In the Great Recession most OECD countries used short-time work (publicly subsidized working time reductions) to counteract a steep increase in unemployment. We show that short-time work can actually save jobs. However, there is an important distinction to be made: While the rule-based component...

This paper proposes a new approach to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of the Hartz IV reform in Germany, which reduced the generosity of long-term unemployment benefits. We use a model with different unemployment durations, where the reform initiates both a partial effect and an equilibrium...

This paper analyzes Germany's unusual labor market experience during the Great Recession. We estimate a general equilibrium model with a detailed labor market block for post-unification Germany. This allows us to disentangle the role of institutions (short-time work, government spending rules)...

We study the relationship between employment growth and worker flows in excess of job flows (churn) at the establishment level using the new German AWFP dataset spanning from 1975–2014. Churn is above 5 percent of employment along the entire employment growth distribution and most pronounced...

This paper analyzes the role of the extensive vis-à-vis the intensive margin of labor adjustment in Germany and in the United States. The contribution is twofold. First, we provide an update of older U.S. studies and confirm the view that the extensive margin (i.e., the adjustment in the number...

This paper analyses theoretically and empirically how employment subsidies should be targeted. We contrast measures involving targeting workers with low incomes/abilities and targeting the unemployed under the criteria of "approximate welfare efficiency" (AWE). Thereby we can identify policies...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

This paper shows that the German labor market is more volatile than the US labor market. Specifically, the volatility of the cyclical component of several labor market variables (e.g., the job-finding rate, labor market tightness, and job vacancies) divided by the volatility of labor...