This paper analyzes whether technological change improves equality of labor market opportunities by decreasing returns to parental background. We find that in Germany during the 1990s, computerization improved the access to technologyadopting occupations for workers with low-educated parents,...

We study how new digital technology reshapes vocational training and skill acquisition and its impact on workers' careers. We construct a novel database of legally binding training curricula and changes therein, spanning the near universe of vocational training in Germany over five decades, and...

This study investigates how crises affect firms' adoption of frontier technologies using the Covid-19 pandemic as a case study. The analysis tracks the nature, timing, and pandemic-related motivations of investments among German firms, using longitudinal survey data linked with administrative...

City-level policies often aim at attracting skilled workers by improving urban amenities. However, due to endogeneity problems, studies relying on revealed preferences have difficulties in providing evidence for the basic premise that skilled workers place a higher value on urban amenities than...

This paper examines the extent to which aggregate-level de-routinization can be attributed to firm-level technology adoption during the most recent technological expansion. We use administrative data and a novel firm survey to distinguish frontier technologies from older technologies. We find...

Computing power continues to grow at an enormous rate. Simultaneously, more and better data is increasingly available and Machine Learning methods have seen significant breakthroughs in the recent past. All this pushes further the boundary of what machines can do. Nowadays increasingly complex...

Firms in developed countries face increasing shortages of young workers. This paper studies the importance of young workers, particularly vocational trainees, for firm technology investments. Leveraging exogenous variation in trainee supply caused by an education reform in Germany in 2001, I...

Birth rates differ strongly across European states, despite the deep economic harmonisation process related to European integration. This study uses large scale administrative data from France and Germany to analyse and directly compare fertility patterns in two major European economies over a...

Using longitudinal data for Argentina, we estimate the labor supply reaction of spouses and children to their husband's or father's job loss. Our findings show that job loss by the household head has a positive and significant impact on the labor supply of other household members. However, it...

This paper investigates whether the impact of trade shocks on employment and wages persists across generations. Using survey data with retrospective information on parental employment, we study the causal effect of increased Chinese import competition in Brazilian industries on individuals with...