Economics and Finance

The Labor Market and Social Security Group  of the Department of Economics and Finance (Eco&Fin) aims at undertaking original and innovative empirical and theoretical research activities which comply with internationally competitive scientific principles. It follows the aim of promoting the transfer of scientific knowledge into practical policy concepts, of supporting the design and evaluation of economic policy programs in all fields of labor economics and social security, and of developing tools for efficiency analysis and the measurement of technical progress.

The fight against large-scale and persistent underemployment has become the prime social, economic, and political issue in Europe and a number of other OECD member states. There is no disputing that considerable effort is needed in all areas of economic policy to successfully improve the labor market performance in these countries. Scientific labor market research gives some guidance with respect to the key areas where active policy interventions are a matter of priority. At the same time, the permanent empirical evaluation of policies is needed to improve the efficiency and cost effectiveness of economic policy programs for the labor market.

The Labor Economics Research Group:
labor.economics@ihs.ac.at

Christian Haefke
Helmut Hofer
Alexander Schnabl
Ulrich Schuh
Rudolf Winter-Ebmer