This talk will summarize two studies, which respectively study the role of caseworkers and public employment services for the labor market outcomes of unemployment benefit recipients. A first study asks whether and how much caseworkers matter for the outcomes of unemployed individuals. It exploits exogenous variation in unplanned absences among Swiss unemployment insurance caseworkers. A second study evaluates a large-scale policy change in which the public employment service of one Swiss canton changed its strategy by removing restrictions on job search and granting increased autonomy to job seekers.
Archives: IAB-Veranstaltungen
Income Taxation and Job Creation
Optimal Taxation with On-the-Job Search
1st LISER-IAB Conference on Digital Transformation and the Future of Work
The Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) are pleased to announce the 1st LISER-IAB Conference on Digital Transformation and the Future of Work. The objective of the conference is to bring together researchers in social sciences to discuss their more recent research related to digital transformation and the future of work. Researchers interested in presenting at the LISER-IAB conference are invited to submit theoretical, empirical and experimental contributions.
Corona – leveller or amplifier of social and economic inequality?
Is corona the great leveller? Rich or poor, everyone can get sick from the virus. The measures to deal with the pandemic affect everyone equally: We all wear masks and the lockdown banishes us all to our homes. Or is corona an amplifier of existing and a cause for new inequalities? Important social and economic resources for coping with burdens, economic risks and availability of support by the welfare state are unequally distributed.
At the same time, new and old social divides are breaking open: Parents, especially working parents, face a particular burden in view of the closures of schools and childcare facilities and must often take over the schooling and care of children themselves. Also, people in large cities might be more affected by the crisis than people outside metropolitan areas. But the crisis also contributes to inequalities directly in the labor market: Many of the workers affected by the closures are found in the food service and personal services industries. But those particularly affected also include already disadvantaged groups such as temporary and marginal workers, who are more often in danger of losing their jobs and have less access to social protection. Low-income earners and people living in poverty may suffer particularly from the restrictions, as they have significantly fewer resources to cope with stress or deal with new challenges like home schooling. They may even be hit more often directly by the virus if they have to economize on personal protective measures. Similarly, self-employed face also specific challenges as they have often limited funding and assistance programs were not tailored to this group. At the same time, international comparisons reveal differences – not only are countries affected by the pandemic to varying degrees, but the economic and social consequences are also uneven. This raises the question of the role of social security systems and the labor market and economic policy responses.
Shortly after the pandemic, many researchers turned their attention to such and similar questions, and initial results were available in a short time. After a year of research, however, it is also clear that the observed effects of the crisis are not always uniform, but can differ significantly by the dimensions of inequality under study, by country, and also among different groups of people. In addition, aspects of data collection or measurement and the resulting possibilities for analysis are also likely to play a role. Against this background, this seminar series aims to bring together empirically rigorous contributions from the fields of sociology, economics and related fields on issues of social policy, social ad economic inequality following the Corona Crisis.
CANCELLED – European Meeting of the International Microsimulation Association 2020
CANCELLED – The German Labor Market in a Globalized World: Trade, Technology, and Demographics
The conference focuses on technology, trade, and demographic changes and the ways they interact with employment, wages, and participation in the labor market, with a particular emphasis on the role of institutions. Understanding these relationships is key in assessing the performance of the labor market and for the design of effective labor market policies.
The conference will also host the 6th user conference of the Research Data Centre (FDZ) of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), bringing together researchers who work with the data provided by the FDZ, and facilitating exchange between researchers and FDZ staff.
Job retention schemes during the COVID-19 lockdown and beyond
Job retention schemes (Kurzarbeit) have been a key policy tools to contain the employment and social fallout of the COVID-19 crisis in a number of OECD countries. By May 2020, job retention schemes supported about 50 million jobs across the OECD, about ten times as many as during the global financial crisis of 2008-09.
The schemes prevented a surge in unemployment, mitigated financial hardship and stabilized demand. However, as the COVID-19 crisis moved into its second wave, deeper structural changes are becoming more likely. Job retention schemes should respond to this new situation, become more targeted and attention should shift towards supporting workers, rather than their jobs.
Based on an OECD policy brief, this online Seminar will give an overview on the use of job retention schemes in OECD countries and discuss in detail the schemes in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Machine Learning in Labor, Education, and Health Economics
The Institute of Employment Research (IAB), the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), and the Labour and Socio-Economic Research Center (LASER) are pleased to announce a workshop on machine learning in economics. Empirical research in economics typically focuses on the unbiased estimation of causal effects. In contrast, statistics and computer science place more value on prediction (especially out-of-sample) and data-driven selection of models and variables. So far, only few studies apply these methods in empirical economic research, but their importance is growing. This holds in particular with the increasing availability of big data for economic research. The two-day workshop seeks to bring together researchers who apply machine learning methods in the following fields: Labor economics, economics of education and health economics.
Labour Market Transitions: Challenges for Public Policies and Research
Aims and Topics
During Germany’s EU Council Presidency in 2020, the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) will host an interdisciplinary labour market conference. This conference will focus on labour market transitions and on the evaluation of policies that governments implement to smooth such transitions.
Collection of abstracts (Abstracts der Vorträge)
Programme highlights
The conference features keynotes by Jutta Allmendinger, President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of Educational Sociology and Labour Market Research at the Humboldt University Berlin, and Christian Dustmann, Professor of Economics at the University College London and Director of CReAM – Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration. Two other keynotes will be presented by Dennis Radtke, Member of the European Parliament, and Prof László Andor (PhD) of Corvinus University of Budapest and former EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion. The conference also includes a political key note and a panel discussion with Dr Nicola Brandt, Head of OECD Berlin Centre, Christian Dustmann und Bernd Fitzenberger, Director of IAB and Professor of Econometrics at the Humboldt University Berlin about “Vocational Training and labor market transitions: The future model for Europe?”