The paper uses a new German employer survey on wage setting practices to analyze incidence and sources of nominal wage rigidity in services vs. manufacturing. We observe that wage freezes are significantly more frequent and wage cuts less frequent in services. Reasons preventing wage cuts...

In the debate on in-work benefits in Germany it is often overlooked that such subsidies may only be effective if basic minimum income is remarkably decreased for those who are employable. However, proposals following this principle will hardly achieve political consensus as can be derived from...

Der Beitrag evaluiert die Wirkungen eines Betreuungsgeldes bei gleichzeitigem Ausbau der öffentlich geförderten Tagesbetreuung für Kinder im Alter von 13 bis 36 Monaten. Wir schätzen mit SOEP-Daten und unter Berücksichtigung partiell beobachtbarer Rationierungen im Betreuungsbereich ein...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of occupational training programs for the unemployed before and after the substantial amendments in German labor market legislation known as Hartz reforms. Based on the official evaluation of the reforms, we show that program impacts vary much across...

The paper investigates the role of social norms as a determinant of individual attitudes by analyzing risk proclivity reported by immigrants and natives in a unique representative German survey. We employ factor analysis to construct measures of immigrants' ethnic persistence and assimilation....

The paper analyzes the labor market impact of migration by exploiting variation in the labor supply of foreigners across groups of workers with the same level of education but different work experience. Estimates on the basis of German register data for the period 1975-97 do not confirm the...

This paper quantifies the life-cycle incidence of key family policy measures in Germany. The analysis is based on a novel dynamic microsimulation model that combines simulated family life-cycles for a base population from the 2009 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with a...

In May 2001, Germany adopted a fundamental pension reform cutting back public pensions and introducing personal pension accounts. The paper critically reviews the reform decisions and evaluates their long-term viability. It is shown that the adjustment of the Public Pension Scheme misses the...

The paper studies the determinants of labor force participation by East German women after unification. To isolate the role of preferences on labor force participation from individual characteristics, we develop a panel data model that simultaneously explains participation, employment and wages....