This paper provides a meta-analysis of 55 empirical studies estimating the employment effects of minimum wages in 15 industrial countries. It strongly confirms the notion that the effects of minimum wages are heterogeneous between countries. As possible sources of heterogeneity, it considers the...

Job search assistance and intensified counseling have been found to be effective for labor market integration by a large number of studies, but the evidence for older and hard-to-place unemployed individuals more specifically is mixed. In this paper we present key results from the evaluation of...

In Germany, the employment response to the post-2007 crisis has been muted compared to other industrialized countries. Despite a large drop in output, employment has hardly changed. In this paper, we analyze the determinants of German firms' labor demand during the crisis using a firm-level...

We study heterogeneity in the effects of two pension reforms in Germany that closed pathways into early retirement: the abolition of an old-age pension scheme for women and the abolition of a pension after unemployment or part-time work. We focus on heterogeneity with respect to several...

The undersupply of spots in German daycare facilities for toddlers challenges parents' possibilities to work. To ease the situation, the government implemented a new law entitling every child between ages one and three to daycare supervision for about four hours per day. Nevertheless, the...

This paper investigates whether individual control-perception affects the probability of becoming poor, and vice versa, whether poverty experiences can be detrimental to these traits later on. The former relation is intuitive as control related traits underlay many idiosyncratic determinants of...

Work complexity can be an important factor contributing to the observed employment and wage developments. Using German data, we find that it increased substantially between 1986 and 2012. Work complexity was higher for high-educated employees in the past but differences have leveled out in 2012...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice, and have been abolished. Whereas other studies have shown no effect on enrollment, we analyze the...

Most German states have reformed university preparatory schooling during the last decade by reducing its duration from 13 to 12 years without changing the graduation requirements. In this paper, we use nationwide data on high school graduates and apply a difference-in-differences approach to...

Many university students depend on employment during their studies. The closing of universities and the loss of many typical student jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic particularly affected their situation. Based on survey data from a major German university, we analyze changes in students'...