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Empirical analyses using cross-sectional and panel data found significantly higher levels of job satisfaction for the self-employed than for employees. We argue that by neglecting anticipation and adaptation effects estimates in previous studies might be misleading. To test this, we specify models accounting for anticipation and adaptation to self-employment and general job changes. In contrast to recent literature we find no specific long-term effect of self-employment on job satisfaction. Accounting for anticipation and adaptation to job changes in general, which includes changes between employee jobs, reduces the effect of self-employment on job satisfaction by two-thirds. When controlling for anticipation and adaptation to job changes, we find a positive anticipation effect of self-employment and a positive effect of self-employment on job satisfaction in the first years of self-employment. After 3 years, adaptation eliminates the higher satisfaction of being self-employed. According to our results, previous studies overestimate the positive long-term effects of self-employment on job satisfaction. Empirical analyses using cross-sectional and panel data found significantly higher levels of job satisfaction for the self-employed than for employees. We argue that by neglecting anticipation and adaptation effects estimates in previous studies might be misleading. To test this, we specify models accounting for anticipation and adaptation to self-employment and general job changes. In contrast to recent literature we find no specific long-term effect of self-employment on job satisfaction. Accounting for anticipation and adaptation to job changes in general, which includes changes between employee jobs, reduces the effect of self-employment on job satisfaction by two-thirds. When controlling for anticipation and adaptation to job changes, we find a positive anticipation effect of self-employment and a positive effect of self-employment on job satisfaction in the first years of self-employment. After 3 years, adaptation eliminates the higher satisfaction of being self-employed. According to our results, previous studies overestimate the positive long-term effects of self-employment on job satisfaction.

In this paper we investigate the existence of compensating wage differentials across seasonal and non seasonal jobs, which arise due to anticipated working time restrictions. We build on a theoretical model by Abowd and Ashenfelter (1981), which links the compensating wage differential to variation in individual unemployment through the effect of the unemployment insurance and the compensated labor supply elasticity. Since the Austrian labor market is characterized by an unusually high share of seasonal employment, our data provides the ideal setting in which to empirically test this model. We use the very rich information contained in the Austrian administrative records to derive a flexible definition of seasonal employment based on observed regularities in employment patterns. We find that employers pay on average a positive wage differential of about 11% for seasonal jobs and that the unemployment insurance system contributes a similar amount.

This paper analyzes the effects of trade and outsourcing on the transition probabilities of employment between sectors, using a dynamic multinomial logit framework with fixed effects. The data contain individual Austrian male workers over the period 1988-2001. Our results strongly support the view that international economic forces are important determinants of labor market turnover. Increases in imports, terms of trade and, especially, in the outsourcing share negatively affect the probability of staying in or changing into the manufacturing sector, even more so for industries with a comparative disadvantage.

The behaviour of individual movements in the wage distribution over time can be described by a Markov process. To investigate wage mobility in terms of transitions between quintiles in the wage distribution we apply a fixed effects panel estimation method suggested by Honorè and Kyriazidou (2000). This method of mobility measurement is robust to data contamination like all methods that treat fractiles. Moreover it allows for the inclusion of exogenous variables that change over time. We apply the estimator to a set of individual data form the Austrian social security records and find that disregarding unobserved heterogeneity greatly underestimates wage mobility. Simulated earnings profiles show that women are less mobile than men and have a tendency to be stuck in the lower part of the wage distribution.