Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

This paper analyzes changes in the risk of unemployment and changes in the distribution of unemployment duration for the 26 to 41 years old working population in West-Germany during the 1980ties and 1990ties. The comprehensive IAB employment subsample 1975- 1997 is used for the analysis. It...

This paper empirically analyzes the distribution of unemployment durations in West- Germany before and after the changes during the mid 1980s in the maximum entitlement periods for unemployment benefits for elderly unemployed. The analysis is based on the comprehensive IAB employment subsample...

Consumption based equivalence scales are estimated by applying the extended partially linear model (EPLM) to the 1998 Income and Consumption Survey (EVS) of Germany. The chosen flexible semiparametric specification is able to capture a large variety of functional forms of household expenditure...

We apply censored quantile regressions to representative German register data with more than 91,000 observations in order to determine crucial factors that influence the distribution of unemployment duration in West Germany during the 1980s and 1990s. We find that the effect of some regressors...

In many situations the applied researcher wants to combine different data sources without knowing the exact link and merging rule. This paper introduces a theoretical framework how two different regional administrative data sources can be merged. It presents different merging schemes based on...

Economic theory suggests that an extension of the maximum length of entitlement for unemployment benefits increases the duration of unemployment. Empirical results for the reform of the unemployment compensation system in Germany during the 1980s are less clear. The analysis in this paper is...

The paper analyses the potential impact of stock market developments on lending behaviour from different perspectives. First we scrutinize the impact of stock market movements on the banks? and on the borrowers? balance sheets. Subsequently we estimate aggregate credit supply and demand...

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...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether labour mobility is likely to act as a sufficient adjustment mechanism in the face of asymmetric shocks in Euroland. To this end, we estimate the elasticity of migration with respect to changes in unemployment and income on the basis of regional...