Males Should Mail? Gender Discrimination in Access to Childcare
Henning Hermes, Philipp Lergetporer, Fabian Mierisch, Frauke Peter, Simon Wiederhold
American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings,
May
2023
Abstract
This study investigates discrimination against women when searching and applying for childcare in a nationwide field experiment. We send emails from fictitious parents to 9,313 childcare centers in Germany inquiring about access to childcare. We randomize whether the email is sent by the child's mother or father. Our results show that women receive shorter and less positive responses than men. The probability of receiving a response does not differ by gender, highlighting the importance of going beyond response rates to detect discrimination. We provide suggestive evidence that regional differences in gender discrimination are related to gender norms.
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The Importance of Credit Demand for Business Cycle Dynamics
Gregor von Schweinitz
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 21,
2023
Abstract
This paper contributes to a better understanding of the important role that credit demand plays for credit markets and aggregate macroeconomic developments as both a source and transmitter of economic shocks. I am the first to identify a structural credit demand equation together with credit supply, aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy in a Bayesian structural VAR. The model combines informative priors on structural coefficients and multiple external instruments to achieve identification. In order to improve identification of the credit demand shocks, I construct a new granular instrument from regional mortgage origination.
I find that credit demand is quite elastic with respect to contemporaneous macroeconomic conditions, while credit supply is relatively inelastic. I show that credit supply and demand shocks matter for aggregate fluctuations, albeit at different times: credit demand shocks mostly drove the boom prior to the financial crisis, while credit supply shocks were responsible during and after the crisis itself. In an out-of-sample exercise, I find that the Covid pandemic induced a large expansion of credit demand in 2020Q2, which pushed the US economy towards a sustained recovery and helped to avoid a stagflationary scenario in 2022.
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IWH-Tarif-Check: Keine realen Netto-Tariflohnzuwächse für Beschäftigte im öffentlichen Dienst der Länder
Oliver Holtemöller, Birgit Schultz
IWH-Tarif-Check,
Nr. 3,
2023
Abstract
*** „Inflationsausgleichszahlung“ und Tariflohnsteigerungen dürften Verbraucherpreis-
inflation nur knapp ausgleichen. *** Die Tarifvertragsparteien des öffentlichen Dienstes der Länder haben sich vor kurzem auf einen neuen Tariflohnabschluss geeinigt: Es wurde vereinbart, dass Einmalzahlungen von insgesamt 3 000 Euro in elf Monats-
beträgen abgabenfrei als so genannte Inflationsausgleichsprämie gezahlt werden. Bereits im Dezember 2023 soll ein Teilbetrag in Höhe von 1 800 Euro ausgezahlt werden, von Januar bis einschließlich Oktober gibt es monatlich jeweils 120 Euro. Die regulären Tabellenentgelte erhöhen sich währenddessen nicht. Erst ab November 2024, wenn die Inflationsausgleichszahlung wegfällt, gibt es eine Stufenerhöhung über 200 Euro für alle Beschäftigten. Auf diese setzt ab Februar 2025 dann eine reguläre prozentuale Erhöhung von 5,5% auf. Der Tarifvertrag läuft bis Ende Oktober 2025.
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IWH-Tarif-Check: Aktuelle Tarifabschlüsse bedeuten Reallohnverluste 2024
Oliver Holtemöller, Birgit Schultz
IWH-Tarif-Check,
Nr. 2,
2023
Abstract
*** Vergleich der Tariflohnabschlüsse von Chemischer Industrie, Deutscher Post, Metall- und Elektroindustrie und öffentlichem Dienst von Bund und Kommunen *** Die hohe Verbraucherpreisinflation hat den Lohndruck bei den Tarifverhandlungen stark erhöht. Das Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH) hat die Lohnabschlüsse für vier ausgewählte Branchen, die sich im vergangenen Halbjahr auf Neuabschlüsse geeinigt haben, verglichen. Dabei zeigen sich hohe nominale Lohnsteigerungen. Insbesondere die Inflationsausgleichsprämie, die in allen vier Branchen bis zur maximalen Höhe von 3000 Euro vereinbart wurde, lässt die Bruttolöhne kräftig steigen. In der Chemischen Industrie, in der es bereits in der vergangenen Lohnrunde eine hohe Einmalzahlung gab, füllt die vereinbarte Inflationsausgleichszahlung diese Lücke.
