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...

There is a growing concern about collective wage agreement and employment dynamics in Germany. In this paper, evidence is provided on the way collective wage agreements affect the adjustment of working hours, employment and other production factors when firms from the service sector are faced...

Der Beitrag untersucht die Verbreitung von Tarifverträgen in Dienstleistungsunternehmen sowie deren Wirkungen auf die Beschäftigungspolitik im Falle von Nachfrageschwankungen. Der empirische Teil basiert auf der ZEW/Creditreform Konjunkturumfrage bei unternehmensnahen...

Total employment in Germany is supposed to increase if people could realize their desired working hours. However, this back-of-the-envelope calculation overestimates the effect of loosening hours constraints, because even in a very flexible labor market there will exist hours restrictions for...

With flexible work time arrangements firms can quickly adjust to demand fluctuations, while employees may benefit from more time sovereignty. Depending on the specific type of arrangement the accompanying wage effects are ambiguous and have rarely been analyzed. According to the theory of...

The objective of our analysis is to find out whether an increase in working time without pay compensation can be considered an adequate policy to reduce unemployment. From the perspective of economic theory the outcome is in general ambiguous: On the one hand, as the increase in working time...

With the purpose to reduce winter unemployment and to promote all-season employment in the constructions sector, Germany maintains an extensive bad weather allowance system. Since the mid 1990s, these regulations have been subject to several reforms that resemble the range of approaches for...

The labor supply of West German married and cohabiting couples is analyzed using a discrete choice model. Following van Soest (1995), the labor supply decision is based on a household utility function which is determined by the leisure of the two spouses and net household income. Furthermore,...

This paper follows up recent work on the relationship between (un-)employment and wage effects of social security financing undertaken by the OECD Jobs Study. Based on a simple macroeconometric model of the labour market, I investigate whether the peculiar OECD results for Germany on the...