This study uses panel data describing about 6,500 employees in a large international company to study the incentive effects of performance related pay. The company uses two performance related remuneration mechanisms. One is an individual "surprise" bonus payment. The other is a more structured...

Temporary contracts provide employers with a tool to screen potential new employees and have been shown to provide "stepping stones" into permanent employment for workers. For both reasons workers on temporary contracts have an incentive to provide more effort than permanent employees. Using...

We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the age at which children enroll in kindergarten. Taking advantage of heterogeneity across cantons we find that early kindergarten enrollment significantly increases educational mobility.

This study applies rich data from the 2000 Swiss census to investigate the patterns of intergenerational education transmission for natives and second generation immigrants. The level of secondary schooling attained by youth aged 17 is related to their parents' educational outcomes using data on...

This study utilizes the heterogeneity of the fee abolition for West German secondary schools to identify its effect on enrollment and to obtain an estimate of the price elasticity of demand for education. The analysis is based on administrative school enrollment statistics as well as on...

The share of foreigners in the German social assistance program exceeds their population share and continues to grow. This study tests whether higher foreigner welfare dependence is due to foreign-native differences in behavior as opposed to exogenous characteristics. The determinants of welfare...

This study applies count data estimation techniques to investigate the fertility adjustment of immigrants in the destination country. Data on completed fertility are taken from the 1996 wave of the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP). While the economic literature stresses the role of prices and...

The theoretical probation literature shows that individuals have incentives to mimick "good workers" during periods of employment probation. This study empirically tests at the example of absence behavior, whether such behavioral responses to the incentives of probation periods exist. We find...

It is often argued that the labor market outcomes of several ?problem groups? of German workers suffer disproportionately in an economic downturn. These groups are women, the unskilled, and young and old workers, respectively. Using monthly individual-level data for West Germany for the period...

In this paper, the role of the computer at the workplace will be examined in determining the wage structure in Germany. Following Krueger (1993) and using the German Socio- Economic Panel (GSOEP), cross-sectional wage regression results from 1997 and panel results from 1984-1997 are presented....