Expanding public or publicly subsidized childcare has been a top social policy priority in many industrialized countries. It is supposed to increase fertility, promote children's development and enhance mothers' labor market attachment. In this paper, we analyze the causal effect of one of the largest expansions of subsidized childcare for children up to three years among industrialized countries on the employment of mothers in Germany. Identification is based on spatial and temporal variation in the expansion of publicly subsidized childcare triggered by two comprehensive childcare policy reforms. The empirical analysis is based on the German Microcensus that is matched to county level data on childcare availability. Based on our preferred specification which includes time and county fixed effects we find that an increase in childcare slots by one percentage point increases mothers' labor market participation rate by 0.2 percentage points. The overall increase in employment is explained by the rise in part-time employment with relatively long hours (20-35 hours per week). We do not find a change in full-time employment or lower part-time employment that is causally related to the childcare expansion. The effect is almost entirely driven by mothers with medium-level qualifications. Mothers with low education levels do not profit from this reform calling for a stronger policy focus on particularly disadvantaged groups in coming years.

In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty,

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We analyze the effect of imposed benefit sanctions on the unemployment-toemployment transition of unemployed people entitled to unemployment compensation on the basis of register data from the German Federal Employment Agency. We combine propensity score matching with a discrete-time hazard rate model which accounts for the dynamic nature of the treatment. We find positive short-and long-term effects of benefit sanctions which are robust for men and women in East and West Germany. The effects diminish with the elapsed unemployment duration until a sanction is imposed. The limited use of benefit sanctions can thus be an effective activation tool if they take place not too late in an individual's unemployment spell. Terms of use: Documents inJEL Classification: J64, J65, H31

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Abstract:Several empirical minimum wage studies have recently been published that simulate employment effects of a federal minimum wage in Germany. We disentangle various factors that explain the variation in previous simulation results. Based on data from the German SocioEconomic Panel and the newly available 'Verdienststrukturerhebung 2006' we conduct robustness analyses that systematically test the range in the outcomes of different labor demand simulations. We find that labor demand effects are sensitive to measurement errors in wages, the representativeness of the sample with respect to several types of labor inputs as well as estimated and assumed labor demand and output price elasticities. Interactions of those determinants may lead to substantial differences in simulation outcomes. JEL classification: J23, J31, J38Keywords: minimum wage, wage distribution, employment effects, labor demand