We assess the labour supply effects of two 'making work pay' reforms in Germany. We provide evidence in favour of policies that distinguish between low effort and low productivity by targeting individuals with low wages rather than individuals with low earnings. In assessing the policies we...

As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel...

The reaction of the German labor market to the Great Recession 2008/09 was relatively mild - especially compared to other countries. The reason lies not only in the specific type of the recession - which was favorable for the German economy structure - but also in a series of labor market...

The economic literature starting with Borjas (2001) suggests that immigrants are more flexible than natives in responding to changing sectoral, occupational, and spatial shortages in the labor market. In this paper, we study the relative responsiveness to labor shortages by immigrants from...

Migration is often viewed as an investment decision. Temporary migrants can be expected to invest less in accumulating human capital specific to the host country. Instead, they work more hours in order to accumulate savings and invest in financial capital that can be transferred back to their...

Increasing work incentives for people with low incomes is a common topic in the policy debate across European countries. The "Mini-Job" reform in Germany -- introduced on April 1, 2003 -- can be seen in line with these policies, exempting labour income below a certain threshold from taxes and...

The Eastern enlargement of the EU was an institutional impetus to the migration potential in Europe. While the overall numbers of migrants from the new member states in the EU15 increased between 2003 and 2007, this increase was distributed unevenly among countries. The proportion of these...

The starkly different histories and institutions in the eastern and western member states of the European Union (EU) suggest different roles of being non-native in these two regions. In this paper we study the roles of foreign origin and citizenship in the comparative East-West perspective. Our...

The standard approach of analyzing gaps in social and labor market outcomes of different ethnic groups relies on analysis of statistical data about the affected groups. In this paper we go beyond this approach by measuring the views of expert stakeholders involved in minority integration. This...

This paper applies semiparametric regression models to shed light on the relationship between body weight and labor market outcomes in Germany. We find conclusive evidence that these relationships are poorly described by linear or quadratic OLS specifications, which have been the main approaches...