Documents Garloff, Alfred Alexander 7 results

"In this paper we study the effect of small labor market entry cohorts on (un)employment in Western Germany. From a theoretical point of view, decreasing cohort sizes may on the one hand reduce unemployment due to 'inverse cohort crowding' or on the other hand increase unemployment if companies reduce jobs disproportionately. Consequently, the actual effect of cohort shrinking on (un)employment is an empirical question. We analyze the relationship between (un)employment and cohort sizes using a long panel of Western German labor market regions. In this context, we account for both the likely endogeneity of cohort size due to migration of the (young) workforce across regions using lagged births as instruments as well as for temporal and spatial autocorrelation. Our results provide good news for the (Western) German labor market: small entry cohorts are indeed likely to decrease the overall unemployment rate and thus to improve the situation of job seekers. Accordingly, with regard to the employment rate we find that it is positively affected by a decrease in the youth share."

"Differences in average wages across firms – which account for around one-half of overall wage inequality – are mainly explained by differences in firm wage premia (the part of wages that depends exclusively on characteristics of firms) rather than workforce composition. Using a new cross-country dataset of linked employer-employee data, this paper investigates the role of cross-firm dispersion in productivity in explaining dispersion in firm wage premia, as well as the factors shaping the link between productivity and wages at the firm level. The results suggest that around 15% of cross-firm differences in productivity are passed on to differences in firm wage premia. The degree of pass-through is systematically larger in countries and industries with more limited job mobility, where low-productivity firms can afford to pay lower wage premia relative to high-productivity ones without a substantial fraction of workers quitting their jobs. Stronger product market competition raises pass-through while more centralised bargaining and higher minimum wages constrain firm-level wage setting at any given level of productivity dispersion. From a policy perspective, the results suggest that the key priority should be to promote job mobility, which would reduce wage differences between firms while easing the efficient reallocation of workers across them."

"This paper estimates the effect that changes in the size of the youth population have on the wages of young workers. Assuming that differently aged workers are only imperfectly substitutable, economic theory predicts that individuals in larger age groups earn lower wages. We test this hypothesis for a sample of young, male, full-time employees in Western Germany during the period 1999-2010. In contrast to other studies, functional rather than administrative spatial entities are used as they provide a more accurate measure of the youth population in an actual labour market. Based on instrumental variables estimation, we show that an increase in the youth share by one percentage point is predicted to decrease a young worker's wages by 3%. Our results also suggest that a substantial part of this effect is due to members of larger age groups being more likely to be employed in lower-paying occupations."

"In Germany, decreasing collective bargaining coverage and rising wage inequality led to the introduction of a new statutory minimum wage of EURO 8.50 per hour of work. We analyze the relationship between the bite of the minimum wage and employment/ unemployment growth using regional data of the Federal Employment Agency for prime age individuals. We use difference-in-differences type of specifications using a panel of region-age-sex cells. The results do not provide evidence in favor of a reduced employment growth for the analysed groups, nor do they provide evidence for an increase in unemployment growth due to the minimum wage. However, we find an increase in growth of regular employment at the expense of marginal employment."

"This paper estimates the effect that changes in the size of the youth population have on the wages of young workers. Assuming that differently aged workers are only imperfectly substitutable, economic theory predicts that individuals in larger age groups earn lower wages. We test this hypothesis for a sample of young, male, fulltime employees in Western Germany during the period 1999-2010. In contrast to other studies, functional rather than administrative spatial entities are used as they provide a more accurate measure of the youth population in an actual labour market. Based on instrumental variables estimation, we show that an increase in the youth share by one percentage point is predicted to decrease a young worker's wages by 3 %. Our results also suggest that a substantial part of this effect is due to members of larger age groups being more likely to be employed in lower-paying occupations."

"Two stylised facts of the German labour market are that first, the demand for highskilled labour has been growing rapidly for a number of years and second, the country is facing a particularly strong demographic change with the expected size of the population decreasing rapidly and the average age of the labour force increasing sharply. This has led to a widely discussed fear of 'labour shortages'. One of the reasons often stated in the public debate is that within a given time period many more old individuals are retiring than young individuals are entering the labour market. Although there is a certain logic in this argument, it is only prima facie convincing because firstly, a change in labour demand could counteract this effect and secondly, it is unclear whether - given labour demand for the occupations people retire from - people retiring from the labour market are normally 'replaced' by young cohorts entering the labour market. Thirdly, even if the size of a cohort differs between generations, it is by no means clear what the effects on labour supply are as, for example, the participation rates may also differ. We address these issues from a theoretical and empirical perspective. In the theoretical part we focus on the relationship between vacancies and unemployment (labour-market tightness) and show that it does not always increase with demographic change. In the empirical part, we analyse how employment is affected over time by different shares of different age cohorts. We find no evidence that a higher number of retirees in an occupation leads to a higher demand for younger workers. Instead, to a large extent, retirees seem to be 'replaced', if they are replaced at all, by middle-aged cohorts who change occupations. Thus, we conclude that the interaction between large retiring cohorts and small entering cohorts within occupations is less direct than is suggested in the public debate."

"Facing the recent German debate on the minimum wage, this paper analyses theoretical effects of minimum wages on employment and wage distribution under a frictional setting. I??review new developments in search theory and discuss the influence of the minimum wage on wages and employment under each setting. Therefore, a major theoretical focus of the paper is the integration of heterogeneity on both sides of the market in equilibrium search models. In frictional models, minimum wages are generally binding and redistribute rents from firms to workers. Employment effects are more diverse. In the homogeneous case where workers and firms are identical, minimum wages do not affect employment, while in the heterogenous case theoretical results are mixed. There is no unique connection between unemployment and minimum wages, and the effect can be negative, zero or even positive. A positive effect can arise from a reaction in labor supply. However, the most advanced models, integrating heterogeneity on both sides of the market, seem to support the hypothesis that an increase in the minimum wage generally leads to an increase in unemployment as well. In this case, a social planner faces a trade off between redistribution of rents and unemployment."