Welfare State and Labor Mobility: The Impact of Bismarck's Social Legislation on German Emigration before World War I

Khoudour-Castéras, David

doi:10.1017/s0022050708000077

Cited by 36 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Raff and Summers (1987) argue that the ''five dollar day'' policy (the daily wage for workers), instituted by Henry Ford in 1914, acted as an efficiency wage by increasing productivity, profits, and queues for jobs at the Ford factory. Khoudour-Castéras (2008) find that, at the macro level, Bismarck's introduction of non-wage benefits in the late-nineteenth century were very important in retaining German workers within the country, by reducing the emigration rate.…”

Section: Efficiency Wage Theorymentioning

confidence: 90%

Wily welfare capitalist: Werner von Siemens and the pension plan

Kastl

Moore

2009

Cliometrica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The German firm of Siemens and Halske introduced many enterprising features of what later came to be known as welfare capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century. Profit sharing, annual bonuses, a pension fund, a reduction in work hours, and an annual party were all means to ensure a productive, trouble-free workforce. We investigate the reasons why Siemens and Halske introduced this internal welfare system. We focus on the by-far most expensive part of the welfare system: the pension fund introduced in 1872, more than a decade before the nationwide social security system was implemented in Germany. We find that the adoption of the internal welfare system increased labor productivity, and in addition discouraged workers from striking. We estimate that the company’s gains due to strike prevention and higher productivity were at least as high as the cost of the pension fund. This suggests that (1) the introduction of a pension fund is not inconsistent with simple profit maximizing behavior on the firm’s side and (2) increased labor unionization induced firms to introduce subjective components of workers’ remuneration packages.Welfare capitalism, Siemens, Productivity

show abstract

Section: Efficiency Wage Theorymentioning

confidence: 90%

Wily welfare capitalist: Werner von Siemens and the pension plan

Kastl

Moore

2009

Cliometrica

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Borjas 1999), also in the historical context (e.g. Khoudor-Cásteras 2008). This link between social security and individual behaviour has been postulated as the so-called social security hypothesis (Feldstein 1974), which states that the individual provision for the major risks of life -sickness, accidents, poverty -declines whenever the state provides insurance against these risks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pensions and fertility: back to the roots

Fenge

Scheubel

2016

J Popul Econ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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. Abstract Fertility has long been declining in industrialised countries and the existence of public pension systems is considered as one of the causes. This paper provides detailed evidence on the mechanism by which a public pension system depresses fertility, based on historical data. Our theoretical framework highlights that the effect of a public pension system on fertility is ex ante ambiguous while its size is determined by the internal rate of return of the pension system. We identify an overall negative effect of the introduction of pension insurance on fertility using regional variation across 23 provinces of Imperial Germany in key variables of Bismarck's pension system, which was introduced in Imperial Germany in 1891. The negative effect on fertility is robust to controlling for the traditional determinants of the first demographic transition as well as to other policy changes. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may

show abstract

“…See also Khoudour‐Castéras () who has studied emigration from 19th century Europe. He finds that the social insurance legislation, adopted by Bismarck in the 1880s, reduced the incentives of risk‐averse Germans to emigrate.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden, and Immigration Skill Selectivity

Razin

Wahba

2014

Scandinavian J Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we investigate the effect of welfare state generosity on the difference between skilled and unskilled migration rates, and the role of mobility restriction in shaping this effect. We utilize the free labor movement within the European Union plus Norway and Switzerland (EUR) and the restricted movement from outside the EUR in order to compare the free-migration regime to the restricted-migration regime. We find strong support for the magnet hypothesis under the free-migration regime, and the fiscal burden hypothesis under the restricted-migration regime, even after controlling for differences in educational quality and returns to skills in source and host countries.

show abstract

Welfare State and Labor Mobility: The Impact of Bismarck's Social Legislation on German Emigration before World War I

Cited by 36 publications

References 11 publications

Wily welfare capitalist: Werner von Siemens and the pension plan

Wily welfare capitalist: Werner von Siemens and the pension plan

Pensions and fertility: back to the roots

Welfare Magnet Hypothesis, Fiscal Burden, and Immigration Skill Selectivity

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About