The (hard) coal phase out - the German experience
During the 1970's, German coal production ceased to be competitve on the world market due to increasing production costs. Coal mining (along with steel production) was the main industry, especially in the Ruhr area of West Germany. To cushion the mass layoffs associated with the closure of coal mines, the government installed a massive subsidy program in order to smoothly phase out of coal production over an expected period of around 40 years.
In this research, Dr Jörg Lingens uses administrative labour market data to document the career path of individuals that were exposed to the closure of mines and tries to understand the wage and the re-employment effects of these individuals. In addition to this, he aims to understand how young individuals that entered these 'regional' labour markets at times of mine closure were affected compared to similar individuals in other regions. This research hopes to learn something about the currently discussed phase out from lignite mining, and the associated shut down of lignite fired power plants in Germany.
Note: The audio quality of the video will be better after the first minutes.
Download Slides
Since 2007, Dr Jörg Lingens is a lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Münster where he is primarily concerned with doing research in applied economic theory and teaching various classes centred on microeconomics. He worked as a post-doc from 2003 to 2007 at Regensburg University.
He has published research on various microeconomic topics in journals such as The Economic Journal, Labour Economics and JITE. Currently, he is part of a research team at the University of Münster that focuses on the effects of 'soft' interventions on energy demand.