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Michael Lechner

University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and IZA, Germany

I'm excited to be a part of this innovative project. I hope that policymakers and academics alike will find World of Labor a useful way to quickly learn the latest state of research on a wide range of issues in labor policy

IZA World of Labor role

Author

Current position

Professor of Econometrics, University of St. Gallen, and Director of the Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research (SEW-HSG), Switzerland

Research interest

Microeconometrics, sports economics, labor and health economics

Website

http://bit.ly/Lechner_personalpage

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

Advisor on active labor market policies for the Swiss, German, and Austrian governments

Past positions

Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Mannheim, Germany; John F. Kennedy Fellow, Center for European Studies, Harvard University, USA

Qualifications

PhD Economics and Econometrics, University of Mannheim, 1994

Selected publications

  • “The performance of estimators based on the propensity score.” Journal of Econometrics 175:1 (2013): 1–21 (with M. Huber and C. Wunsch).

  • “Long-run effects of public sector sponsored training in West Germany.” Journal of the European Economic Association 9 (2011): 742–784 (with R. Miquel and C. Wunsch).

  • “Long-run labour market and health effects of individual sports activities.” The Journal of Health Economics 28 (2009): 839–854.

  • “Are training programmes more effective when unemployment is high?” Journal of Labor Economics 27 (2009): 653–692 (with C. Wunsch).

  • “Programme heterogeneity and propensity score matching: An application to the evaluation of active labour market policies.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 84 (2002): 205–220.

article(s)

  • Sports, exercise, and labor market outcomes

    Increasing participation in sports and exercise can boost productivity and earnings

    Michael Lechner, February 2015
    A productive workforce is a key objective of public economic policy. Recent empirical work suggests that increasing individual participation in sports and exercise can be a major force for achieving this goal. The productivity gains and related increase in earnings come on top of the already well-documented public health effects that have so far provided the rationale for the major national and international campaigns to increase individual physical activity. The deciding issue for government policy is whether there are externalities, information asymmetries, or other reasons that lead individuals to decide on activity levels that are too low from a broader social perspective.
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