Reformation Germany Research Articles

Design and Effectiveness of Start-Up Subsidies: Evidence from a Policy Reform in Germany

While a growing body of literature finds positive impacts of Start-Up Subsidies (SUS) on labor market outcomes of participants, little is known about how the design of these programs shapes their effectiveness and hence how to improve policy. As experimental variation in program design is unavailable, we exploit the 2011 reform of the current German SUS program for the unemployed which strengthened case-workers’ discretionary power, increased entry requirements and reduced monetary support. We estimate the impact of the reform on the program’s effectiveness using samples of participants and non-participants from before and after the reform. To control for time-constant unobserved heterogeneity as well as differential selection patterns based on observable characteristics over time, we combine Difference-in-Differences with inverse probability weighting using covariate balancing propensity scores. Holding participants’ observed characteristics as well as macroeconomic conditions constant, the results suggest that the reform was successful in raising employment effects on average. As these findings may be contaminated by changes in selection patterns based on unobserved characteristics, we assess our results using simulation-based sensitivity analyses and find that our estimates are highly robust to changes in unobserved characteristics. Hence, the reform most likely had a positive impact on the effectiveness of the program, suggesting that increasing entry requirements and reducing support in-creased the program’s impacts while reducing the cost per participant.

Hartz IV and the Decline of German Unemployment: A Macroeconomic Evaluation

This paper proposes a new approach to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of the Hartz IV reform in Germany, which reduced the generosity of long-term unemployment benefits. We use a model with different unemployment durations, where the reform initiates both a partial effect and an equilibrium effect. The relative importance of these two effects and the size of the partial effect are estimated based on the IAB Job Vacancy Survey. Our novel methodology provides a solution for the existing disagreement in the macroeconomic literature on the unemployment effects of Hartz IV. We find that Hartz IV was a major driver for the decline of Germany's unemployment and that partial and equilibrium effect where of equal importance. We thereby contribute to the literature on partial and equilibrium effects of unemployment benefit changes. In addition, we are the first to provide direct empirical evidence on labour selection, which can be interpreted as one dimension of recruiting intensity.

Minimalinvasiv oder wirksam? Debattenbeitrag zur Novellierung des Bundeswahlrechts vom Oktober 2020

Despite the 2020 reform of Germany’s national parliament voting law, the debate about a robust voting system has not ended . Träger and Jacobs have convincingly shown that Naun­dorf’s suggestion to introduce a parallel voting system creates more problems than it solves, and thus more far-reaching approaches have to be considered . One way to stop the Bunde­stag from growing is to reject the two vote-system . Comparable to the system of Thuringia’s local elections, with open lists and three votes per voter, both the standard size of the Bun­destag can be safely adhered to and at the same time a personalized proportional represen­tation can be maintained . Among other advantages, the voters would have greater influence on the personalized composition of the Bundestag . In particular, reservations on the part of the political parties could stand in the way of such a sustainable solution to the ongoing problems with the German electoral system .

Performance Pay in Hospitals: An Experiment on Bonus-Malus Incentives.

Recent policy reforms in Germany require the introduction of a performance pay component with bonus–malus incentives in the inpatient care sector. We conduct a controlled online experiment with real hospital physicians from public hospitals and medical students in Germany, in which we investigate the effects of introducing a performance pay component with bonus–malus incentives to a simplified version of the German Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) system using a sequential design with stylized routine cases. In both parts, participants choose between the patient optimal and profit maximizing treatment option for the same eight stylized routine cases. We find that the introduction of bonus–malus incentives only statistically significantly increases hospital physicians’ proportion of patient optimal choices for cases with high monetary baseline DRG incentives to choose the profit maximizing option. Medical students behave qualitatively similar. However, they are statistically significantly less patient oriented than real hospital physicians, and statistically significantly increase their patient optimal decisions with the introduction of bonus–malus incentives in all stylized routine cases. Overall, our results indicate that whether the introduction of a performance pay component with bonus–malus incentives to the (German) DRG system has a positive effect on the quality of care or not particularly depends on the monetary incentives implemented in the DRG system as well as the type of participants and their initial level of patient orientation.

