions in the literature on the German NAIRU in a general bi-variate equations system of inflation and unemplyoment. We use a data-driven method for identification based on shifts in the relative volatility of shocks to unemployment and inflation to identify the tradeoff for Germany. Our results support models which estimate a contemporaneous effect of unemployment on inflation and those which model inflation and unemployment jointly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The intention of this paper is to demonstrate the flexibility and capacity of penalized spline smoothing as estimation routine for modelling duration time data. We investigate the unemployment behaviour in Germany and the UK between 1995 and 2005 based on data from national panel studies. Functional duration time models are used to investigate the dynamics of covariate effects. The focus of our analysis is on contrasting the two economies. The statistical model being employed is built upon the hazard function, where we allow all covariate effects to vary smoothly with time. As result of the analyses, we demonstrate that the most striking difference between the countries is that elderly unemployed in Germany have decreasing chances for reemployment compared to the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Sozialreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; economic sectors; Germany; individual characteristics; unemployment; basic income support EN COVID-19 pandemic economic sectors Germany individual characteristics unemployment basic income support 28 57 30 05/20/22 20220101 NES 220101 1 Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world hard. Shifting our focus to the different groups of BIS recipients, Table 5 shows higher absolute drops in overall inflow rates among young BIS recipients, men and people with foreign citizenship, as well as lower drops for older BIS recipients and women. Pre-pandemic inflow rates varied more substantially by age: BIS recipients younger than 25 years had more than doubled inflow rates, while older recipients less often participate in ALMP programmes (5.4 inflows per 1,000 unemployed BIS recipients). Employment for BIS recipients in temporary agency employment (approximately 19.4 more unemployed BIS recipients per 1,000 contributory employees) and accommodation and food service activities (approximately 13.9 more per 1,000) is most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. [Extracted from the article]

This paper takes a fresh look at the often confused – and therefore confusing – debate on the role of wage policy in tackling Germany’s unemployment problem. The key issues in this debate are the relative importance of wages and aggregate demand in the determination of employment, the appropriate behavior of wages in relation to productivity growth, and the significance of the purchasing power effect of wages. We argue that the most useful tool to address and resolve these issues is the basic textbook model of aggregate supply and aggregate demand. Most importantly, the model predicts that employment is governed by the ratio of aggregate nominal demand and the nominal wage level. The empirical picture strongly supports this assertion. In contrast, the relation between the rate of wage growth and the rate of productivity growth does not play the causal role in determining employment that is widely attributed to it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can the rise of populism be explained by the growing chasm between rich and poor? With regard to Germany, such a causal relationship must be rejected. Income distribution in Germany has been very stable since 2005, and people's knowledge on actual inequality and economic development is limited: inequality and unemployment are massively overestimated. At the same time, a persistently isolationist and xenophobic group with diverse concerns and preferences has emerged within the middle classes of society that riggers support for populist parties. This mood is based on welfare chauvinism against immigration rather than on a general criticism of distribution. Since the immigration of recent years will inevitably affect the relevant indicators concerning distribution, an open, cautious but less heated approach is needed in the debate on the future of the welfare state. In order to address and take the local concerns of citizens seriously, an increased exchange with public officials on the ground is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate a wage subsidy program that is targeted at long-term unemployed workers in Germany. We use an alternative identification procedure compared to empirical studies conducted so far. Exploiting the particular program regulations and large administrative data we estimate the impact of program availability using a regression discontinuity framework. Our results suggest no significant impact of the availability of the subsidy on labor market outcomes of the target group. Even though our analysis lacks some statistical power, our findings do not support the substantial positive effects obtained from matching studies. As our approach does not require observability of all drivers of selection, previous empirical studies justifying government expenditures on wage subsidies based on matching methods should be reconsidered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present first empirical results on the effects of a large scale reduction in unemployment benefit entitlement lengths on unemployment inflows in Germany. We show that this highly disputed element of the Hartz-Reforms in 2006 induced a rush of workers and firms to take advantage of the previous legislation in its last days. Furthermore, we find a considerable decline in transitions to unemployment and an increase in employment rates among older workers after the reform. Our results provide new evidence for the importance of changes in unemployment inflows for the analysis of changes in unemployment outflows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Sozialreform is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article explores the extent to which German entrepreneurship is opposed to an all-inclusive coverage of the unemployed, the reasons given for this opposition, and the impact on the job market. Claims of the contrary based on the book “Varieties of Capitalism,” are analyzed as well as general employer attitudes. Other aspects are discussed, including political economy, unemployment support, and employer interests. A list of relevant literature and sources, is included.

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We present a proposal for reforming unemployment assistance in Germany through the introduction of unemployment accounts (UAs). Instead of paying taxes that finance the unemployment assistance, employed people make ongoing contributions to their UAs and can make withdrawals from these accounts during periods of unemployment. The aim of this policy proposal is to improve employment incentives without significant changes in the current redistribution scheme. We provide a detailed account of how such a system of UAs can be designed and implemented in Germany. To make the influence of UAs as transparent as possible and to avoid introducing other reforms that may make significant bodies of people worse off, we assume that UAs are integrated within the existing unemployment support system, keeping all institutional rules regarding conditions, duration and size of entitlements as well as interpersonal redistribution unchanged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study compares the wages and wage rigidity of entrants with incumbent workers in the West German labour market, based on individual data from 1975 to 1995. On average entrants (around 11 per cent of the workforce each year) wages were 40 per cent lower than incumbent wages, with a rising tendency. Roughly 53 per cent of this difference can be attributed to observed heterogeneity. Further econometric evidence suggests that wage rigidity existed for entrants, with an average estimated yearly wage sweep-up of 2.4 per cent. This presumably was an important reason for rising unemployment in the observation period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of articles in this issue on sociological topics such as unemployment services in Germany, employment re-entry, and professionalism.