New insights on earnings trends across skill groups and industries in West Germany

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the structure of earnings in West Germany across skill groups and industries. Our analysis is based on data from the German.Socioeconomic Panel for the period 1984 to-1994. We estimate quantile regressions, both for the entire sample period and for each year separately, in order to obtain a finer picture of the earnings structure compared to conventional least squares methods. For robust standard error estimation, this study uses a block bootstrap procedure taking account of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation in the error term. We also suggest a simple one-step procedure to obtain a consistent estimate of inter-industry earnings variability. Our main findings are: first, pooled estimation comprising a uniform time trend is not rejected by the data, and second, the effects of human capital variables and industry dummies on earnings differ considerably across quantiles.