Labor in the Boardroom

AbstractWe estimate the wage effects of shared governance, or codetermination, in the form of a mandate of one-third of corporate board seats going to worker representatives. We study a reform in Germany that abruptly abolished this mandate for stock corporations incorporated after August 1994, while it locked the mandate for the slightly older cohorts. Our research design compares firm cohorts incorporated before the reform and after; in a robustness check we draw on the analogous difference in unaffected firm types (LLCs). We find no effects of board-level codetermination on wages and the wage structure, even in firms with particularly flexible wages. The degree of rent sharing and the labor share are also unaffected. We reject that disinvestment could have offset wage effects through the canonical hold-up channel, as shared governance, if anything, increases capital formation.

Otto von Bismarck and Germany Militarization (Legislative Formalization of the Military Reform in Germany in the 80s of the 19th century)

The history of Germany of the second half of the 19th century and the activities of Otto von Bismarck form an integral unit, provided we bear in mind the process of Germany becoming a centralized state. The author argues that the attainment of German unity could only be achieved on the paths of war with Austria and France. This implies why military reform in Germany has been given so much attention.This study is focused on the second stage of military reform — the strengthening of the German army after the establishment of a centralized state. The author poses the question: if the “German issue” was resolved, what was the need for further armament? The Bismarck Government in 1874 and 1881 successfully sought from Parliament the adoption of septennat laws (seven years of funding for the army). But in 1887 the Parliament refused to extend the septennat. The author uses Bismarck’s collection of political speeches in the Reichstag as the main source of research. It is an important source of official origin, reflecting the approaches of not only of the subject of Bismarck’s legislative initiative, but also of Germany’s ruling elite.A point of view about Bismarck as vehicle of Germanic militarism prevails in historical literature. As a result of the analysis of the debate on the draft law, the author concludes that Bismarck’s military policy was dictated not so much by the militaristic nature of his personality, but by the necessity of strengthening the military potential of Germany, surrounded by strong adversaries, to defend its sovereignty. For the further development of events, the Chancellor who had been removed from his office, cannot be held responsible. The tragedy of Bismarck-era Germany is expressed in the fact that he failed to prepare a successor capable of leading the country during a period of crisis.

Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany

Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany

Women's History in the Age of Reformation: Johannes Meyer's Chronicle of the Dominican Observance

Women's History in the Age of Reformation: Johannes Meyer's Chronicle of the Dominican Observance

Is the turtle still plodding along? Public management reform in Germany

ABSTRACT Public management reforms in Germany have long been characterized by slow-moving incrementalism and maintenance of its administrative system’s central characteristics. This article reviews recent developments in administrative reforms against the background of the traditional German reform style. More ambitious reform efforts in the field of digitalization raise conceptual puzzles related to the conditions under which incrementalism can generate substantive change – and at what point incremental reforms give way to more rapid patterns of change. The article also discusses the implications of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis on public management reforms.

Shadow Education in Germany: Compensatory or Status Attainment Strategy? Findings from the German LifE Study

In Germany we observe a strong increase in the enrolment in shadow education (‘Nachhilfe’) over the last two decades. To explain this development we draw on social reproduction theories identifying two strategies: (1) families seek competitive advantages for their children to maintain or achieve an advantageous education level (status attainment strategy); and (2) families seek performance improvement for their low performing children in order to meet the high demands in the pursuit of the highest school diploma (compensatory strategy). To test our theoretical ideas, we estimate regression models using data from the 2012 German LifE study. We find that shadow education is primarily used by disadvantaged educational strata to deal with higher demands in school. We conclude that the increased investment in Nachhilfe is an unintended but not yet negative outcome of educational expansion and recent educational reforms in Germany.

The Industrious, the Laboring, and the Sunken: Berlin’s Mietskaserne and the Housing Question

In late-nineteenth-century Berlin, the rapid growth of tenements ( Mietskaserne) housing the city’s expanding lower class population provoked a strong moral reaction from bourgeois social reformers in Germany, who railed against the perceived social disorders found therein. This essay explores the less understood moral terms upon which the problem of mass housing was articulated in response to the growth of the tenement system in Berlin, from the city’s first housing crisis in 1871 to the first widespread photographic inquiry of Berlin’s dwelling conditions in the first decade of the twentieth century. As this essay shows, debates on housing reform were not confined to bourgeois circles of social and public health expertise—they pervaded popular literature and formed an important part of a broader social imaginary that gave meaning to the urban environment and the task of nation-building at large.

