This paper follows the framework developed in past OECD studies for analysis of social assistance programmes that aim to provide low-income clients with adequate financial support while simultaneously promoting their reintegration into labour market and, where necessary, mainstream society. Increasingly, jobless citizens in Germany rely on social assistance: a role for which the programme was never intended. Indeed, there are two other programmes that serve the unemployed in Germany, and this paper discusses social assistance in the context of its relationship to Unemployment Insurance and Assistance benefits.
First, this study provides a concise overview of Germany’s public social system, and discusses federal relations inasmuch they have a bearing on the delivery of public assistance benefits. The study discusses the nature of benefits available to social assistance clients in general, and related support measures for particular client-groups, for example, lone parent families ...
This paper analyses the postponement of first births of the 1990s compared to the 1980s, using panel data from four countries, namely, Germany (GSOEP), Great Britain (BHPS), the Netherlands (OSA) and Sweden (HUS). We find substantial postponement of maternity in all four countries for all educational groups with the most pronounced postponement among highly educated women in all four countries. However the mean age of the mother when giving birth to the first child reamained the lowest in Great among the four countries in both decades.
Theoretically we can distinguish two motives for postponing maternity, namely, the consumptionsmoothing motive and the career-planning motive. In this paper we concentrate on an important determinant of the maternal time costs: the time spent out of paid employment.
We make use of longitudinal information about the number of months elapsed since first birth until the mother is observed working in the labour market. We estimate parametric duration ...
The economic integration of the eastern German states has progressed rapidly in many respects. The infrastructure has been rapidly built up and modernised. A strong trend to modernise the business capital stock has been established, aided by financial assistance from the west. Already at the beginning of the 1990s the elaborate western German social security system had been extended to the new states. Incomes of both the employed and the non-employed, in particular retirees, have risen fast, and have approached west German levels. There has also been a high degree of structural change, as witnessed by high growth rates in manufacturing, increasing export shares, the rapid expansion of the service sector and the down-sizing of the construction sector after very high -- and largely policy-induced -- growth rates in the first half of the 1990s. However, in the second half of the 1990s economic growth in the east decelerated, and income convergence has stalled and employment stagnated ...
This document analyses German environmental policies, including, among others, discussion of air and water quality policy, use of the waste management hierarchy approach and of voluntary agreements. The German public has been highly sensitive to environmental concerns, leading to many policy initiatives in this area since the early 1980s. Significant environmental improvements have been achieved, using an approach frequently based on detailed regulations, often developed with the close involvement of industry and even individual polluters. There has developed a tendency to relieve some of the heaviest polluters from the most stringent regulation, on the grounds of competitiveness concerns, and some polluting activities receive considerable direct or indirect subsidies; these policies will increasingly make it unnecessarily expensive to meet environmental targets. Objectives need to be defined more clearly and consistently and a less discriminatory approach to taxation and ...
In Germany fiscal relations between the various levels of government have come to the fore of the policy debate. In practice the federal fiscal set-up has evolved towards consensus and co-operation, where equalisation of living standards takes precedence over public choice and economic incentives. Shared taxes and the low reliance on own taxes make for a relatively inefficient control over public spending. At the same time, the system may be criticised for not achieving economic convergence among the states. The difference in regional living standards is smaller than in some other economies, but the revenue equalisation system offers no incentives to expand the tax base and may even promote tax avoidance. Greater dynamism could be achieved with a less confiscatory equalisation system and a higher degree of tax autonomy and both of these should form part of any balanced tax and expenditure reform ...
This paper analyses the determinants of the retirement decision in Germany using microdata from the German Socio-Economic Panel over the period 1985-1995. Non-parametric and semi-parametric techniques have been used to describe the exit to retirement. Non-parametric estimates suggest that the incentive structure generated by the different social security schemes play a powerful role in the individual retirement decision. The semi-parametric analysis is conducted using a piece-wise constant hazard model with multiple destinations (i.e. disability scheme and old-age pension scheme) and time-varying covariates. Socio-demographic factors have a strong impact on the retirement decision. Moreover, poor health contributes to early withdrawals from the labour market, especially in the case of disability retirement. Financial incentives offered in the pension system are also powerful in shaping the age profile of retirement. In particular, we used the pension wealth and an estimate of the ...
