This paper shows that inventors with an early patenting success have a higher inventive productivity during their remaining career. We use European patent data for a period of 32 years for 1240 German inventors. The patent data are linked with survey data that provide information on an extensive...

The possibility of adverse selection by training firms is common theoretical argument for company-sponsored investments in general skills. The paper derives a public and a private signal after apprenticeship training and shows that training firms are able to positively select graduates they...

The US labour market is characterized by a high skill wage mark-up and low unemployment, while the German labour market has a low skill wage mark-up and a high, mainly unskilled unemployment rate. This paper adds an innovative labour supply explanation to the discussion how these distinct labour...

On the basis of a theoretical model, we argue that higher aggregate unemployment affects individual returns to education. We therefore include aggregate unemployment and an interaction term between unemployment and the individual education level in a standard Mincer equation. Our results show...

Adopting a dynamic perspective, this paper investigates age-related staffing patterns in German establishments and their effect on innovative performance. First, we investigate how establishments achieve the necessary workforce rejuvenation - from the inflow of younger or from outflows of older...

This paper shows that training of older employees is less effective. Training effectiveness is measured with respect to key dimensions such as career development, earnings, adoption of new skills, flexibility or job security. Older employees also pursue less ambitious goals with their training...

A series of seminal theoretical papers argues that poaching of employeesm ay hamper company-sponsored general training. However, the extent of poaching, its determinants and consequences, remains an open empirical question. We provide a novel empirical identification strategy for poaching and...

This paper demonstrates that insiders can erect barriers to entry and skim rents by sinking costs in human capital when labour markets are otherwise perfectly contestable. The sunk costs nature of human capital investments may result from the need to satisfy ever increasing specialised skill...

This paper provides a labour supply explanation to the observation that in Germany employment changes are asymmetric during the business cycle. Employment increases are slower, because the reservation wage of workers increases in times of job uncertainty. Workers are afraid in those periods of...

This study analyses the competence gaps of lower-level managers in a typical manufacturing plant in Germany that had recently introduced a teamwork structure. Results indicate that the managers have difficulties with their new leadership-related tasks. Higher levels of leadership competence are...