It is commonplace in the debate on Germany’s labor market problems to argue that high unemployment and low wage dispersion are related. This paper analyses the relationship between unemployment and residual wage dispersion for individuals with comparable attributes. In the conventional...

The recent economic policy debate in Germany emphasizes the impact of globalization of the world economy on the German labor market. This paper provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between trade and the labor market in West Germany for the period from 1970 until German...

Based on social security data, this paper analyzes wage trends for full employed males by estimating (censored) quantile regressions as functions of age, cohort, education, and year. We test whether a parsimonious specification separating life cycle effects from macroeconomic effects can...

Equilibrium search theory suggests that the wage distribution in a cross section of workers is closely related to labor market transitions and associated wage changes. Accordingly, jobtojob transitions are central in explaining the wage distribution. This paper uses the IAB employment subsample...

In light of nonstationary search theory (van den Berg, 1990), this paper estimates the effects of benefit entitlement periods and the size of unemployment benefits on unemployment durations and post-unemployment earnings in West Germany. For the unemployment duration, we estimate censored...

This paper investigates the relationship between the gender wage gap, the choice of training occupation, and occupational mobility. We use longitudinal data for young workers with apprenticeship training in West Germany. Workers make occupational career choices early during their careers and...