In 1996 Austria introduced a tax for the layoff of older workers, which was tightened in 2000. The regulation requires employers to pay a tax of up to 170 percent of the gross monthly income when they give notice to employees aged 50 or more. We use data from Austrian social security records to...

In general, retirement is seen as a pure labor supply phenomenon, but firms can have strong incentives to send expensive older workers into retirement. Based on the seniority wage model developed by Lazear (1979), we discuss steep seniority wage profiles as incentives for firms to dismiss older...

Die Strompreise kennen seit Anfang des neuen Jahrtausends in Deutschland nur eine Richtung: nach oben. Die Hauptursache sind Steuern sowie gesetzlich festgelegte Umlagen und Abgaben, die vorwiegend klimapolitisch motiviert sind. Ohne ihre Einführung und schrittweise Erhöhung hätten sich die...

Empirical evidence on households' awareness of electricity prices and potentially divergent demand responses to price changes conditional on price knowledge is scant. Using panel data originating from Germany's Residential Energy Consumption Survey (GRECS), we fill this void by employing an...

Due to the growing share of ”green” electricity generated by renewable energy technologies, the frequency of negative price spikes has substantially increased in Germany. To reduce such events, in 2012, a market premium scheme (MPS) was introduced as an alternative to feed-in tariffs for the...