The German Labor Market Reforms and Post-Unemployment Earnings PDF Download

Author: Niklas Engbom
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513531255
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
In 2003–05, Germany undertook extensive labor market reforms which were followed by a large and persistent decline in unemployment. Key elements of the reforms were a drastic cut in benefits for the long-term unemployed and tighter job search and acceptance obligations. Using a large confidential data set from the German social security administration, we find that the reforms were associated with a fall in the earnings of workers returning to work from short-term unemployment relative to workers in long-term employment of about 10 percent. We interpret this as evidence that the reforms strengthened incentives to return to work but, in doing so, they adversely affected post re-entry earnings.

Author: Mr.Marcello M. Estevão
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1451875649
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 31

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Book Description
Using panel data for 15 industrial countries, active labor market policies (ALMPs) are shown to have raised employment rates in the business sector in the 1990s, after controlling for many institutions, country-specific effects, and economic variables. Among such policies, direct subsidies to job creation were the most effective. ALMPs also affected employment rates by reducing real wages below levels allowed by technological growth, changes in the unemployment rate, and institutional and other economic factors. However, part of this wage moderation may be linked to a composition effect because policies were targeted to low-paid individuals. Whether ALMPs are cost-effective from a budgetary perspective remains to be determined, but they are certainly not substitutes for comprehensive institutional reforms.

Author: David Greenaway
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9781405131698
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
This volume investigates the ways in which firms and workers are adjusting to globalization. A collection of cutting-edge essays investigating the ways in which firms and workers are adjusting to globalization. Written by leading researchers in the field. Covers such issues as: outsourcing; the productivity effects of entry to export markets; job losses and wage insurance; and the protection of intellectual property. Presents original research on adjusting to globalization. Provides important insights into the microeconomics effects of globalization. Highlights key issues for policy makers.

Author: Christina Benita Wilke
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783631588512
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
The German pension system was the first formal pension system in the world, designed by Bismarck nearly 120 years ago. It has been very successful in providing high and reliable pension levels at reasonable contribution rates. While the generosity of the German pension system is considered a great social achievement, negative incentive effects of past reforms in the 1970s and 1980s and population aging are threatening the very core of the system. This has led to fundamental pension reforms since 1992. Based on a detailed simulation model of the German pension system, this book provides a thorough assessment of the system and its reforms. It shows that the latest reforms have put the system back onto a stable path and moved it from the old monolithic towards a multi-pillar system.

Author: Brigitte Unger
Publisher: Sophie Enterprises
ISBN: 9780992653743
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
Since the Financial Crisis in 2008 Germany has performed economically far better than most of its neighbouring countries. What makes Germany so special that nobel prize winner Krugman called it a German miracle and is this sustainable? Is it its strong economic and political institutions, in particular trade unions, which by international comparison are a solid rock in turbulent waters, its vocational training which guarantees high skilled labour and low youth unemployment, its social partnership agreements which showed large flexibility of working time arrangements during the crisis and turned the rock into a bamboo flexibly bending once the rough wind of globalization was blowing? Or was it simply luck, booming exports to China and the East, a shrinking population, or worse so, a demolition of the German welfare state? All along from miracle to fate to shame of the German model: Is there such a thing like a core of Germany? The debate on the German model is controversial within Germany. But what do neighbours think about Germany? The Nordic countries want to copy German labor market institutions. The Western countries admire it for its high flexibility within stable institutions, the Austrians have a similar model but question Germany's welfare arrangements and growth capacities. Many Eastern European countries are relatively silent about the German model. There is admiration for the German economic success, but at the same time not so much for its institutions and certainly not for its restrictive migration policy. The Southern countries see it as a preposterous pain to Europe by shaping EU policy a la Germany and forcing austerity policy at the costs of its neighbours. Can the German model be copied? And what do neighbours recommend Germany to do?

