Michael Fertig

Active labor market policies in Europe: Performance and perspectives

Executive summary.- and overview.- The European Employment Strategy.- An overview of Active Labor Market Policies.- The methodology of program evaluation.- Reports from selected EU25 member states.- The effectiveness of European ALMPs.- Conclusions and policy recommendations.

A Portrait of Child Poverty in Germany

This paper offers a descriptive portrait of income poverty among children in Germany between the early 1980s and 2001, with a focus on developments since unification in 1991. Data from the German Socio-Economic Panel are used to estimate poverty rates, rates of entry to and exit from poverty, and the duration of time spent in and out of poverty. The analysis focuses upon comparisons between East and West Germany, by family structure, and citizenship status. Child poverty rates have drifted upward since 1991, and have been increasing more than the rates for the overall population since the mid-1990s. In part these changes are due to increasing poverty among children from households headed by non-citizens. Children in single parent households are by all measures at considerable risk of living in poverty. There are also substantial differences in the incidence of child poverty and its dynamics between East and West Germany.

WeLL – Unique Linked Employer-Employee Data on Further Training in Germany

This paper explains the main features of an innovative linked employer-employee data set with a particular focus on continuous training in Germany, called WeLL. The data set comprises establishment data that can be linked to longitudinal information on the associated employees. The employer survey and the first wave of the employee survey were conducted in 2007. Both surveys focus on the collection of training information together with a variety of employee and employer background characteristics. In addition, it is possible to link these data with other survey and administrative data for a large number of respondents. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Identifying the Determinants of Attitudes Towards Immigrants - A Structural Cross-Country Analysis

Utilizing subjective data to infer on fundamental issues of individual opinion is associated with severe conceptual and methodological problems. This paper addresses these problems and investigates the attitudes towards immigrants within a cross-country framework. To this end, we utilize data from the first wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) in a structural latent variable model. The determinants of attitudes towards immigrants are estimated by employing different identification restrictions on the model. Our results suggest that educational attainment as well as parental education are the main driving forces behind attitudes formation. Average attitudes across countries further seem to increase with per capita GDP. All our findings are stable across countries and identification strategies.

Always Poor or Never Poor and Nothing in Between? Duration of Child Poverty in Germany

Abstract Using intraday data, we assess the impact of monetary news on the full length of the euro-area yield curve. We find that the publication of monetary data has a significant impact on interest rates with maturities ranging from one to ten years, with the largest effect on the one- to five-year segment. These results suggest that when gauging the policy-relevant signals, market participants look through short-term movements of annual M3 growth and focus instead on the trend rate of monetary expansion over the medium term.

Earnings Assimilation of Immigrants in Germany: The Importance of Heterogeneity and Attrition Bias

Heterogeneity in the ethnic composition of Germanys immigrant population renders general conclusions on the degree of economic integration difficult. Using a rich longitudinal data-set, this paper tests for differences in economic assimilation profiles of four entry cohorts of foreign-born immigrants and ethnic Germans. The importance of time-invariant individual unobserved heterogeneity and panel attrition in determining the speed of assimilation is analysed. We find evidence for heterogeneity in the assimilation profiles and for robust assimilation profiles for two entry cohorts only. Omitted variables, systematic sample attrition and the presence of second generation immigrants in the sample influence the speed of assimilation, but do not change the overall picture.

What Can We Learn from International Student Performance Studies? Some Methodological Remarks

The determinants which are decisive for a successful accumulation of human capital and the transfer of these skills into the labor market are a contentious issue in the literature on the economics of education. Different studies on, for instance, the impact of school resources typically reach different conclusions even if they utilize the same dataset. The reason behind this is that each and every study decisively depends on a set of identification assumptions which are anything but innocuous for the results obtained.This paper aims at clarifying this point by embedding the discussion on the determinants of test success in international performance studies like PISA into a theoretical model of cognitive achievement and an empirical frame of reference.

Neighborhood Effects and Individual Unemployment

Using a unique dataset for Germany that links individual longitudinal data from the GSOEP to regional data from the federal employment agency and data of real estate prices, we evaluate the impact of neighborhood unemployment on individual employment prospects. The panel setup and richness of the data allows us to overcome some of the identification problems which are present in this strand of literature. The empirical results indicate that there is a significant negative impact of neighborhood unemployment on the individual employment probability.

Die Hartz-Gesetze zur Arbeitsmarktpolitik: Ein umfassendes Evaluationskonzept

Die im Rahmen der Hartz-Reformen auf den Weg gebrachten Anderungen der Arbeitsmarktgesetzgebung haben die rasche und nachhaltige Vermittlung in Arbeit, die Schaffung neuer Beschaftigungsfelder und den Bau von mehr Brucken in Beschaftigung zum Ziel. Hauptziel ist letztlich die Verringerung der Arbeitslosigkeit. Jede Evaluationsstudie dazu hat sich an diesem ubergeordneten Ziel zu orientieren. Die Autoren der vorliegenden Arbeit prasentieren ein derartiges Konzept zur mittel- und langerfristigen Bewertung der Umsetzung der arbeitsmarktpolitischen Masnahmen. Leitlinien sind: Das Konzept muss angesichts der nicht optimalen Datenlage und der Kurze der zur Verfugung stehenden Zeit praktikabel sein. Es muss sich angesichts der Vielzahl der Ziele der Arbeitsmarktpolitik auf die Beschaftigungssituation arbeitsloser Arbeitnehmer konzentrieren. Es muss einen einheitlichen Analyserahmen anbieten fur Leitfragen wie: Was haben die durchgefuhrten Masnahmen bewirkt, waren sie effektiv? Welche Kosten sind entstanden, waren die Masnahmen effizient? Welche Ursachen lassen sich fur die Wirkung identifizieren? Es muss dafur einen interdisziplinaren Ansatz verfolgen, der eine ausgewogene Kombination aus theoretischer Analyse, okonometrischer Kompetenz und Know-how der Implementationsforschung beinhaltet. Das Konzept muss Methoden vorsehen, die angesichts der genannten Daten- und Zeitprobleme robuste Ergebnisse erzeugen konnen. Es muss angesichts des teilweise spaten Inkrafttretens einzelner Masnahmen eine Erweiterung des Evaluationszeitraums erlauben. Mit dem in dieser Schrift angebotenen Konzept werden diese Leitlinien einer zielgerechten Evaluation erfullt.

Mobility within Europe - The Attitudes of European Youngsters

Intensified European integration,enlargement of the EU,and increasing migration activity worldwide have pushed migration and migration policy to the forefront of the European agenda.While many observers hesitate to embrace immigration emanating from outside Europe,sectoral skill shortages and social security systems under demographic pressure have fostered an almost unanimous call for larger mobility within Europe.Yet, neither does intra-European migration respond to this request,nor are the possible consequences of increased migration activity well understood.This paper embeds this discussion into a systematic classification of economic migration research according to its major conceptual and applied questions. The state of theoretical and empirical research in this literature is reviewed briefly,with a focus on intra-European migration.We conclude that the relatively positive assessment of this type of migration mainly derives from its high skill content.To prepare the prediction of future developments,we offer empirical evidence on the determinants of intra-EU-migration by an analysis of the Eurobarometer survey.Unless information deficits,traces of xenophobic tendencies,and the perception of prohibitively high levels of bureaucratic red tape are overcome,intra-European migration will not play the role it is hoped for.