Andrey Launov

ESTIMATING INCENTIVE AND WELFARE EFFECTS OF NONSTATIONARY UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS

The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays a time-varying exit rate. Building on Semi-Markov processes, we translate these exit rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation using a German micro-data set (SOEP) allows us to discuss the effects of a recent unemployment benefit reform (Hartz IV). The reform reduced unemployment by only 0.3%. Contrary to general beliefs, we find that both employed and unemployed workers gain (the latter from an intertemporal perspective). The reason is the rise in the net wage caused by more vacancies per unemployed worker.

Publish or perish? The increasing importance of publications for prospective economics professors in Austria, Germany and Switzerland

Abstract This paper investigates the determinants of tenure decisions in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland for professorships in economics, business administration and related fields. Our dataset comprises candidates who were awarded tenure as well as those who were eligible but were not tenured. We show that business candidates have a higher probability of being tenured than economists. Youth, marital status and publications matter; gender and children do not. The market for first appointments in economics relies much more on publication performance than the market for business administration.

Imperfect Monitoring of Job Search: Structural Estimation and Policy Design

We build and estimate a nonstationary structural job search model that incorporates the main stylized features of a typical job search monitoring scheme in unemployment insurance (UI) and acknowledges that search effort and requirements are measured imperfectly. On the basis of Belgian data, monitoring is found to affect search behavior only weakly because assessments were scheduled late and infrequently, the monitoring technology was not sufficiently precise, and lenient Belgian UI results in caseloads that are less responsive to incentives than elsewhere. Simulations show how changing the aforementioned design features can enhance effectiveness and that precise monitoring is key in this.

On the Estimation of the Volatility-Growth Link

It is common practice to estimate the volatility-growth link by specifying a standard growth equation such that the variance of the error term appears as an explanatory variable in this growth equation. The variance in turn is modelled by a second equation. Hardly any of existing applications of this framework includes exogenous controls in this second variance equation. Our theoretical findings suggest that the absence of relevant explanatory variables in the variance equation leads to a biased and inconsistent estimate of the volatility-growth link. Our simulations show that this effect is large. Once the appropriate controls are included in the variance equation consistency is restored. In short, we suggest that the variance equation must include relevant control variables to estimate the volatility-growth link.