Using a large panel data set we investigate whether works councils act as a sand or grease in the operation of German firms. Stochastic production frontier analysis indicates that establishments with and without a works council do not exhibit significant differences in efficiency

This paper contributes to the literature on the use of anonymized firm level data by reporting results from a replication study. To test for the practical usefulness of anonymized data I selected two of my published papers based on different cross sections of firm data. The data used there were...

This paper uses a large plant level data set from Germany and a matching approach to look for causal effects of starting to export on plant performance. We find positive effects on growth of employment, labor productivity, and wages.

German law guaranteeing works councils is not a datum. The thrust of legislation has changed significatly on a number of occasions since 1920. The most recent legal change in the form of the Works Constitution Reform Act marks a controversial swing in favor of works council formation and...

Research in wage differentials has a long tradition. Prominent reasons why people make more or less money in the labor market include personal characteristics of the employee (e.g., human capital or gender), job characteristics (working conditions demanding compensating wage differentials), and...