Implications of an aging population on pension systems and financial markets

In this paper, we introduce a macroeconomic model of overlapping generations to analyze the impacts of the demographic changes as well as the interactions between pension system, bond and stock markets. Furthermore, we examine how the pension system influences the distribution of wealth, consumption and saving within generations.In the context of this model, we show a drastic decline of capital market returns due to an aging population. Moreover, we examine the impacts demographic changes can have on individuals’ welfare for an existing pay-as-you-go pension scheme. Raising the pensionable age combined with a decrease of the contributions seems to be the best policy. On the other hand, increases in contributions as a result of demographicchanges show the highest welfare losses. Taken into account the recent pension reforms in Germany, raising the retirement age or a faster transition from a pay-as-you-go pension system to a capital funded one would make sense. But it is questionable whether such a policy will be enforceable with an aging electorate.

The effect of welfare reform on the health of the unemployed: evidence from a natural experiment in Germany

BackgroundOver the past several decades, governments have enacted far-reaching reforms aimed at reducing the generosity and coverage of welfare benefits. Prior literature suggests that these policy measures may have deleterious...

Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany by Tara Nummedal

Reviewed by: Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany by Tara Nummedal Arina Zaytseva Keywords Alchemy, Reformation, Early Modern Germany, Anna Zieglerin, apocalypticism, the Virgin Mary, witchcraft accusations, witchcraft trial, Wolfenbüttel, Protestantism, Paracelsus tara nummedal. Anna Zieglerin and the Lion's Blood: Alchemy and End Times in Reformation Germany. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019. Pp. xi + 285. Modern scholars are used to the image of a male alchemist—an enigmatic, knowledgeable figure, part magician and part scientist, be it John Dee, Cornelius Agrippa, or Paracelsus. Tara Nummedal's book focuses instead on an elusive figure of a woman-alchemist, Anna Ziegler or Zieglerin, who conducted her experiments at the court of Duke Julius of Brunswick-Liineburg in Wolfenbuttel. In this gripping book, Nummedal meticulously recreates the political and social world of sixteenth-century Saxony as well as the private world of Anna Zieglerin, a skillful storyteller and aspiring alchemist. The tale of Anna is truly an unusual one. Even though Nummedal has argued in an earlier article that, contrary to popular perception, women-alchemists were not at all a rare occurrence and could be found at many [End Page 168] courts in the sixteenth century,1 it is safe to say that not many accounts of their art survived to this day. It is the numerous and detailed archival documents left after Anna's trial that make her case so exceptional. Nummedal's book is divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is dedicated to the backstory of Anna Zieglerin, her husband Heinrich Schombach, and their friend, the alchemist Philipp Sommering. Before arriving at the court in Wolfenbuttel, they served at the court of Duke Johann Friedrich II in Gotha. Johann Friedrich's political discord with the Emperor was supported by a renegade knight, Grumbach, and the prophecies of an illiterate boy, Hanschen, who could supposedly converse with angels. Old grudges and false prophecies transformed their animosity into an armed confrontation, which ended in the execution of Grumbach and Hanschen and imprisonment of Johann Friedrich II. Although the trio of alchemists did not participate in Grumbach's plans, the dark shadow of Gotha loomed over them when they decided to move to Wolfenbuttel and marred their reputations. Chapters 2 and 3 describe political, social, and cultural life in Wolfenbuttel, which served as the residence of Duke Julius—a young Protestant ruler, working hard to prove his leadership qualities and develop his realm. At his court Anna, Heinrich, and Philipp would find countless opportunities for the application of their craft and—-just like Julius—would have to prove their wortḥ Chapters 4 and 5 shift the focus to Anna's own alchemical practice and theoretical work. Chapter 4 provides a careful analysis of the intellectual trends in alchemy and theology of the times and traces the sources of Anna's alchemical ideas, while the fifth chapter examines Anna's imaginative rethinking of the connections between one's physical body, the sacred history of Christianity (especially the Apocalypse), and alchemy. This chapter provides the readers with brief yet illuminating forays into contemporary theological debates, which help explain Anna's outrageous claims of becoming an alchemical and Protestant version of the Virgin Mary (123). Chapter 6 examines the demise of the alchemists and the political mechanisms behind their trials, while Chapter 7 expounds on the later transformations of and additions to the story of Anna's life. Nummedal's skillful and careful analysis of historical data and documents pertaining to the cases of Anna Zieglerin as well as her husband Heinrich and their colleague Philipp allow her to recreate the world of Duke Julius's court in minute detail and convey the allure of a courtier's life as well as its perils. Anna's professional and private life becomes the focal point for several [End Page 169] greater themes that defined sixteenth-century Germanic lands: the contested position of alchemy and its practitioners in the sixteenth century, the vulnerability and "porosity" of a nascent court, the precariousness of self-fashioning and the ambiguity of individual identities, the role of luck in one's ascension to power and status (or one's fall from...

Increasing Hours Worked: Moonlighting Responses to a Large Tax Reform

Moonlighting is increasingly popular in OECD countries, with 5 to 10% of workers holding two or more jobs. However, little is known about the responsiveness of moonlighting to financial incentives due to the lack of identifying variation. This paper studies a unique reform in Germany that allowed workers to hold small secondary jobs tax-free, decreasing the marginal tax rate by between 19.5 to 66pp. I show that the reform resulted in a dramatic increase in moonlighting that was not offset by reductions in primary earnings, and that hours constraints is the key determinant of moonlighting.

Who Carries the Burden of the Value-Added Tax? Evidence from Germany

The value-added tax is one of the most important tax revenue sources in many countries. However, it is sometimes considered unfair as it ultimately hits consumption, and poorer households spend a greater share of their income on consumption. But this depends on whether, and to what degree, the value-added tax is actually passed on to consumers. Exploiting an exogenous value-added tax reform in Germany, I use an event study and a differences-in-differences approach to investigate the pass-through to consumers for a wide range of commodities. On average, I find a modestly positive but statistically insignificant effect on prices. However, there are differences in tax incidence between commodity groups and anticipatory price effects well in advance of the actual implementation of the value-added tax reform.

Are Older Workers Willing to Learn?

Adult education can mitigate the productivity decline in aging societies if older workers are willing to learn. We examine a generous partial retirement reform in Germany that led to a massive increase in early retirement. Using county-level administrative data on voluntary education activities, we employ a difference-in-differences approach for identification. The estimates show a strong increase in participation in adult education, specifically in cognitively demanding courses, for early retirees who would have continued working in the absence of the reform. This supports the notion of an intrinsic willingness of older individuals to acquire skills and abilities independent of financial incentives.

German political parties as a resource for social reform in Germany in the 70s of the XIX century

German political parties as a resource for social reform in Germany in the 70s of the XIX century

Discussion paper for ahospital financing reform in Germany from the perspective of intensive care medicine

In Germany, there are currently many voices calling for areform of hospital planning and reimbursement to correct some aberrations of the last decades and to enable the system to cope with future challenges. Some recent political decisions to change the structures of emergency medical services as well as the introduction of mandatory nurse-to-patient ratios and the exclusion of the cost for nursing from the case-based hospital reimbursement represent first steps of areform, which also affects intensive care and emergency medicine. In this discussion paper agroup of intensivists, emergency physicians, medical controllers, and representatives of nurses suggest more far-reaching changes, which can be summarized in 5points: (1)General hospitals with intensive care units (ICU) and emergency departments (ED) which are part of the emergency medical system should be considered as an element of public service and be planned accordingly. (2)The planning of the intensive care infrastructure should be based on the three levels of emergency medical services to identify hospitals that are system relevant and to define appropriate criteria for structure and quality measures. (3)Hospital reimbursement should consist of abase amount (covering costs for hospital staff, infrastructure plus investments) and case-based fees (covering material costs). (4)To determine the requirements for nurses, physicians, and other medical staff, adequate tools for ICU and ED should be applied. (5)For these purposes as well as for quality management and optimal medical care, hospitals should be provided with asubstantially improved IT-infrastructure.

The Role of Labor Demand in the Labor Market Effects of a Pension Reform

This paper shows that labor demand plays an important role in the labor market reactions of older women affected by pension deductions for early retirement. Based on a large representative sample of the German workforce (SIAB), we calculate the consequences of individual financial incentive changes caused by a pension reform in Germany on employment, unemployment, and partial retirement. The reform reduces financial incentives for early retirement. In line with labor demand theory, we show that employers with a high share of older worker inflow compared with the share of younger worker inflow, employers in sectors with a high share of collective bargaining agreements, and employers in sectors with few investments in research and development are more responsive to their employees´ demand to stay longer in the labor market. These employer groups mainly offer their older employees the option of staying longer in partial retirement instead of forcing them into unemployment before retirement.