Documents Bellmann, Lutz 52 results

"In 2008/09 many countries all over the world were hit by a deep recession. At the beginning of the economic and financial crises a discussion about the practicability of financial participation of employees as an instrument to overcome the crises was initiated in Germany. Especially liquidity and productivity arguments were mentioned. This paper explores empirically whether firms having financial participation schemes of employees were better off during this turbulent time period. We focus on the function of financial participation schemes to stabilize employment and to avoid human capital losses, which is quite important in economic downturns. Our empirical analysis is based on the IAB-Establishment Panel Survey, which consists of almost 16,000 interviews every year. Our findings reveal that profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes are not outstanding crisis instruments."

"The 2008 financial crisis put an end to an era of sustained economic growth in Europe. The size of the shock differed across European countries and affected economies in different ways. Yet despite this heterogeneity, most European countries suffered a prolonged period of economic slowdown which raised concerns about the risk of a secular stagnation in Europe. This book focuses on labour productivity in Europe, one of the main drivers of growth and prosperity. Although productivity trends became the focus of policy interest in the immediate aftermath of the recession in the UK, 'productivity puzzles' received much less attention in the rest of Europe. These 'puzzles', which are apparent to greater or lesser extents in most European economies, centre on the marked decline in labour productivity growth which occurred with the on-set of recession. They are puzzles because, in neo-classical economics, firms respond to demand shocks by laying off workers, thus maintaining labour productivity and limiting growth in unit labour costs. Yet this didn't happen in this recession - at least, not to the same extent as in previous recessions, except in Spain.

This book brings together contributions from leading European economists who analyse production models and macroeconomic policies, with specific focus on European countries that represent around 60% of the EU GDP. Chapters on France, Germany, the UK, and Spain provide new evidences at the firm/workplace level, and stress the role of transitory labour market mechanisms"

"That German trade unionism is in profound decline seems to be beyond dispute. More controversial is the implied change in union impact on worker wages. A linked employer-employee dataset is deployed over an interval of continuing decline in unionism to address this issue. Over the sample period 2000–2010 it is found that joining a sectoral agreement always produces higher wages, while exiting one no longer leads to wage losses if the transition is to a firm agreement. Leaving a firm agreement to non-coverage also leads to wage reductions, while joining one from non-coverage appears decreasingly favorable. The one constant is the persistence of a small positive union wage gap."

"Pacts for employment and competitiveness are an integral component of the ongoing process of decentralization of collective bargaining in Germany, a phenomenon that has been hailed as key to that nation's economic resurgence. Yet little is known about the effects of pacts on firm performance. The evidence largely pertains to employment and is decidedly mixed. The present paper investigates the association between pacts and a wider set of outcomes – wages, employment, investment, productivity, innovation, and survivability – in a RDD framework where the controls comprise establishments that negotiated over pacts but failed to reach agreement on their implementation. An extensive set of simulations are run to test for robustness of the key findings of the model. There is no evidence of pacts negatively impacting any of the selected measures of establishment performance. Indeed, the positive effects reported for wages, productivity, and innovation are sustained in simulations."

"Company-level pacts between the management and the works council are often preferred in comparison to agreements between employers' association and unions because the former negotiating partners are better informed about the economic situation of a company and have fewer goal conflicts than the latter. Moreover, these company-level pacts might reduce the ‘hold-up' problems which arise once specialized investment is made. Therefore, this article investigates whether such agreements affect firm-level investment. Based on the IAB Establishment Panel Survey 2001–2010 the study indicates that the adoption of a company-level pact leads to a higher investment rate than in other firms driven by reinvestment. However, the Great Recession has damped this positive influence. From the econometric analysis the article does not detect any increase in investment during the negotiation phase. After the expiration of a company-level pact, lower reinvestment and a small increase in net investment take place. "

"We use a simple non-parametric regression approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993--2009. Although it is often claimed that firms in Europe have less flexibility in their ability to hire and fire, we find that the relationship between employment growth and worker flows in German establishments is very similar to the behaviour of US establishments. The relationship is stable over time, even during the most recent economic crisis, and across different types of establishment. We verify our results with independent measures from administrative data. We suggest that this result is due to: the strong relationship between employment reductions and voluntary separations; the low level of ``churning''; and the heterogeneity of jobs within establishments."

"Using linked employer-employee data, this paper estimates the effect of collective bargaining coverage on wages over an interval of continuing decline in unionism. Unobserved firm and worker heterogeneity is dealt with using two establishment sub-samples, comprising collective bargaining joiners and never members on the one hand and collective bargaining leavers and always members on the other, each in combination with subsets of worker job stayers. The counterfactuals are then reversed for robustness checks. Joining a sectoral agreement is found always to produce higher wages, while exiting a sectoral agreement no longer produces wage losses if the transition is to a firm agreement. Leaving a firm agreement to non-coverage also leads to wage reductions, while joining one from non-coverage seems decreasingly favourable. The reverse counterfactuals yield correspondingly smaller estimates (in absolute value) of wage development than reported for the initial counterfactuals. Finally, although small, the union wage gap persists."

"In Germany, temporary wage subsidies (Eingliederungszuschüsse) can be granted to employers if they hire workers with obstacles to placement. Based on the 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 waves of the IAB Establishment Panel, this paper looks into the following questions: Is there a connection between the use of targeted wage subsidies and certain structural characteristics of the establishment, such as establishment size, industry and employment structure? Is the labor turnover of establishments that make use of wage subsidies higher than that of similar establishments that do not? Do establishments that utilize targeted wage subsidies also make use of other active labor market programs (e.g. work opportunities) to a disproportionate degree? On the whole, the empirical findings confirm that establishment structures are important for the decisions of firms to make use of targeted wage subsidies."

"Der Zusammenhang zwischen der Beschäftigungsentwicklung auf der einen Seite und den Einstellungen und Entlassungen auf der anderen Seite ist wichtig für das Verständnis der Entwicklung der Arbeitslosigkeit in Rezessionen. Obwohl die Anzahl der Einstellungen und Entlassungen in Deutschland viel niedriger ist als in den USA, entspricht der Zusammenhang zwischen der Beschäftigungsentwicklung und den Einstellungen und Entlassungen weitestgehend dem Muster, das dort beobachtet wird (Davis et al. 2006, 2012). Es unterscheidet sich dementsprechend stark von dem in Frankreich (Abowd et al. 1999). Insbesondere Jüngere mit kürzerer Betriebszugehörigkeitsdauer, niedrigerem Schulabschluss, niedrigeren Löhnen in geringfügigen Beschäftigungsverhältnissen werden freigesetzt, wenn sich Betriebe hinsichtlich der Beschäftigtenzahl verkleinern, wenngleich dies nicht ausschließlich gilt."

"Der Erfolg des IAB-Betriebspanels lässt sich zum einen auf den für Panelanalysen erforderlichen hohen Rücklauf und die exzellente Datenqualität sowie die Möglichkeit der Nutzung der Betriebsdatei der Beschäftigtenstatistik der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) als Ziehungsgrundlage für die Stichprobe und den damit vorgenommenen Aufbau von Linked-Employer-Employee Datensätzen zurückführen. Ebenso wichtig ist die dynamische Entwicklung des Fragebogens und die Berücksichtigung neuer Fragen im IAB-Betriebpanel. Dies sind vor allem die Themenbereiche (1) betriebliche Flexibilität, (2) Fachkräftebedarf, betriebliche Aus- und Weiterbildung, (3) Innovationen sowie technischer und organisatorischer Wandel, (4) industrielle Beziehungen sowie (5) die Auswirkungen der Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise 2008/2009 auf den Arbeitsmarkt."