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Lisa Hölscher

Lisa Hölscher
Current Position

since 6/16

Economist in the Department of Structural Change and Productivity

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association

Research Interests
  • applied microeconometrics
  • empirical labour economics

Lisa Hölscher joined the Department of Structural Change and Productivity as a doctoral student in June 2016. Her research focuses on the workforce composition and employment prospects in newly founded firms.

Lisa Hölscher received her bachelor's and master's degree from Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg.

Your contact

Lisa Hölscher
Lisa Hölscher
Mitglied - Department Structural Change and Productivity
Send Message +49 345 7753-769

Publications

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Do Start-ups Provide Employment Opportunities for Disadvantaged Workers?

Daniel Fackler Michaela Fuchs Lisa Hölscher Claus Schnabel

in: ILR Review, No. 5, 2019

Abstract

This article compares the hiring patterns of start-ups and incumbent firms to analyze whether start-ups offer relatively more job opportunities to disadvantaged workers. Using administrative linked employer–employee data for Germany that provide the complete employment biographies of newly hired workers, the authors show that young firms are more likely than incumbents to hire applicants who are older, foreign, or unemployed, or who have unstable employment histories, arrive from outside the labor force, or were affected by a plant closure. Analysis of entry wages shows that penalties for these disadvantaged workers, however, are higher in start-ups than in incumbent firms. Therefore, even if start-ups provide employment opportunities for certain groups of disadvantaged workers, the quality of these jobs in terms of initial remuneration appears to be low.

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Losing Work, Moving Away? Regional Mobility After Job Loss

Daniel Fackler Lisa Hölscher

in: LABOUR: Review of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations, No. 4, 2017

Abstract

Using German survey data, we investigate the relationship between involuntary job loss and regional mobility. Our results show that job loss has a strong positive effect on the propensity to relocate. We also analyse whether displaced workers who relocate to a different region after job loss are better able to catch up with non-displaced workers in terms of labour market performance than those staying in the same region. Our findings do not support this conjecture as we find substantial long-lasting earnings losses for movers and stayers and even slightly but not significantly higher losses for movers.

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Working Papers

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Does Working at a Start-Up Pay Off?

Daniel Fackler Lisa Hölscher Claus Schnabel Antje Weyh

in: IZA Institute of Labor Economics - Discussion Paper Series, No. 13033, 2020

Abstract

Using representative linked employer-employee data for Germany, this paper analyzes short- and long-run differences in labor market performance of workers joining startups instead of incumbent firms. Applying entropy balancing and following individuals over ten years, we find huge and long-lasting drawbacks from entering a start-up in terms of wages, yearly income, and (un)employment. These disadvantages hold for all groups of workers and types of start-ups analyzed. Although our analysis of different subsequent career paths highlights important heterogeneities, it does not reveal any strategy through which workers joining start-ups can catch up with the income of similar workers entering incumbent firms.

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