Contributions published at Empirical Research in Business, Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management (Uschi Backes-Gellner)

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This paper explores the impact of German labour market regulations on the willingness of labour market entrants to start their own business. We study the legal situation, the actual and the perceived constraints imposed on businesses as well as the actual flexibility available of start-ups. We find strong evidence that labour market regulations are often misperceived in Germany. Furthermore, these misperceptions distort the willingness to become selfemployed. Start-ups are de jure hardly affected by labour market regulations because of a large number of exemptions. They are able to use a number of flexibility measures and thereby avoid regulatory restrictions. However, perceptions are quite the opposite, particularly in legal areas with high media coverage. This leads to a strong reluctance of labour market entrants to consider a start-up. Thus, measures aiming at increasing entrepreneurship should place strong emphasis on accurate knowledge of regulatory constraints and particularly in Germany, on less sceptical media coverage.

Human capital is no doubt one of the most important factors for future economic growth and well-being. However, human capital is also prone to becoming obsolete over time. Skills that have been acquired at one point in time may perfectly match the skill requirements at that time but may become obsolete as time goes by. Thus, in the following paper, we study the depreciation processes of the human capital of workers performing different types of tasks with different skill requirements over a period of more than twenty years. We argue that two types of tasks must be distinguished: knowledge-based tasks and experience-based tasks. Knowledge-based tasks demand skills depending on the actual stock of technological knowledge in a society whereas experience-based tasks demand skills depending on personal factors and individual experience values. We show, by applying Mincer regressions on four different cross sections, that the human capital of people performing knowledge-based tasks suffers more from depreciation than the human capital of individuals performing experience-based tasks.

Der Band enthält die Empfehlungen der Akademiengruppe „Altern in Deutschland“, die auf einer dreijährigen Arbeit beruhen. Sie befassen sich mit den Chancen und Herausforderungen des demographischen Wandels, vor allem für die Welt der Arbeit und des lebenslangen Lernens. Doch werden auch andere Bereiche des Lebens und nicht nur die letzte Lebensphase berührt. Es geht in den Empfehlungen um die Ausschöpfung der Möglichkeiten, die durch die Zunahme der durchschnittlichen Lebenserwartung entstanden sind. Die Empfehlungen richten sich sowohl an jeden Einzelnen als auch an die Vertreter der Wirtschaft und die Gesellschaft im Ganzen.