Previous evaluations of job creation schemes (JCS) reveal mostly negative employment effects, mainly due to inherent lock-in effects. In this paper, we assess the impact of an innovative JCS that ...employs a pre-selection mechanism to target programme participation on unemployed job seekers with very low integration chances, hereby reducing possible lock-in effects. Relying on high-quality administrative as well as survey data, we conduct regression-adjusted matching analyses to estimate the programme effect on integration into regular employment. Our results show that the programme did not succeed to foster labour market integration, but still entails remarkably negative employment effects in the first years after participation. We argue that this results from a principal-agent problem at the last step of the selection mechanism that may have led to cream-skimming rather than targeting on very hard to place workers. However, supplementary analyses reveal that negative effects can be avoided for subgroups with very poor employment chances in case of non-participation. These results are robust to the use of different matching estimators and definitions of non-participation. The inclusion of usually unobservable survey variables as well as placebo tests based on past employment outcomes refute concerns about endogenous selection. From a policy-perspective, these findings imply that targeting JCS on workers with very low integration chances is a key factor to avoid negative employment effects found in previous evaluations. At the methodological level, our analyses add to recent literature that assesses the credibility of non-experimental evaluations based on high-quality administrative data.
A large number of articles have analysed ‘the one constant’ in the economic effects of trade unions, namely that collective bargaining reduces employment growth by 2–4% points per year. Evidence is, ...however, mostly related to Anglo‐Saxon countries. We investigate whether a different institutional setting might lead to a different outcome, making the constant a variable entity. Using linked‐employer‐employee data for Germany, we find a negative correlation between being covered by a sector‐wide bargaining agreement or firm‐level contract and employment growth of about 1% point per annum. However, the correlation between employment growth and collective bargaining is not robust to the use of panel methods. We conclude that the results of the literature using cross‐section data might be driven by selection.
Flexible collective bargaining agreements Brandle, Tobias
MDE. Managerial and decision economics/Managerial and decision economics,
December 2017, Letnik:
38, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
We analyse the interaction between different labour market institutions in Germany, namely, industry-level bargaining and firm-level codetermination by works councils. In particular, we are ...interested in the moderating effect of flexibility measures on the link between the existence works councils and collective agreements on wages and productivity. In presence of institutional changes, the question is whether works councils in covered plants still generate rather than redistribute rents, given recent decentralisation processes in the German system of industrial relations. We augment a theoretical model to provide hypotheses, which are then tested using empirical analysis of representative German plant level data. We find that the existence of flexibility provisions in collective bargaining agreements does not alter the effect of works council on firms' wages. We find, however, that with flexibility provisions works council presence is associated with higher productivity levels than without such provisions. These findings, however, depend on the level of collective bargaining: they can only be observed in plants covered by industry-level contracts, but do not hold in plants covered by firm-level contracts.
Using both household and linked employer–employee data for Germany, we assess the effects of nonunion representation in the form of works councils on (1) individual sickness absence rates and (2) a ...subjective measure of personnel problems due to sickness absence as perceived by a firm's management. We find that the existence of a works council is positively correlated with the incidence and the annual duration of absence. Further, personnel problems due to absence are more likely to occur in plants with a works council.
School-level infection control measures in Germany during the early Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic differed across the 16 federal states and lacked a dependable evidence base, with ...available evidence limited to regional data restricted to short phases of the pandemic. This study aimed to assess the (a) infection risks in students and staff; (b) transmission risks and routes in schools; (c) effects of school-level infection control measures on school and population infection dynamics; and (d) contribution of contacts in schools to population cases.
