ProMinent Dosiertechnik GmbH Sponsors Heinz König Young Scholar Award: Two Young Researchers Share the ZEW Award Endowed with Prize Money of Euro 5,000

The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim awarded the Heinz König Young Scholar Award for outstanding research papers to young researchers for the sixth time. Christina Felfe of St. Gallen University and Alexander M. Danzer of University of London share this year's award. Felfe receives the award for her analysis whether mothers return to their job after parental leave when the working atmosphere is good. Danzer receives the award for the empirical proof that employees cannot protect themselves from unexpected short-term wage cutbacks.

The annual ZEW award comes with prize money of Euro 5,000 and additionally includes the offer to do research at the ZEW for several months. ProMinent Dosiertechnik GmbH, a worldwide leading manufacturer for water treatment systems, sponsors the prize money this year. The ceremony took place at the 11th ZEW Summer Workshop for young economists. Professor Dr. Andreas Dulger, President and CEO of ProMinent Dosiertechnik GmbH and member of ZEW Sponsors’ Association for Science and Practice, awarded the prize. This year’s Summer Workshop focused on empirical labour market research.

The awarded paper by Christina Felfe analyses which working conditions can help to bring back mothers to their jobs after parental leave. Felfe uses the German regulations for parental leave to proof that women return to their jobs if their work place is more attractive. Felfe estimates that a company’s additional contributions have a considerable financial value. Mothers having the possibility to adjust their working hours to the care for their children at home accept a wage cutback of 30 percent.

Alexander M. Danzer analyses whether employees can protect themselves from unexpected short-term wage cutbacks. Using data from Ukraine, he shows that employees do not plan the future and only react when a wage cutback occurs. Changing jobs usually causes high costs. Therefore affected employees take up side jobs to react to a short-term wage cutback. Danzer’s results indicate that governments open up opportunities for affected employees to better react to short-term wage cutbacks if governments promote side jobs.

Dr. Holger Boning, head of ZEW research department Labour Markets, Human Resources and Social Policy, considers both outstanding papers to connect innovative empirical research with economic relevance. Felfe's paper shows that companies can prevent shortages of experts by creating attractive working conditions. Danzer's results provide an argument for the payment of short-time working benefits in the current economic crisis. Bonin says "When you look at Danzer's paper, other forms of insurance for affected employees can be seen."

The Heinz König Young Scholar Award is named after the late ZEW founding director, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Heinz König. The prize awards excellent empirical papers by young economists. ZEW does not want to add another prize to the wide range of awards for established researchers but prefers to sponsor young economists.

The Heinz König Young Scholar Award is awarded to the authors of the best papers which were presented at the 11th ZEW Summer Workshop "New Perspectives in Empirical Labour Market Research". Twenty-five young researchers from Australia, China, Europe, India, Japan and the USA participated in the Summer Workshop, where they discussed their research with internationally renowned economists for four days.

At this year's Summer Workshop, Prof. Deborah Cobb-Clark, Ph.D. from Australian National University in Canberra gave a lecture on gender discrimination on the labour market. Prof. Dr. Markus Fröhlich from University of Mannheim presented new econometric methods to evaluate programmes. Prof. Daniel S. Hamermesh, Ph.D. from University of Texas in Austin talked about using time use data in econometric research.

Contact

Prof. Dr. Holger Bonin, Phone: +49/621/1235-151, E-mail: bonin@zew.de