The labor supply of West German married and cohabiting couples is analyzed using a discrete choice model. Following van Soest (1995), the labor supply decision is based on a household utility function which is determined by the leisure of the two spouses and net household income. Furthermore,...

In this paper the impact of working hours on the gross hourly wage rate of West German women is analyzed. We use a simultaneous wage-hours model which takes into account the participation decision. First, our estimates show that the hourly wage rate is strongly a¤ected by the working hours. In...

Total employment in Germany is supposed to increase if people could realize their desired working hours. However, this back-of-the-envelope calculation overestimates the effect of loosening hours constraints, because even in a very flexible labor market there will exist hours restrictions for...

Discontinuities in the employment profile are supposed to cause wage cuts since they imply an interruption in the accumulation of human capital as well as a depreciation of the human capital stock built up in the past. In this paper, we estimate the return to effective experience, taking into...

In this paper, I contrast the quality of part-time jobs - in terms of hourly wage rates - with those of full-timers. Using the Netherlands as a benchmark, helps to assess the size and seriousness of the estimated wage differentials in Germany. Based on two comparable household surveys, I...

This paper examines the wage effects of different types of career interruptions. We consider the timing and duration of non-employment spells by exploiting an administrative data set of German social security accounts (IAB employment sample) supplemented with information on the employees' entire...

In the 1990s, patenting schemes changed in many respects: upcoming new technologies accelerated the shift from price competition towards competition based on technical inventions, a worldwide surge in patenting took place, and the patent thicket arose as a consequence of strategic patenting....