This paper compares the most commonly quoted female-to-male wage ratios (based on hourly earnings in manufacturing) and ratios based on a harmonized analysis of household surveys. The surveys include employees of all types in all sectors - thereby overcoming the problems associated with a lack...

Social assistance and unemployment assistance, which provide means tested income support (social welfare) without pre-specified time limits, are viewed as one important reason for the persistently high level of unemployment in Germany by many economists. In order to increase work incentives and,...

We analyze the economic factors which have contributed to the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in German manufacturing, in particular the role played by the relatively rigid earnings structure. Potential effects of intensified international competition and skill?biased...

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...

We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy....

In the paper we simulate a revenue-neutral cut in the social security contribution rate using five different types of macro- / microeconomic models, namely two models based on time-series data where the labour market is modelled basically demand oriented, two models of the class of computable...

In this paper we estimate the employment effects of a reduction in weekly normal hours in West German manufacturing on the basis of an econometric models using industry panel data. We distinguish between unskilled, skilled and high-skilled workers and show that labor demand elasticities with...