This paper forms part of an OECD project which addressed the issue of the structure and change in the distribution systems of seven OECD countries.
First, the paper discusses the role of distribution systems in the overall economic performance. Next, it gives an overview of the structure and evolution of the distribution system in West Germany for the period 1970-1988. Finally, it analyses the impact of competition laws and other regulations on the distribution of consumer goods ...
Based on information from the employment records of individual establishments in western
Germany (Federal Republic of Germany before the German unification) between 1977-1988, it is possible to shed some light on the characteristics and determinants of the job generation process. Data for this study were drawn from the Employment Statistics register of the Federal Office of Labour (Bundesanstalt flir Arbeit) and cover almost 80 per cent of total employment.
The central finding of the paper is that trend employment growth is, to a large extent, accommodated by plant openings rather than by the expansion of already existing units. While new establishments are subject to high failure rates, the growth of survivors almost completely offsets job losses due to plant closures. Furthermore, statistical analyses of entries and exits provide some support for the hypothesis that reduced wage differentials within any sector negatively affect the pace of entry of new establishments.
These results could be relevant for the current debate on the determinants of the poor employment performance of Germany in the 1980s. In pai1icular, they raise the possibility that reduced wage differentials, associated with labour market policies and collectivistic wage agreements in the 1980s, played an important role in lowering the job generation potential of western Germany.
The German system of nuclear third party liability has always been, and arguably still is, the object of considerable interest in the international nuclear law community.
Budgeting in Germany at the federal level is conducted in the basis of a well-developed legal, constitutional and administrative framework. The German budget process is robust and encompasses all elements of modern budgeting with significant reforms continuously being implemented . As a result, Germany has achieved an enviable fiscal performance in recent years. Surprisingly, little literature and research is available on the German budget process internationally. GOV/BUD's recently conducted budget review of Germany aims to present a concise overview of budgeting in Germany.
Over the past 15 years, political attitudes in Germany towards the nuclear industry have been characterised less by consistency than by some major policy shifts, and the same can be said for the legislation born of these attitudes. Although a number of these about-turns were predictable, others were less so because of their dependence on external factors.
Armenia
Licensing and regulatory infrastructure
France
Licensing and regulatory infrastructure
Nuclear security Nuclear safety and radiological protection
International co-operation
Germany
General legislation
Radiation protection
Nuclear Safety
Transport of radioactive material
Regulations on nuclear trade (including non-proliferation)
Greece
International co-operation
Nuclear safety and radiological protection
Moldova
General legislation
United States
Issuance of the ""Strategy for the Management and Disposal of Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Radioactive Waste""
Ongoing activities
Physical protection of byproduct material final rulemaking
Update on the NRC’s response to the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear site regarding filtered vents and consideration of economic consequences"
Allemagne
Cadre juridique général
Radioprotection
Sûreté nucléaire
Transport de matières radioactives
Réglementation du commerce nucléaire (y compris de la non-prolifération)
Arménie
Processus d’autorisation et cadre réglementaire
États-Unis
Publication de la « Stratégie pour la gestion et le stockage du combustible nucléaire usé et des déchets radioactifs de haute activité »
Activités en cours
Version finale de la réglementation sur la protection physique des produits radioactifs
Actualisation de la réponse de la NRC aux évènements survenus sur le site nucléaire de Fukushima Daiichi à l’égard des systèmes d’éventage après filtration et de la prise en considération des conséquences économiques
France
Processus d’autorisation et cadre réglementaire
Sécurité nucléaire
Sûreté nucléaire et radioprotection
Coopération internationale
Grèce
Coopération internationale
Sûreté nucléaire et protection radiologique
Moldova
Cadre juridique général
Allemagne
Requête d’arbitrage introduite devant le Centre international pour le règlement des différends relatifs aux investissements (CIRDI) de la Banque mondiale contre l’Allemagne en raison de la législation allemande qui conduit à une sortie progressive du nucléaire
États-Unis
Arrêt de la cour d’appel du circuit du district de Columbia annulant la mise à jour de la décision de la NRC relative à la confiance en matière de gestion des déchets
