Based on a large employer-employee matched data set, the paper investigates the effects of variable enforcement of German dismissal protection legislation on the employment dynamics in small establishments. Specifically, using a difference-in-differences approach, we study the effect of changes...

In a sharp break with past German research, some recent estimates have suggested that plants with work councils have 25 to 30 per cent higher productivity than their works-councilfree counterparts. Such findings can only serve to buttress the strong theoretical and policy interest in the German...

Based on a large employer-employee matched data set, the paper investigates the effects of variable enforcement of German dismissal protection legislation on the employment dynamics in small establishments. Specifically, using a difference-in-differences approach, we study the effect of changes...

18 studies using data from 20 highly developed, developing, and less developed countries document that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. The existence of these so-called exporter wage premia is one of the stylized facts...

We exploit administrative data on young German workers and their employers to study the long-term effects of an early job loss. To account for non-random sorting of workers into firms with different turnover rates and for selective job mobility, we use changes over time in firm- and age-specific...

Using quantile regressions and a rich cross section data set for German manufacturing plants, this paper reports that the impact of works councils on labor productivity varies along the conditional distribution of value added per employee. It emerges that the positive and statistically...

Theory suggests that firms confront a hold-up problem in dealing with workplace unionism: unions will appropriate a portion of the quasi rents stemming from long-lived capital. As a result, firms may be expected to limit their exposure to rent seeking by reducing investments, among other things....

Using a large panel data set we investigate whether works councils act as sand or grease in the operation of German firms. Stochastic production frontier analysis indicates that establishments with and without a works council do not exhibit significant differences in efficiency.

Based on theoretical models of job mobility this paper provides an empirical analysis of job durations in West Germany using information from two cohorts of new entrants to the labor force. We adopt an accelerated failure time model allowing for unobserved heterogeneity. Thereby we combine the...

This paper examines the impact of innovations and wages on the demand for heterogeneous labour. Based on matched data from the IAB-establishment panel survey and the files of the employment statistics register for the year 1995, input shares derived from a generalised Leontief cost function are...