Counteracting unemployment in crises: non-linear effects of short-time work policy

Britta Gehrke and Brigitte Hochmuth
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Brigitte Hochmuth: Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

No 201727, IAB-Discussion Paper from Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]

Abstract: "Short-time work is a labor market policy that subsidizes working time reductions among firms in financial difficulty in order to prevent layoffs and stabilize employment. Many OECD countries have used this policy in the Great Recession, for example. This paper shows that the effects of discretionary short-time work are strongly time dependent and non-linear over the business cycle: it may save up to 0.8 jobs per short-time worker in deep economic crises. In contrast, in normal times and expansions, the effects are smaller and may even turn negative. Our results demonstrate that the policy becomes more efficient as the recession deepens. We disentangle discretionary short-time work from automatic stabilization in German data and estimate time-varying employment effects using a smooth transition VAR." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Keywords: Bundesrepublik Deutschland; Auswirkungen; Beschäftigungseffekte; Konjunkturabhängigkeit; Konjunkturaufschwung; Kurzarbeit; Kurzarbeitergeld; Rezession; arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahme; Wirtschaftskrise; 1973-2014 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C32 E24 E32 E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in/as: The Scandinavian journal of economics, (2019), o. Sz., doi:10.1111/sjoe.12395

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https://doku.iab.de/discussionpapers/2017/dp2717.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Counteracting Unemployment in Crises: Non‐Linear Effects of Short‐Time Work Policy (2021)
Working Paper: Counteracting Unemployment in Crises: Non-Linear Effects of Short-Time Work Policy (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201727

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