During the recession of 2008-09 Germany experienced a huge decrease in GDP. Employment, however, remained surprisingly stable. The so-called German labor market miracle is often ascribed to the intensive usage of short-time work. Despite the resurgence of this instrument, little is known about...

The matching of likes is a frequently observed phenomenon. However, for such assortative matching to arise in a search model, often implausibly strong conditions are required. This paper shows that, once signals are introduced, a search model can generate even perfect assortative matching under...

We consider an economy where production may use labor of two different skill levels. Workers are heterogeneous and, by investing in education, self-select into one of the two skills. Ex-ante, when firms choose their investments in physical capital, they do not know the level of human capital...

Für die mikroanalytische Evaluation der Förderung der beruflichen Weiterbildung (FbW) von Arbeitslosen wird üblicherweise gefragt, ob es aufgrund der Weiterbildung zu Übergängen in neue Beschäftigungsverhältnisse gekommen ist. Arbeitsmarktpolitisch wichtig ist aber auch, welche Qualität...

This paper examines the joint impact of international trade and technical change on U.K. wages across different skill groups. International trade is measured as changes in product prices and technical change as total factor productivity (TFP) growth. We take account of a multi-sector and...

In theoretical trade models with variable markups and collective wage bargaining, export exposure may reduce the exporter wage premium. We test this prediction using linked German employer-employee data from 1996 to 2007. To separate the rent-sharing mechanism from assortative matching, we...

So far little empirical evidence exists on how real wages of newly hired workers react to business cycle conditions. This paper aims at filling this gap for Germany by analyzing the cyclical behavior of real wages of newly hired workers while controlling for 'cyclical upgrading' and 'cyclical...

This paper proposes a simple multi-industry trade model with search frictions in the labor market. Unimpeded access to global financial markets enables capital owners to invest abroad, thereby fostering unemployment at the extensive industry margin. Whether a country benefits from FDI in terms...

We revisit the puzzling finding that labour market performance appears to deteriorate, as suggested by negative time trends in empirical matching functions. We investigate whether these trends simply arise from omitted variable bias. Concretely, we consider the omission of job seekers beyond the...

Am Beispiel des wiedervereinigten Deutschlands zeigt dieser Beitrag, welche Unterschiede in den Erwerbsunterbrechungsdauern von Müttern in Ost- und Westdeutschland bestehen. Empirisch betrachten wir das Rückkehrverhalten nach Erstgeburten im Zeitraum von 1992 bis 2009. In dieser Zeit gelten in...