Using a large administrative dataset for Germany, this paper compares employment developments in exiting and surviving establishments. For both West and East Germany we find a clear “shadow of death” effect reflecting lingering illness: establishments shrink dramatically already several...

Using comprehensive data for West Germany, this paper investigates the determinants of establishment exit. We find that between 1975 and 2006 the average exit rate has risen considerably. In order to test various “liabilities” of establishment survival identified in the literature, we...

Using OLS and quantile regression methods and rich cross-section data sets for western and eastern Germany, this paper demonstrates that the impact of works council presence on labor productivity varies between manufacturing and services, between plants that are or are not covered by collective...

In dieser Arbeit werden mögliche Auswirkungen des deutschen Schwerbehindertengesetzes auf die Arbeitsplatzdynamik anhand von Daten einer Vollerhebung davon betroffener Arbeitgeber durch die Bundesagentur für Arbeit und von Daten des IAB-Betriebspanels empirisch überprüft. Dabei wird aus...

Many plant-level studies find that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. This paper uses a large set of linked employer-employee data from Germany to analyze this exporter wage premium. We show that the wage differential...

An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that union density fell substantially in western Germany from 1980 to 2004 and in eastern Germany from 1992 to 2004. Such a negative trend can be observed for men and women and for different groups of the workforce....

In Germany, many labour laws and regulations apply only in establishments above a critical size, and usually these thresholds are defined by the number of employees. The existing 160 thresholds are complex and defined inconsistently, making it difficult for firms to obey the law. Moreover,...

Gemäß Betriebsverfassungsgesetz müssen in Deutschland Betriebe ab einer bestimmten Größe Betriebsräte von ihrer beruflichen Tätigkeit freistellen. Anhand einer Vollerhebung aller betroffenen Betriebe wird in dieser Arbeit der Frage nachgegangen, ob die (mit Kosten verbundene) Freistellung...

In public discussion in Germany it is often argued that jobs are mainly created in small and medium-sized firms (i.e. the Mittelstand"), whereas large firms tend to reduce their number of jobs. An empirical analysis for the period 1999 to 2005 with data of all western and eastern German firms...