Employment expectations and uncertainties ahead of the new German minimum wage
02 February 2016
Followed by an extensive policy discussion late 2013 and early 2014, the new German minimum wage was introduced on 1 January 2015. This article analyzes announcement effects of the new statutory minimum wage on employer expectations in 2014. The IAB Establishment Panel allows for a difference-in-differences comparison between affected and unaffected employers and entails variables that address the employers' employment expectations. In 2014, affected employers show an increased employment uncertainty and a drop in their expected employment development. They also more likely report wage costs to become a problem. In size, the employment expectations translate into a loss of about 12 800 jobs.
IAB-Discussion Paper 3/2016
The role of sickness in the evaluation of job search assistance and sanctions
26 January 2016
Unemployment insurance agencies may combat moral hazard by punishing refusals to apply to assigned vacancies. However, the possibility to report sick creates an additional moral hazard, since during sickness spells, minimum requirements on search behavior do not apply. This reduces the ex ante threat of sanctions. We analyze the effects of vacancy referrals and sanctions on the unemployment duration and the quality of job matches, in conjunction with the possibility to report sick.
IAB-Discussion Paper 2/2016
Endowment redistribution and Pareto improvements in GEI economies
13 January 2016
With incomplete markets and numeraire assets, there are open sets of economies such that their equilibrium allocations can be improved upon by a reallocation of period zero endowments. This strengthens the classical results on constrained Pareto inefficiency of equilibria in GEI.
IAB-Discussion Paper 1/2016
Industry 4.0 and the consequences for labour market and economy
16 December 2015
This study focuses on the economic effects of the phenomenon of “Industry 4.0”, the digitalisation of the production processes. These developments involve considerable challenges for companies as well as on a political level. The results show that Industry 4.0 will accelerate the structural change towards more services. In the process, labour force movements between sectors and occupations are significantly greater than the change of the number of employees overall.