Some surprising facts about working time accounts and the business cycle

Arbeitspapier

This paper reveals that German firms with working time accounts (WTAs) show a similar separation and hiring behavior in response to revenue changes as firms without WTAs. This finding casts doubt on the popular hypothesis that WTAs were the key driver of the unusually small increase in German unemployment in the Great Recession. One possible explanation is that firms substitute WTAs by short-time work. However, our results show no evidence for this substitution. Firms with WTAs use short-time work more to adjust labor over the cycle than firms without WTAs.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Kiel Working Paper ; No. 1955

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy: General (includes Measurement and Data) ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Demand and Supply of Labor: General ; Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General
• Subject: working time accounts ; short-time work ; business cycle

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Balleer, Almut ; Gehrke, Britta ; Merkl, Christian
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
• (where): Kiel
• (when): 2014

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/103772
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET