Documents Bonin, Holger 17 results

"This paper quantifies the life-cycle incidence of key family policy measures in Germany. The analysis is based on a novel dynamic microsimulation model that combines simulated family life-cycles for a base population from the 2009 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with a comprehensive tax-benefit model. The results indicate that households in Germany benefit considerably from family- and marriage-related transfers, yet also reveal substantial variation behind the population average. Moreover, it is shown that some measures, such as income tax splitting, may make individuals in fact worse off, in financial terms, over the long course, as a result of negative labour supply incentives which are reinforced through detrimental effects on human capital accumulation."

"Der Beitrag vergleicht die Effizienz von zehn zentralen familienpolitischen Leistungen in Deutschland hinsichtlich der Ziele der wirtschaftlichen Stabilität und der Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf. Die Wirkungsanalysen berücksichtigen die Interaktionen im Leistungssystem und mögliche Arbeitsangebotsreaktionen der Haushalte. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die deutsche Familienpolitik in erheblichem Maß zur wirtschaftlichen Stabilität der Familien beiträgt. Zielgenaue Leistungen schneiden dabei bezogen auf die Effizienz besser ab als Leistungen wie das Ehegattensplitting oder das Kindergeld. Vom Splitting und von der beitragsfreien Mitversicherung der Ehepartner gehen zudem negative Impulse auf die Erwerbstätigkeit des Zweitverdieners aus. Die Wirkungen sind häufig nicht-linear, asymmetrisch und nicht-additiv. Mögliche Reformmaßnahmen lassen sich daher nicht durch Extrapolation der bestehenden Ergebnisse, sondern nur auf Basis konkreter Simulationen ex ante bewerten."

"Geographic mobility is important for the functioning of labor markets because it brings labor resources to where they can be most efficiently used. It has long been hypothesized that individuals' migration propensities depend on their attitudes towards risk, but the empirical evidence, to the extent that it exists, has been indirect. In this paper, we use newly available data from the German Socio-Economic Panel to measure directly the relationship between migration propensities and attitudes towards risk. We find that individuals who are more willing to take risks are more likely to migrate between labor markets in Germany. This result is robust to stratifying by age, sex, education, national origin, and a variety of other demographic characteristics, as well as to the level of aggregation used to define geographic mobility. The effect is substantial relative to the unconditional migration propensity and compared to the conventional determinants of migration. We also find that being more willing to take risks is more important for the extensive than for the intensive margin of migration."

"This paper investigates to what extent individuals' risk preferences are correlated with the cross-sectional earnings risk of their occupation. We exploit data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, which contains a direct survey question about willingness to take risks that has been shown to be a behaviorally valid measure of risk aversion. As a measure of earnings risk, we use the cross-sectional variation in earnings that is left unexplained by human capital variables in Mincerian wage regressions. Our evidence shows that individuals with low willingness to take risks are more likely to work in occupations with low earnings risk. This pattern is found regardless of the level of occupation categories, region, gender and labor market experience."

"Germany still has a generous pay-as-you-go public pension insurance with high effective replacement rates and low effective retirement ages. Nevertheless, through a long reform process that began in 1992, the paradigm of public pension provision has radically changed in response to the country's looming ageing crisis. In a nutshell, the path to improved public pension finances in Germany might be best described as a move from a defined benefit scheme to a defined contribution scheme. After the last major amendment in 2007 that will lift the statutory retirement age to 67 the debate about further pension reform measures basically had come to a stop. The current crisis in the financial sector, however, has brought the pension system in Germany under political pressure again. Against this background, this article provides a synthetic overview of the recent developments in the German pension system and their impact on current and future pension finances. We point to new threats to sustainable public pension finances developing in the wake of the financial crisis: First, pressure to disconnect the annual adjustment of pensions from annual growth of wages, as average wage earnings are predicted to decline. Yet a ban on nominal pension cuts is at odds with the guiding principle of the last pension reforms in Germany, namely to reduce the replacement rate. Second, pressure to moderate the scheduled increase in mandatory retirement age, as employment opportunities are worsening also for older workers. However, it is wrong to adapt the long-term mandatory retirement age reform in view of short-term economic fluctuations. It is designed to unfold very gradually, such that it leaves the actors on the labour market with enough time to adapt to new structural conditions. In the current situation of economic turmoil, the core challenge at present is to protect what has been accomplished with regards to long-term financial sustainability against demands from the public to soften the reforms. Still in the next period of calmer economic waters, pension reformers should tackle pending issues. A first issue is integration of the East and West German public pension schemes. A second, more important issue is provision of pension income for the low-skilled, as the growing second pension pillar does not well reach the poor."

"Die Lockerung des Kündigungsschutzes ist ein wesentliches Element der im Januar 2004 in Deutschland in Kraft gesetzten Arbeitsmarktreformen. Dieser Beitrag diskutiert die hiervon zu erwartenden Beschäftigungseffekte. Auf Grundlage vorliegender theoretischer und empirischer Erkenntnisse wird argumentiert, dass die Neuregelung nur geringfügig zum Abbau der vorherrschenden strukturellen Arbeitslosigkeit beitragen dürfte. Für einen spürbaren Erfolg fehlen konsequentere Reformen des ausreichende Lohnflexibilität und Lohndifferenzierung verhindernden sozialen Sicherungssystems.

Deregulation of German Dismissal Protection Legislation: A Road to More Employment?
A key feature of the recent labor market reforms in Germany is liberalization of dismissal protection legislation. The paper discusses the potential labor market effects of this amendment. On the basis of the available theoretical and empirical evidence, it is argued that deregulation in this area probably will not substantially reduce the country's predominantly structural unemployment. A promising strategy would require forceful reform of social welfare institutions prohibiting sufficient wage flexibility and wage differentiation."