Using subjective information provided by manager respondents on the stance taken by the works council in company decision making, this paper investigates the association between a measure of works council dissonance or disaffection and plant closings in Germany, 2006-2015. The potential effects...

Although the adverse labor market effects of economic recessions have been well documented, a notable omission in the literature is how recessions impact workers’ job match quality. This paper considers the short and longer-term losses in productivity associated with the job changing...

This paper examines the effects of class size on the decision to stay on in full time schooling at the age of 16 and on wages at later stages in life. Little research exists on the effect of school quality on career decisions, although it has potentially important long term implications. We use...

In this paper we investigate the economic activity of married or cohabiting female immigrants in Britain. We distinguish between two immigrant groups: foreign-born females who belong to an ethnic minority group and their husbands, and foreign-born white females and their husbands. We compare...

In a sharp break with past German research, some recent estimates have suggested that plants with work councils have 25 to 30 per cent higher productivity than their works-councilfree counterparts. Such findings can only serve to buttress the strong theoretical and policy interest in the German...

In this study we examine the contribution of severance pay to employment and unemployment development using data on industrialized OECD countries. Our starting point is Lazear?s (1990) empirical dictum that severance payment requirements adversely impact the labor market. We extend his sample...

This paper uses a unique Portuguese data set to examine the effect of unemployment benefit receipt and maximum duration of benefits on escape rates from unemployment. The focus is on the time profile of transitions out of unemployment. The novel aspect of the study resides in its identification...

This paper examines the effects of unemployment insurance on escape rates from unemployment using data from the 1998 Displaced Worker Survey. Transitions from unemployment to employment are modeled using a flexible representation of the baseline hazard function and allowing for discrete changes...