Employment responses to the COVID-19 crisis differed widely across German local labour markets at the beginning of the pandemic, with differences in short-time work rates of up to 20 percentage points. We show that digital capital, and to a lesser extent working-from-home, were essential for the...

Do investment programs create more jobs in tight or in slack labor markets? We study this question using data from a large, long-term photovoltaic invest scheme in Germany. Comparing counties with high and low unemployment both over time and across space, we find that photovoltaic installations...

We apply a monopoly trade union model and analyze employment, wage and budgetary effects of (i) an inflow of migrant workers and (ii) an increase in the labor market participation rate of migrants. Per assumption, natives and migrants solely differ with respect to the level of benefit claims in...

In this paper we analyze the effects of a German job creation scheme (JCS) on the social integration and well-being of long-term unemployed individuals. Using linked survey and administrative data for participants and a group of matched non-participants, we find significant positive effects of...

We analyze the effectiveness of public works programs (PWP, Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen) in east Germany as measured by their effects on individual future reemployment probabilities in regular jobs. These are estimated by discrete hazard rate models on the basis of individuallevel panel data....

We analyze the effectiveness of publicly financed training and retraining programs in east Germany as measured by their effects on individual re-employment probabilities after training. These are estimated by discrete hazard rate models on the basis of individual-level panel data. We account for...

This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been 'rigid' in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

We analyze the effects of a large place-based policy, subsidizing up to 50% of investment costs of manufacturing firms in East Germany after reunification. We show that a 1-percentage-point decrease in the subsidy rate leads to a 1% decrease in manufacturing employment. We document important...

At the turn of the millennium three frequently cited potential causes of new challenges for wage policy in Germany are revisited in this study: skilled-biased technological progress, the increasing international integration of labor and product markets, and the monetary integration of the EMU....