Employment protection systems are known to generate significant distortions in firms? hiring and firing decisions. We know much less about the impact of these regulations on worker effort. The goal of this paper is to fill in this gap and in particular to assess whether the provision of...

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 extend the literature on transition economies' wage structures by investigating the returns to tenure and experience. This study applies recent panel data and estimation approaches that control for hitherto neglected biases. We compare the life cycle structure in East and West German wages...

We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the age at which children first enter (primary) school. Early age at school entry significantly affects mobility and reduces the relative advantage of children of better educated parents.

We use Swiss data to test whether intergenerational educational mobility is affected by the age at which children first enter (primary) school. Early age at school entry significantly affects mobility and reduces the relative advantage of children of better educated parents.

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 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...

Erhöht der frühere Besuch des Kindergartens die Bildungsmobilität zwischen Kind und Eltern? Wir nutzen Schweizer Daten, um dieser Frage nachzugehen. Frühschulische Politik wird in der Schweiz auf kantonaler Ebene geregelt, so dass das Kindergartensystem zwischen den Kantonen unterschiedlich...