Author: Thomas Paster
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136498036
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This book assesses the role of employers in the development of welfare state and labour market institutions. Building on an in-depth analysis of Germany, a market economy known to often provide economic benefits to firms, this book explores one of the most contested issues in the comparative and historical literature on the welfare state. In a departure from existing employer-centered explanations, the author applies new empirical data to contend that the variation in acceptance of social reform depends more on changes in the types of political challenges faced by employers, than on changes in the type of institutions considered economically beneficial. Covering major reforms spanning more than a century of institutional development in unemployment insurance, accident insurance, pensions, collective bargaining, and codetermination, this book argues that employers support social policy as a means to contain political outcomes that would have been worse, including labour unrest and more radical reform plans. Using new and controversial findings on the role of employers in welfare state development, this book considers the conditions for a peaceful coexistence of a generous welfare state and the business world. The Role of Business in the Development of the Welfare State and Labor Markets in Germany will be of interest to students and scholars of welfare and social policy politics, political economy and European politics.

Author: Herbert Giersch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521358699
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The Fading Miracle provides a lucid account of economic policy in West Germany from the late 1940s up to the present. First published in hardback in 1992, this paperback edition has been updated to include events since then. The authors describe and evaluate the major policy controversies and decisions, and place particular emphasis on the characteristically German institutions of policy counselling and their role in policy formation. The book will be of interest to students and teachers of economics, and to all those with an interest in the development of the greatest economic power in Europe.

Author: Katharine G. Abraham
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN:
Category : Job security
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
With the onset of the recession in 1990, job security has moved to the forefront of labor market concerns in the United States. During economic downturns, American employers rely heavily on layoffs to cut their work force, much more than do their counterparts in other industrialized nations. The hardships imposed by these layoffs have led many to ask whether U.S. workers can be offered more secure employment without burdening the companies that employ them. In this book, Katharine Abraham and Susan Houseman address this question by comparing labor adjustment practices in the United States, where existing policies arguably encourage layoffs, with those in Germany, a country with much stronger job protection for workers. From their assessment of the German experience, the authors recommend new public policies that promote alternatives to layoffs and help reduce unemployment. Beginning with an overview of the labor markets in Germany and the United States, Abraham and Houseman emphasize the interaction of various government policies. Stronger job security in Germany has been accompanied by an unemployment insurance system that facilitates short-time work as a substitute for layoffs. In the United States, however, the unemployment insurance system has encouraged layoffs and discouraged the use of work-sharing schemes. The authors examine the effects of job security on the efficiency and equity of labor market adjustment and review trends in U.S. policy. Finally, the authors recommend reforms of the U.S. unemployment insurance system that include stronger experience rating and an expansion of short-time compensation program. They also point to the critical link between job security and the system of worker training in Germany and advocate policies that would encourage more training by U.S. companies.

Author: International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513511165
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 71

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Book Description
This 2015 Article IV Consultation highlights that the ongoing upturn in Germany is benefiting from the euro depreciation and lower energy prices, and is underpinned by a healthy fiscal position and sound corporate and household balance sheets. Employment growth has been robust, supported by strong immigration. The unemployment rate hit an additional post-reunification low at 4.7 percent. The oil price drop brought inflation temporarily close to zero, which has contributed to lift real wage growth to a 20-year high. The current moderate growth momentum is expected to continue as robust real wages buoy private consumption and euro depreciation buttresses exports, opening the way for a recovery in machinery and equipment investment.

Author: Stefan Kawalec
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429624182
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
This book presents a new narrative on the eurozone crisis. It argues that the common currency has the potential to kill the European Union, and the conventional wisdom that the eurozone can be fixed by a common budget and further political integration is incorrect. The authors address key questions such as why the European Union and the single market have been successful, why the common currency poses a threat to European integration, and whether it is possible to either fix the eurozone or dissolve it while keeping the EU and the single market. Contrary to the view that it would be best if the Southern European countries left the eurozone first, the book makes the case that the optimal solution would be to start the process with the most competitive countries exiting first. The authors argue that a return to national currencies would be beneficial not only to the crisis-ridden southern countries, but also to France and Germany, which were the main promoters of the single currency. An organised unwinding of the euro area would be beneficial both for the European economy and for Europe’s main trading partners. The authors contend that to defend the euro at all costs weakens the European economy and threatens the cohesion of the European Union. If pro-European and pro-market EU leaders do not dismantle the eurozone, it will most likely be done by their anti-European and anti-market successors. If that happens, the European Union and the common market will be destroyed. This book will be a useful and engaging contribution to the existing literature in the fields of macro, monetary and international finance and economics.