The paper provides a historical overview of the pre-modern allocation of work within the territory of the later Germany from the 18th until the middle of the 19th century. We explore how the social allocation of work during the feudal system took place and trace back the development of wage...

In this paper we document and analyse gross job flows in five transition countries, Poland, Estonia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania. Using comparable firm level data over the years 1993- 1997, we find that in early transition job destruction dominates job creation, while the latter is picking up...

Among all European countries, Germany absorbs by far the largest number of immigrants. But to date, the German government has yet to adopt a system that will effectively control the influx of foreigners. The immigration of Ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe, which is due to historical events and...

Financial frictions are known to raise the volatility of economies to shocks (e.g. Bernanke and Gertler 1989). We follow this line of research to the labor literature concerned by the volatility of labor market outcomes to productivity shocks initiated by Shimer (2005): in an economy with search...

We evaluate a pilot workfare project of a Berlin city community to integrate young people in social assistance into the labor market. Reference data are generated in collaboration with the German Employment Office. The participation effect is found to be positive and of relevant size, but not...

Das heutige System der sozialen Mindestsicherung verhindert in Deutschland die Ausbildung eines Niedriglohnsektors. Dies ist eine wesentliche Ursache für die hohe Arbeitslosigkeit Geringqualifizierter. Dieser Beitrag stellt zwei häufig genannte Maßnahmen zur Überwindung sozialstaatlicher...

The paper simulates the labor market impact of a fixed allowance for social insurance contributions. Based on a discrete choice labor supply model estimated on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we evaluate household utility changes triggered by the reform, accounting for behavioral...