A new algorithm for clustering life course trajectories is presented and tested with large register data. Life courses are represented as sequences on a monthly timescale for the working-life with an age span from 16–65. A meaningful clustering result for this kind of data provides interesting...

We show that, since the inception of energy futures markets, prices have on average exhibited backwardation. Normal backwardation has also been the norm, but, because of the low power of the standard tests, most researchers have concluded that the unbiased expectations model cannot be rejected....

Virtually all empirical firm-level studies on the demand for labor do not include labor cost in the econometric specification. This is due to the fact that business and innovation survey data usually lack information on labor cost. This paper shows how reliable skill-specific and firm-specific...

Using linked employer-employee data, this study measures and decomposes the differences in the earnings distribution between male and female employees in Germany. I extend the traditional decomposition to disentangle the effect of human capital characteristics and the effect of firm...

Studies on the underlying mechanisms of social mobility commonly find that half of the intergenerational earnings persistence remains unexplained. Focusing on the phenomenon of overqualification, this study examines a transmission channel that might operate beyond the mechanisms previously...

This paper presents an application of the Generalised Error Correction Model (GECM) for heterogeneous factor demands based on the quadratic cost function. Using data for 26 West German manufacturing industries over the period 1976-1995, it turns out that less general specifications such as the...