Using administrative data for West Germany, this paper investigates whether part of the urban wage premium stems from fierce competition in thick labour markets. We first establish that employers possess less wage-setting power in denser markets. Local differences in wage-setting power predict...

Using a large linked employer-employee data set for Germany, we investigate differences in the unexplained gender pay gap between owner-run and manager-run firms. We hypothesise that owner-run firms have higher pay gaps because active owners are less inhibited to live out profit-reducing...

This paper presents evidence on the impact of hours spent on housework activities on individuals’ wages for Germany using data from both the German Socio-Economic Panel and the German Time Use Survey. In contrast to most of the international literature, we find no negative effect of housework...

Using linked employer–employee panel data for Germany, this paper investigates whether firms implement real wage reductions in a selective manner. In line with insider–outsider and several strands of efficiency wage theory, we find strong evidence for selective wage cuts with...

This paper investigates the behaviour of employers' monopsony power and workers' wages over the business cycle. Using German administrative linked employer employee data for the years 1985-2010 and an estimation framework based on duration models, we construct a time series of the firm-level...

Using linked employer–employee panel data for West Germany that include direct information on the competition faced by plants, we investigate the effect of product market competition on the gender pay gap. Controlling for match fixed effects we find that intensified competition significantly...

In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from...