For this retrospective observational study, we used German federal state (NUTS-2) and county (NUTS-3) data from public health and education agencies from March 2020 to April 2022. We assessed (a) infection risk as cumulative risk and crude risk ratios and (b) secondary attack rates (SARs) with 95% confidence interval (CI). We used (c) multiple regression analysis for the effects of infection control measures such as reduced attendance, mask mandates, and vaccination coverage as absolute reduction in case incidence per 100,000 inhabitants per 14 days and in percentage relative to the population, and (d) infection dynamic modelling to determine the percentage contribution of school contacts to population cases. We included (a) nationwide NUTS-2 data from calendar weeks (W) 46-50/2020 and W08/2021-W15/2022 with 3,521,964 cases in students and 329,283 in teachers; (b) NUTS-3 data from W09-25/2021 with 85,788 student and 9,427 teacher cases; and (c) detailed data from 5 NUTS-3 regions from W09/2020 to W27/2021 with 12,814 cases (39% male, 37% female; median age 14, range 5 to 63), 43,238 contacts and 4,165 secondary cases for students (for teachers, 14,801 22% male, 50% female; median age 39, range 16 to 75, 5,893 and 472). Infection risk (a) for students and teachers was higher than the population risk in all phases of normal presence class and highest in the early 2022 omicron wave with 30.6% (95% CI 30.5% to 32.6%) of students and 32.7% (95% CI 32.6% to 32.8%) of teachers infected in Germany. SARs (b) for students and staff were below 5% in schools throughout the study period, while SARs in households more than doubled from 13.8% (95% CI 10.6% to 17.6%) W21-39/2020 to 28.7% (95% CI 27% to 30.4%) in W08-23/2021 for students and 10.9% (95% CI 7% to 16.5%) to 32.7% (95% CI 28.2% to 37.6%) for staff. Most contacts were reported for schools, yet most secondary cases originated in households. In schools, staff predominantly infected staff. Mandatory surgical mask wearing during class in all schools was associated with a reduction in the case incidence of students and teachers (c), by 56/100,000 persons per 14 days (students: 95% CI 47.7 to 63.4; teachers: 95% CI 39.6 to 71.6; p < 0.001) and by 29.8% (95% CI 25% to 35%, p < 0.001) and 24.3% (95% CI 13% to 36%, p < 0.001) relative to the population, respectively, as were reduced attendance and higher vaccination coverage. The contribution of contacts in schools to population cases (d) was 2% to 20%, lowest during school closures/vacation and peaked during normal presence class intervals, with the overall peak early during the omicron wave. Limitations include underdetection, misclassification of contacts, interviewer/interviewee dependence of contact-tracing, and lack of individual-level confounding factors in aggregate data regression analysis.
In this study, we observed that open schools under hygiene measures and testing strategies contributed up to 20% of population infections during the omicron wave early 2022, and as little as 2% during vacations/school closures; about a third of students and teachers were infected during the omicron wave in early 2022 in Germany. Mandatory mask wearing during class in all school types and reduced attendance models were associated with a reduced infection risk in schools.
We analyse the economic returns in lifetime labour income of various educational paths in Germany. Using recent data, we calculate cumulative labour earnings at different ages and for different ...educational paths while controlling the parental background of individuals. We find that after the age of 55, lifetime labour income is higher for individuals with a university degree compared to individuals with a vocational degree. Considering the risk of dropout and the possibility of educational upgrading, individuals who start with a vocational training after their school degree do not earn less than individuals who start with university studies.
This article establishes a link between the degree of productivity dispersion within an industry and collective bargaining coverage of the firms in the industry. In a stylized unionized oligopoly ...model, we show that differences in productivity levels can affect the design of collective wage contracts a sector‐union offers to heterogeneous firms. Using German linked employer–employee data, we test a range of our theoretical hypotheses and find empirical support for them. The dispersion of sector‐level labour productivity decreases the likelihood of firms being covered by a collective bargaining agreement on the industry level, but increases the likelihood of firms being covered by firm‐level agreements. The results hold for different subsamples and (panel) estimation techniques.
This paper provides two indicators that measure: (i) offshoring potentials (cross‐country geographical relocation) and (ii) outsourcing potentials (organisational relocation) separately at the level ...of jobs, occupations, tasks and industries. We use four waves of the BIBB/BAuA Labour Force Survey in Germany and apply principal component analysis based on a large set of potential determinants of offshoring and outsourcing derived from the literature. Our results show significant variation across these levels in the determinants of both dimensions. We provide a comprehensive empirical classification of the determinants of how easily jobs can be offshored and outsourced. This can serve as a basis for further research to investigate the economic effects of job offshoreability.
Recently, it has been discussed how actors at universities perceive the Bologna Process. However, there is a lack of understanding about the determinants influencing attitudes towards the reform. In ...particular, the relation between education policy ideals and perceptions of the Bologna Process has gone unobserved. Based on a survey at three universities in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, this article shows that a congruence of education policy ideals with the goals of the Bologna Process leads to a more positive perception of the reform. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models show that these findings are stable when controlled for socio-demographic characteristics, changes of everyday work and involvement in the implementation of the Bologna Process. Thus, it is worthwhile to take into account the education policy ideals of involved actors when analysing perceptions of educational reforms. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
This paper analyses the link between offshoring in German plants and the offshoring potential of their employees. It uses information on the offshoring potential of jobs from representative task data ...and merges it with linked employeremployee data, for which information on different modes of offshoring behaviour is available. It empirically identifies individual and plant-level determinants of offshoring activity and additionally analyses how offshoring potential influences the realisation of offshoring by German plants. Depending on the measure for actual offshoring, it mostly finds a negative link: firms are less likely to outsource or offshore parts of their production processes if their outsourcing and offshoring potential is high. This indicates that existing measures of offshoring potential can indeed be interpreted as not-yet realised offshoring, or offshoring that cannot be realised, e.g. due to trade barriers.
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