Institute for the Study of Labor

About: Institute for the Study of Labor is a nonprofit organization based out in Bonn, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Wage & Unemployment. The organization has 2039 authors who have published 13475 publications receiving 439376 citations.

Boosting Productivity via Innovation and Adoption of New Technologies: Any Role for Labor Market Institutions?

Abstract: This paper presents empirical evidence on the determinants of industry-level multifactor productivity growth. It focus on traditional factors, including the process of technological catch up, human capital and R&D as well as institutional factors affecting labor adjustment costs. The link between R&D activity and productivity also depends on technological characteristics of the industries : while there is no evidence of R&D boosting productivity in low-tech industries, the effect is strong in high-tech industries, but the technology leaders tend to enjoy higher returns on R&D expenditure compared with followers. There is also evidence in the data that high labor adjustment costs (proxied by the strictness of employment protection legislation) can have a strong negative impact on productivity. In particular, when institutional settings do not allow wages or internal training to offset high hiring and firing costs, then the latter reduce incentives for innovation and adoption of new technologies, and lead to lower productivity performance.

Are Voters Better Informed When They Have a Larger Say in Politics? Evidence for the European Union and Switzerland

Abstract: Public choice theory takes citizens as rationally ignorant about political issues, because the costs of being informed greatly exceed the utility individuals derive from it. The costs of information (supply side) as well as the utility of information (demand side), however, can vary substantially depending on the political system under which citizens live. Using survey data from the European Union and Switzerland, we present empirical evidence that citizens are politically better informed when they have more extended political participation rights. The results corroborate theoretical arguments and circumstantial evidence that voter information should be treated as endogenously determined by political institutions.

Looking into the Black Box: A Survey of the Matching Function

Abstract: We survey the microfoundations, empirical evidence and estimation issues underlying the aggregate matching function. Several microeconomic matching mechanisms have been suggested in the literature with some successes but none is generally accepted as superior to all others. Instead, an aggregate matching function with hires as a function of vacancies and unemployment has been successfully estimated for several countries. The Cobb-Douglas restrictions with constant returns to scale perform well. Recent work has utilized disaggregated data to go beyond aggregate estimates, with many refinements and suggestions for future research.

Environmental Morale and Motivation

Abstract: This chapter discusses the role of environmental morale and environmental motivation in individual behavior from the point of view of economics and psychology. It deals with the fundamental public good problem, and presents empirical (laboratory and field) evidence on how the cooperation problem can be overcome. Four different theoretical approaches are distinguished according to how individuals' underlying environmental motivation is modeled. Specifically, we look at the interaction between environmental policy and environmental morale through the lens of cognitive evaluation theory (also known as crowding theory).

A Generalized Spatial Panel Data Model with Random Effects

Abstract: This paper proposes a generalized panel data model with random effects and first-order spatially autocorrelated residuals that encompasses two previously suggested specifications. The first one is described in Anselin's (1988) book and the second one by Kapoor, Kelejian, and Prucha (2007). Our encompassing specification allows us to test for these models as restricted specifications. In particular, we derive three LM and LR tests that restrict our generalized model to obtain (i) the Anselin model, (ii) the Kapoor, Kelejian, and Prucha model, and (iii) the simple random effects model that ignores the spatial correlation in the residuals. For two of these three tests, we obtain closed form solutions and we derive their large sample distributions. Our Monte Carlo results show that the suggested tests are powerful in testing for these restricted specifications even in small and medium sized samples.