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Globalization, Productivity Growth, and Labor Compensation
Christian Dreger, Marius Fourné, Oliver Holtemöller
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 7,
2022
Abstract
We analyze how changes in international trade integration affect productivity and the functional income distribution. To account for endogeneity, we construct a leaveout measure for international trade integration for country-industry pairs using international input-output tables. Our findings corroborate on the country-industry level that international trade integration increases productivity. Moreover, we show that both trade in intermediate inputs and trade in value added is associated with lower labor shares in emerging markets. For advanced countries, we document a positive effect of trade in value added on the labor share of income. Further, we show that the effects on productivity and labor share are heterogeneous across different sectors. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for a possible throwback in international trade integration due to experiences from recent crises.
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Employment Effects of Investment Grants and Firm Heterogeneity – Evidence from a Staggered Adoption Approach
Eva Dettmann, Mirko Titze, Antje Weyh
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 6,
2023
Abstract
This study estimates the establishment-level employment effects of investment grants in Germany. In addition to the average treatment effect for the treated, we focus on discrimination in the funding rules as potential source of effect heterogeneity. We combine the difference-in-differences approach of Callaway and Sant’Anna (2021) that explicitly models variation in treatment timing with a ties matching at the cohort level. We observe a positive effect of investment grants on employment development in the full sample. The subsample analysis yields strong evidence for effect heterogeneity due to firm characteristics and the economic environment.
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Same, but Different: Testing Monetary Policy Shock Measures
Alexander Kriwoluzky, Stephanie Ettmeier
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 9,
2017
Abstract
In this study, we test whether three popular measures for monetary policy, that is, Romer and Romer (2004), Barakchian and Crowe (2013), and Gertler and Karadi (2015), constitute suitable proxy variables for monetary policy shocks. To this end, we employ different test statistics used in the literature to detect weak proxy variables. We find that the measure derived by Gertler and Karadi (2015) is the most suitable in this regard.
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Measuring Market Expectations
Christiane Baumeister
Handbook of Economic Expectations,
November
2022
Abstract
Asset prices are a valuable source of information about financial market participants' expectations about key macroeconomic variables. However, the presence of time-varying risk premia requires an adjustment of market prices to obtain the market's rational assessment of future price and policy developments. This paper reviews empirical approaches for recovering market-based expectations. It starts by laying out the two canonical modeling frameworks that form the backbone for estimating risk premia and highlights the proliferation of risk pricing factors that result in a wide range of different asset-price-based expectation measures. It then describes a key methodological innovation to evaluate the empirical plausibility of risk premium estimates and to identify the most accurate market-based expectation measure. The usefulness of this general approach is illustrated for price expectations in the global oil market. Then, the paper provides an overview of the body of empirical evidence for monetary policy and inflation expectations with a special emphasis on market-specific characteristics that complicate the quest for the best possible market-based expectation measure. Finally, it discusses a number of economic applications where market expectations play a key role for evaluating economic models, guiding policy analysis, and deriving shock measures.
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Uncovered Workers in Plants Covered by Collective Bargaining: Who Are They and How Do They Fare?
Boris Hirsch, Philipp Lentge, Claus Schnabel
Abstract
In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from these union agreements, which workers are not covered anymore, and what this means for their wages. We show that about 9 percent of workers in plants with collective agreements do not enjoy individual coverage (and thus the union wage) anymore. Econometric analyses with unconditional quantile regressions and firm-fixed-effects estimations demonstrate that not being individually covered by a collective agreement has serious wage implications for most workers. Low-wage non-union workers and those at low hierarchy levels particularly suffer since employers abstain from extending union wages to them in order to pay lower wages. This jeopardizes unions' goal of protecting all disadvantaged workers.
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Uncovered Workers in Plants Covered by Collective Bargaining: Who Are They and How Do They Fare?
Boris Hirsch, Philipp Lentge, Claus Schnabel
British Journal of Industrial Relations,
Nr. 4,
2022
Abstract
Abstract In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from these union agreements, which workers are not covered anymore and what this means for their wages. We show that about 9 per cent of workers in plants with collective agreements do not enjoy individual coverage (and thus the union wage) anymore. Econometric analyses with unconditional quantile regressions and firm-fixed-effects estimations demonstrate that not being individually covered by a collective agreement has serious wage implications for most workers. Low-wage non-union workers and those at low hierarchy levels particularly suffer since employers abstain from extending union wages to them in order to pay lower wages. This jeopardizes unions' goal of protecting all disadvantaged workers.
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