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2002

December 2002:
 

IZA Action Program for the German Labor Market now available in English

IZA proposes seven steps to tackle the German labor market problem

On November 13, IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann and Hilmar Schneider, IZA Director of Labor Policy, presented a comprehensive labor market reform proposal to the public in Berlin. An English-language version of the action program entitled "An Improved Economic Framework for Increased Employment: Seven Proposals for a Modern Labor Market Policy in Germany" is now available. Among the key proposals are:


  • the development of the low-wage sector and the introduction of the workfare principle into the concept of social security (making welfare benefits conditional on performing socially beneficial tasks)
  • the introduction of legally governed severance pay as a substitute for present layoff protection rules
  • a radical reorganization of labor market policy institutions in order to deregulate job placment
  • the establishment of a two-month waiting period and a twelve-month maximum benefit duration for unemployment assistance (2+12 concept)

The IZA reform proposals also provide a new understanding of collective bargaining autonomy, new impetus to education policy, and feasible steps to address the demographic challenge.

"Our action program outlines the economic framework necessary to create more jobs in Germany. Now it is up to the policymakers to summon the courage to implement these steps," IZA Director Zimmermann said in Berlin.

Read the complete program. A short version is available in German here.

 

Call for Papers: Applied Economics Quarterly

IZA encourages all Research Fellows to submit manuscripts to the Applied Economics Quarterly (Konjunkturpolitik) for possible publication in one of the next volumes. After 49 volumes of publishing mostly in German language, all contributions published by Applied Economics Quarterly will be in English as of 2003.

Rainer Winkelmann (University of Zurich, former IZA Program Director) has been appointed as the new editor. Kurt Brannas (Umea University and IZA), Holger Goerg (University of Nottingham and IZA) and Beatrice Weder (University of Mainz) will join as co-editors. The international composition of the editorial board reflects the community of economists the journal seeks to reach as well as the journal's commitment to diversity in the type of research it will publish.

The goal of Applied Economics Quarterly is to publish empirical research with relevance for economic policymaking. All areas of economics are considered, including social policy, labor, and population issues. The journal will contribute to current policy debates and enhance economic policymaking by providing a forum for innovative empirical research. Please submit your paper by email to aeq@diw.de or by regular mail to: AEQ Editorial Office, DIW Berlin, Koenigin-Luise-Str. 5, 14191 Berlin, Germany.

For further information, please consult the journal's homepage.

 

IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann Celebrated 50th Birthday

click image to enlarge
On December 2, IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann celebrated his 50th birthday. Zimmermann is also President of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and holds teaching positions at Bonn University and the Free University of Berlin. He acts as a policy advisor for influential national and international panels such as the "Group of Economic Analysis" (GEA), an expert body established by the President of the EU Commission.
Klaus F. Zimmermann is the author or editor of 24 books and more than 150 essays in refereed journals and anthologies. He has written on various pivotal issues predominantly in the area of labor, migration and population economics. Zimmermann is among the most prolific and influential German economists. He remains determined to continue the systematic expansion of IZA's role as an internationally acclaimed center for labor market research.
[see short vita in PDF]

November 2002:
 

Jacob Mincer receives IZA Prize in Labor Economics 2002

Jacob Mincer (Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, New York) has received the first IZA Prize in Labor Economics. IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann awarded the IZA Prize Medal to Jacob Mincer at the laureate's home in New York on November 24. During a small celebration with family members, friends and colleagues, Zimmermann praised Mincer's ground-breaking work and presented him with the IZA Prize Medal 2002 to honor "the lifetime achievement of an outstanding scholar and pioneer in labor market research".
Mincer underscored the role of IZA as an important institutional supporter of international research in labor economics [more information].
 

October 2002:
 

IZA Program Director Christoph M. Schmidt is now President of RWI Essen

Christoph M. Schmidt, Professor of Economics and Econometrics at the University of Heidelberg, has accepted the offer to become President of RWI Essen (Rhine-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research) as of October 1, 2002. Schmidt, who received his postdoctoral habilitation under the supervision of IZA Director Klaus F. Zimmermann, has been IZA Research Fellow and Program Director for the IZA research focus on "Evaluation of Labor Market Policies and Projects" since 1998 [view his profile].
RWI Essen is a renowned independent institution for economic research serving the public interest. Its function is to monitor economic trends in order to recognize potentially detrimental developments and to demonstrate possibilities of avoiding them or coping with their effects [view RWI homepage].

September 2002:
 

Lars-Hendrik Röller wins Gossen Award - IZA strongly represented at Verein fuer Socialpolitik

Lars-Hendrik Röller, Professor of Economics at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and IZA Research Fellow since 1999, won this year's Gossen Award of the Verein fuer Socialpolitik (German Economic Association). The prize was awarded to Röller during the annual meeting of the Verein in Innsbruck, Austria. The Gossen Award honors economists from the German language area whose work has gained international reputation.

Professor Röller is Director of the Research Unit Competitiveness and Industrial Change (CIC) at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and Member of the Advisory Board of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin).
"I regard the Gossen Award as a signal for closing the gap between theoretical and empirical research in Germany and for strenghtening empirical research," Röller said during the award ceremony.

The Gossen Award, which carries a cash prize of about 10,000 euros, is considered one of the most prestigious science awards for economists in the German language area. Röller was selected mainly for his extensive publications in renowned international journals. Since the foundation of IZA in 1998, this has been the fourth time that the award-winner is an IZA Research Fellow.

IZA's in-house researchers were also strongly represented at the Verein fuer Socialpolitik annual meeting. With 7 presented papers, IZA fares extremely well when compared to the other, much larger German research institutes:
DIW Berlin (8 papers), HWWA (2), Ifo (4), IfW (3), IWH (0), RWI (0), ZEW (7).
 

Gerard Pfann becomes Managing Editor of European Economic Review

IZA Research Director Gerard A. Pfann has accepted the offer to become Managing Editor of the European Economic Review (EER) as of January 1, 2003.
Founded in 1969, the EER became the official Journal of the European Economic Association (EEA) in 1986. According to the Social Sciences Citation Index, the EER is one of the leading economics journals in Europe. It appears nine times a year and publishes more than 1800 pages.
Besides Gerard Pfann, the editorial team will include Thorvaldur Gylfason (Iceland University) Juergen von Hagen (Bonn University) and Zvi Eckstein (Tel Aviv University, University of Minnesota, and IZA). The editorial office will be located at BIRC, Maastricht University.