Seit Jahrzehnten fusionieren westliche Industrienationen kommunale Gebietskörperschaften in der Hoffnung auf Kosteneinsparungen, eine höhere Leistungsfähigkeit der Verwaltung sowie lokale Wachstumsimpulse. Verlässliche wissenschaftliche Evidenz zu Gebietsreformen ist jedoch erst seit wenigen...

This paper examines the impact of individual human operators on the fuel efficiency of power plants. Although electricity generation is a fuel and capital intensive enterprise, anecdotal evidence, interviews, and empirical analysis support the hypothesis that labor, particularly power plant...

Using the employer-employee matched National Employment Survey of Ireland carried out in 2006, this paper compares the skill gaps as perceived by managers and employees located within the same firm. The paper looks at the main drivers of agreement / disagreement on the perception of skill gaps...

This study examines the differences in the likelihood of overpayment and overemployment in establishments with and without works councils. In contrast to other studies, we use assessments by the management concerning the existence of such problems. Furthermore, we also analyze how different...

I study the impact of M&As on labor market outcomes of employees in target firms. Using a matched employer-employee dataset linked with hand-collected data on M&A activity in Brazil, I estimate the magnitudes of employee costs and document the underlying sources of earnings changes in the...

We propose a new measure of allocative efficiency based on unrealized increases in aggregate productivity growth. We show that the difference in the value of the marginal product of an input and its marginal cost at any plant - the plant-input "gap" - is exactly equal to the change in aggregate...

In this paper I use data from a survey of firms to estimate the effects of a firm's wage level on several measures of its hiring costs and the characteristics and performance of its employees. These measures include the previous experience and current tenure of its employees; subjective...

We use large increases in unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to study the effects of expected retaliation costs on employee whistleblowing. Increases in UI benefits reduce the costs that arise from a job loss, one of the costliest forms of retaliation. We find that increases in UI benefits...