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Transatlantic Differences in Labour Markets: Changes in Wage and Non-Employment Structures in the 1980s and the 1990s

Rising wage inequality in the United States and Britain and rising continental European unemployment have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the unskilled, combined with flexible wages in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but wage rigidities in continental Europe (‘Krugman hypothesis’). This paper tests this hypothesis ...

Switch-On and Switch-Off Effects of Sick Pay Reform on Absence from Work and on Health-Related Outcomes

We evaluate the switch-on and switch-off effects of a natural experiment that reduced sick pay in Germany from 100 to 80% of the wage rate but that effectively only applied to workers without a collective bargaining agreement. Two years following implementation of the reform, a newly elected federal government repealed it. We estimate the reform’s impact on annual days of absence by applying a difference-in-differences ...

The Effects of a Sick Pay Reform on Absence and on Health-Related Outcomes

We evaluate the effects of a reduction in sick pay from 100 to 80% of the wage. Unlike previous literature, apart from absence from work, we also consider effects on doctor/hospital visits and subjective health indicators. We also add to the literature by estimating both switch-on and switch-off effects, because the reform was repealed two years later. We find a two-day reduction in the number of days ...

The effects of parental leave extension on training for young women

Using three datasets for West Germany, we estimate the effect of the extension of parental leave from between 10 and 18 to 36 months on young women’s participation in job-related training. Specifically, we employ difference-in-differences identification strategies using control groups of older women and young and older men. We find that parental leave extension negatively affects job-related training ...

The effects of pension changes on age of first benefit receipt: Regression discontinuity evidence from repatriated ethnic Germans

To estimate the effects of large cuts in pensions on the age of first benefit receipt, we exploit two natural experiments in which such cuts affect a group of repatriated ethnic German workers. The pensions were cut by about 12%, yet, according to our regression discontinuity estimates using administrative pension data, there was no significant delay in the age of first pension receipt. Based on additional ...

Persistence of the School Entry Age Effect in a System of Flexible Tracking

The Effects of Incomplete Employee Wage Information: A Cross-Country Analysis

The Gender Pay Gap Across Countries: A Human Capital Approach

The gender wage gap varies across countries. For example, among OECD nations women in Australia, Belgium, Italy and Sweden earn 80% as much as males, whereas in Austria, Canada and Japan women earn about 60%. Current studies examining cross-country differences focus on the impact of labor market institutions such as minimum wage laws and nationwide collective bargaining. However, these studies neglect ...

Housing and health in Germany

Estimating a Life Cycle Model with Unemployment and Human Capital Depreciation