JBNST - Vol. 234/4 - 2014

This study addresses the probability of young workers seeking for promotion after vocational training. By applying semi-parametric duration analysis with competing risks to a dataset of 17 youth rosters, each of them winner of either DFB-U19-Bundesliga or DFB-Youth-Cup between 1998/1999 and 2010/2011, the following paper tests some predictions that have emerged from Jovanovic’s (1979) matching theory. By running a youth academy a club assembles private information in order to decrease information deficits about a youth player’s performance. Findings from a database that covers 270 German youth players indicate that productivity, tenure and job seniority are key determinants for a successful debut with the home club. These results were not detected for potential debuts with an outside team after finishing youth engagement.

The aim of this paper is to analyze unit-nonresponse for establishments surveyed for the first time in the IAB Establishment Panel. This is not only useful to understand nonresponse in this particular survey but to increase knowledge about nonresponse in business surveys overall. Therefore a theoretical framework is presented which helps to explain these processes in establishment surveys. To test this theory additional data from the federal employment agency about the establishments and data about the conducting interviewers is used. Empirical results mainly confirm the theoretical framework. If the respondent has the authority to provide relevant information and is able to give reliable answers to the questions with a justifiable amount of effort, participation is less frequently refused. Both aspects are highly correlated with establishment size and the complexity of the firm. It can also be shown that experienced and professional interviewers are more successful in recruiting firms to take part in the survey. The findings can be used to improve the study design in organizational surveys.

Expenditure of the German statutory health insurance scheme will increase significantly in the future. In order to keep the system financially sound, current law plans to levy income independent surcharges. These will be complemented by a tax-financed social compensation scheme. In this paper, we analyse the effects of such surcharges on revenue on Germany’s statutory health insurance using a general equilibrium model with overlapping generations. Afterwards, we further develop the surcharges up to a flat rate employee contribution and ascertain their financial consequences and their employment and growth effects. The allocative effects of such a further development are positive. They will be more considerable if the introduction begins earlier and ends quickly. A moderate expenditure increase and a smaller shape of the compensation scheme will intensify these effects.

This paper contributes to the literature by documenting for the first time the contribution of adding (and dropping) goods and destination countries to the sharp increase in exports of goods in the German economy as a whole during the Great Export Recovery in 2009/2010. The empirical investigation finds that firms that exported in both 2009 and 2010 are much more important for the export dynamics than export starters and export stoppers. Firms that increased their exports (and that were the drivers of the export boom) exported on average more goods and to more destination countries in 2009 than firms that decreased their exports, and they increased both extensive margins of exports on average while firms with decreased exports reduced both the number of goods exported and the number of countries exported to.