France
Cour administrative d’appel de Lyon, 19 juin 2012, arrêts numéros 12LY00233 et 12LY00290 relatifs au permis de construire délivré à EDF en vue de l’édification d’une installation de conditionnement et d’entreposage de déchets (ICEDA) dans la commune de Saint-Vulbas
Inde
Affaires relatives au projet nucléaire de Kudankulam
Suisse
Arrêt du Tribunal administratif fédéral dans l’affaire Balmer-Schafroth et consorts contre BKW FMB Energie SA concernant le retrait de l’autorisation d’exploiter la centrale nucléaire de Mühleberg
France
Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon, 19 June 2012, Judgements Nos. 12LY00233 and 12LY00290 regarding EDF’s permit to construct a waste conditioning and storage facility (ICEDA) in the town of Saint-Vulbas
Germany
Request for arbitration against Germany at the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) because of Germany’s legislation leading to the phase-out of nuclear energy
India
Cases related to the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP)
Switzerland
Judgement of the Federal Administrative Court in the matter of Balmer-Schafroth a.o.v. BKW FMB Energy Inc. on the revocation of the operating licence for the Mühleberg nuclear power plant
United States
Judgement of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacating the NRC’s 2010 Waste Confidence Decision and Rule Update
Cet article décrire les travaux législatifs et réglementation nationaux de l'Armenie, l'Australie,l' Autriche, la Belgique, le Brézil, l'Allemagne, la France, la Hongire, l'Inde, l'Irlande, la Lithuanie, la Moldavie, la Polagne, le Portugal, la Roumanie, la Slovenie, le Suède, la Ukraine, et les États-Unis States pour 2011 et 2012.
Cet article présente le texte de la loi Allemagne sur l’utilisation pacifique de l’énergie nucléaire et sur la protection contre les dangers de cette utilisation (Loi atomique) du 23 décembre 1959, telle que modifiée et promulguée le 15 juillet 1985, modifiée en dernier lieu par la Loi du 8 novembre 2011, de la loi australien de 2012 sur la gestion des déchets radioactifs instaurant des dispositions relatives au choix d’un site pour une installation de gestion des déchets radioactifs, à la création et à l’exploitation de cette dernière et à des questions connexes, et du Règlement de l’Autorité suédoise de sûreté radiologique relatif à la libération des matériaux, des locaux, des bâtiments et des terrains utilisés pour des pratiques faisant appel aux rayonnements ionisants de 2011.
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Australia
Radioactive waste management
Austria
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Belgium
Nuclear security
Nuclear safety
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Brazil
Nuclear security
France
Liability and compensation General legislation
Germany
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Transport of radioactive material
International trade
Hungary
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
General legislation
India
Liability and compensation
Ireland
Transport of radioactive material
Lithuania
Licensing and regulatory infrastructure
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Nuclear security
Moldova
General legislation
Poland
General legislation
Liability and compensation
Organisation and structure
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Portugal
General legislation
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Romania
Environmental protection
Slovenia
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Sweden
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Ukraine
General legislation
Nuclear safety and radiation protection
Nuclear security
Radioactive waste management
United States
Radioactive waste management
Emergency preparedness
Licensing and regulatory infrastructure
Nuclear safety
National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012
Germany
Act on the Peaceful Utilisation of Atomic Energy and the Protection against its Hazards (Atomic Energy Act)
Sweden
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority’s regulations concerning clearance of materials, rooms, buildings and land in practices involving ionising radiation
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority’s general advice on the application of the regulations concerning clearance of materials, rooms, buildings and land in practices involving ionising radiation
The Bologna Process put in motion a series of reforms for higher education. In Germany, the “Bologna reform” focused national standards and guidelines which served as criteria for obligatory programme accreditation by external bodies. This article reports on the results of an empirical study that examined the effects and limitations of accreditation as a means of monitoring the reform of study programmes. An analysis of 1 380 accreditation decisions taken in the Federal State of Lower Saxony between July 2004 and December 2009 and a series of interviews of key actors in the state’s 36 higher education institutions gave rise to a better understanding of whether accreditation does in fact support HEIs’ quality assurance goals.