JBNST - Vol. 242/3 - 2022

Midijobs are employment relationships with moderate monthly earnings that benefit from payroll tax subsidies. Since 2003, the subsidy is universally available for all regions, industries, individuals, and employers in Germany. Recently, more than 2.9 million individuals, i.e., almost 9 percent of the German labor force covered by the social security system took advantage of Midijobs. This paper describes the program, its motivation, and utilization over time. We characterize the labor market transitions leading into and out of Midijob employment, the duration of Midijob utilization, and compare recent developments with patterns of program utilization that were observed early on.

In business cycle accounting, productivity is procyclical. However, this may be an illusion caused by improperly accounting for changes in procyclical capital utilization. This paper considers to what extent incorporating variable shift work into a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model reduces the role played by productivity shocks in explaining variations in output. In the one shift version of the model, 81 percent of the variation in output is explained by productivity shocks. With variable shift work, the contribution falls to a minimum of 48 percent. While variable shift work decreases their importance, productivity shocks continue to be the most significant contributor to the variation of output over the business cycle.

In this paper an impure public good model is applied to analyze the effects of introducing a green good, i.e. a consumption good that contributes to preservation of environmental quality. I distinguish three types of consumers: “grays”, who consume the green good and a private good; “greens”, who consume the green good and make additional donations to environmental organizations; and “edge” consumers, who consume only the green good. With respect to environmental quality I find that the gap between voluntary provision and optimal provision is unaffected by the introduction of the green good, no matter if consumers are gray or green. However, in the case of gray agents environmental quality is improved in absolute terms after the green good has been launched whereas it remains at the same level as before if consumers are green. The effect of the green good on the social welfare gap is more likely to be beneficial if agents are gray. The gaps with respect to environmental quality and social welfare are both closed if the agents are edge consumers.

Collecting data on households and individuals since 1999, the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) is an ongoing, unique, large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal study in Switzerland ( N = 9828 households and N = 15,882 persons interviewed in 2020). The SHP aims to provide both continuity and innovation in measurement and data collection. Examples of innovation are the combination of retrospective and prospective longitudinal data, the combination of survey modes notably in refreshment samples and additional studies oversampling specific population groups. This article provides an overview of the SHP – focusing on the survey’s key design features, content, data collection and adjustments, possibilities for cross-national comparisons, data use and accomplishments.

The high-frequency establishment survey “Establishments in the Covid-19-Crisis” (BeCovid) started in 2020 and continued until June 2022 to collect monthly data on how businesses in Germany adjusted to the challenges of the pandemic. This article describes the survey design and provides an overview over the topics covered. We further outline the survey’s research potentials, particularly when linked to administrative records.