Using the IAB Establishment Panel, which is representative for western Germany, the authors find that establishment-level wages reacted to variations in the regional unemployment rate. The elasticity of wages with respect to unemployment, they estimate, was about −0.1. This responsiveness...

"The project 'Quality of work and economic success' examines the correlation between the implementation of sustainable human resource (HR) management approaches, the quality of work and the success of a company. The goal is to identify development processes and approaches for promising measures...

This paper deals with the reasons for first taking up vocational training after obtaining the German upper secondary school-leaving certificate (Abitur) instead of going straight on to academic education. The study uses the data from the BiBB/BAuA employment survey 2006, where not only...

We use a linked employer-employee data set from Germany to estimate the wage effect of foreign-affiliates in East and West Germany. In addition, the wage effects of the large number of West German affiliates which are located in East Germany are also considered. The implemented techniques allow...

Although works councils are a core element of the German system of industrial relations, there is little reliable information on their incidence and coverage. This paper uses data from the nationally representative IAB establishment panel to fill this gap. We examine the frequency of works...

Since 1920, the thrust of German law on workplace codetermination has changed on a number of occasions. We describe the latest swing of the legislative pendium - favoring works council formation and competence - and evaluate the case for it. We provide new information on the extent of works...

"In many countries early retirement has become a personnel strategy. The establishments are interested in hiring younger employees and try to avoid 'deferred payments' which arise if older employees are paid above their productivity. Firms enter into contracts with their employees that include...

This paper investigates trends in collective bargaining and worker representation in the German private sector from 2000 to 2008. It seeks to update and widen earlier analyses pointing to a decline in collective bargaining, while providing more information on the dual system as a whole. Using...

"Organizational change is characterized by different measures of business policy, work organization and personnel policy, e.g. delayering, teamwork, job-rotation, further training and education, incentive payment and flexible working time. These measures work both, alone and in combination, on...

We use a simple regression-based approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993-2009. Although the average level of hiring and separation is much lower in Germany than in the US, as expected,...