Researchers from Austria working in labor economics and related areas join forces with top international co-authors to create network effects and cross-fertilize research. Subprojects will be based in Linz, Vienna (University and Institute for Advanced Studies) and Innsbruck. One Subproject will be based in Zurich, our major collaborating partner of the past years. We will also involve past co-authors, who are based in Berkeley, Bonn, Bologna, Brisbane, Colchester, Florence (EUI), Copenhagen, Lausanne, London, Munich, Padova and Tilburg.      

Austria has one of the best databases on individual life histories, which is matched from different sources. Creating a focused research center will undoubtedly increase the international awareness and foster collaborations.

Linz has also been the Austrian hub of SHARE (The Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe), which will allow for easier access of collaborative research in areas using survey data. SHARE as well as EU-SILC (the EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions) or the Austrian Microcensus will be used as complimentary data sources.

Interdisciplinary research will allow for fruitful contributions of labor and population economists as well as researchers in public finance, health economics and experimental economics. While the major research focus will be on empirical labor, health and population economics, we include one Subproject specializing on theory, in particular on theoretical analysis of taxation and social security, as well as one Subproject focusing on methodology, in particular on Bayesian models of mobility and transitions. Beyond the contributions in their own fields, the input from these Subprojects is essential to advise and collaborate with the other, more empirically oriented Subprojects. Moreover, experimental methods will complement the econometric methods.

This is primarily an applied research project. Therefore, research output will be highly relevant to economic and social policy and should contribute to some of the most pressing economic policy questions. There has been a lack of competent policy advice in the last decades due to a lack of knowledge and collaboration of researchers in the fields. While being of immediate policy interest to Austria, high-quality evaluations of policy options in one country are also highly relevant as benchmark cases for many other countries.