"We study the role of establishment-specific wage premiums in generating recent increases in West German wage inequality. Models with additive fixed effects for workers and establishments are fit in four distinct time intervals spanning the period 1985-2009. Unlike standard wage models,...

"Unions are often stigmatized as being a source of inefficiency due to higher collective bargaining outcomes. This is in stark contrast with the descriptive evidence presented in this paper. Larger firms choose to export and are also more likely to adopt collective bargaining. We rationalize...

"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...

"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...

"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...

"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...

"Often the high level of unemployment in Germany is explained by a lack of flexibility, over-regulation in the labour market and disincentives of the social security system. However, these institutional effects are difficult to test by means of data from only one country. Cross-country...

"In the last years the analysis of flow figures turned out to highly informative for labour market research and policy advice. Among researchers it is a well known fact that cross-sectional information about labour market is not sufficient to understand ungoing development. A pure sequence of...

"Using a linked employer-employee data set for Germany, this paper analyzes labour fluctuation and wage setting in a cohort of newly founded and other establishments from 1997 to 2001. We show empirically that start-ups tend to have higher labour turnover rates, ceteris paribus. Moreover,...

"Despite the ongoing discussion on labor shortage in the German economy there is still a lack of empirical analyses of this problem based on adequate econometric methods. The paper explores the determinants of labor shortage in the environmental sector supplying products and services that help...