One proposal frequently raised to increase flexibility of the German labour market is the liberalization of the job protection law. It applies to those establishments with more than a cut-off number of employees. The argument examined in this paper is that this step in legal regulation hinders...

Eines der am häufigsten genannten Vorschläge in der Diskussion um die Deregulierung des Arbeitsmarktes ist die Lockerung des Kündigungsschutzgesetzes (KSchG). Für kleine Unternehmen stellt, so die Hypothese, der Schwellenwert im Kündigungsschutzgesetz ein Einstellungshindernis dar, da sie...

German law guaranteeing works councils is not a datum. The thrust of legislation has changed significantly on a number of occasions since 1920. The most recent legal change in the form of the Works Constitution Reform Act marks a controversial swing in favor of works council formation and...

Recent policy debate in Europe suggests that a shorter workweek will lead to more jobs (worksharing). We derive and estimate a model where the firm employs two types of worker, some working overtime, the rest standard hours. Worksharing is not always a prediction of the theory. Using German...

Portuguese firms engage in intense reallocation, most employers simultaneously hire and separate from workers, resulting in a large heterogeneity of flows and excess turnover. Large and older firms have lower flows, but high excess turnover rates. In small firms, hires and separations move...

This study examines the potential impact of works councils and unions on the deployment of fixed-term contracts and agency temps. We report inter al. that works councils are associated with a higher number of temporary agency workers when demand volatility is high while the opposite holds for...

Based on a large employer-employee matched data set, the paper investigates the effects of variable enforcement of German dismissal protection legislation on the employment dynamics in small establishments. Specifically, using a difference-in-differences approach, we study the effect of changes...