'Take it or Go to Court' - The Impact of Sec. 1a of the German Protection against Dismissal Act on Severance Payments -
Abstract
In 2004, a section was added to the German Protection against Dismissal Act, establishing a new procedure to dismiss an employee, given a predetermined severance payment. Most legal scholars presume the change to be without impact, while a minority of experts claims it to be either beneficial or unfavourable to employees. Our theoretical model suggests that firms will use the new procedure, but that the change in payoffs is indeterminate and, therefore, an empirical issue. Exploiting the fact that collective dismissals are not directly affected by the amendment, difference-in-differences estimates based on panel data for West Germany indicate that the legal change did have a negative effect on severance pay.Download Info
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Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number 3120.Length:
Date of creation: 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3120
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Related research
Keywords: panel data; Protection against Dismissal Act; severance pay;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Longitudinal Data; Spatial Time Series
- J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
- K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
References
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