This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany. We use unique newly...

On theoretical grounds, monitoring of top executives by the (supervisory) board is expected to be value relevant. The empirical evidence is ambiguous and we analyze three non-competing explanations for this ambiguity: (i) The positive effect on firm value of board monitoring is hidden in stock...

In the book Myth and Measurement, Card and Krueger (1995) examine the economic impact of the 1989 minimum wage hike on the welfare of 110 firms which employ a disproportionate number of minimum-wage workers. Their results show mixed evidence that excess returns associated with news about the...

There is currently a worldwide shortage of registered nurses, driven by large shifts in both the demand for and supply of nurses. Consequently, various policies to increase the recruitment and retention of nurses are under discussion, in particular, the role that wage increases might have in...

This contribution investigates severance payments for dismissed employees in Germany. Subsequent to an overview about the legal framework, we respond to the following questions: Who receives severance payments? By which characteristics is the level of severance payments determined? Is...

This paper studies the evolution of job stability in West Germany. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we first show that the median elapsed tenure declined for men between 1984 and 1999. Second, estimating proportional Cox hazard models with competing risks and controls for stock...

This paper investigates differences in worker turnover characteristics between periods of workforce expansion and contraction in a firm. We derive a Cox proportional hazard model from a simple model of job separation based on the expected surpluses from the firm and its workers. We account for...

We examine the pattern and costs of worker displacement in one of the more reform-oriented transition countries, Estonia, as the transition process develops. Using Labour Force Survey data covering the period 1989-1999, we show that after the initial shock, displacement rates in Estonia have...