We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and "the East" - China and Eastern Europe - in the period 1988 - 2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross-regional variation in initial industry structures and use trade...

The unprecedented economic rise of Eastern Europe and China in the last two decades has triggered concerns in developed Western market economies about adverse effects for domestic labor markets trough increased import competition. Simultaneously, exports from developed countries to these new...

The German economy exhibits rising service and declining manufacturing employment. But this decline is much sharper in import-competing than in export-oriented branches. We first document the individual-level job transitions behind those trends. They are not driven by manufacturing workers who...

We study the impact of trade exposure in the job biographies, measured with daily accuracy, of 2.4 million workers in Germany. To profit from export opportunities, workers adjust through increased employer switching. Highly skilled workers benefit the most, consistent with an increase in skill...

We study the impact of rising robot exposure on the careers of individual manufacturing workers, and the equilibrium impact across industries and local labor markets in Germany. We find no evidence that robots cause total job losses, but they do affect the composition of aggregate employment....

This paper examines job polarization at the level of local labor markets in Germany over a 30-year period. The major explanation of job polarization is skill biased technological change (SBTC): new technologies are complementary to high paying jobs but substitute workers in routine manual jobs...

The labor markets of most industrialized countries are polarized. This means that employment has grown in jobs at the upper and lower tails of the wage distribution, while employment in the middle part of the distribution has stagnated or declined. However, there exists no measure that allows a...

Digitalisierung und Automatisierung werden nicht zu Massenarbeitslosigkeit führen. Nicht Arbeitslosigkeit, sondern eine stärkere Ungleichheit und stagnierende Reallöhne in der Mitte des Lohnspektrums sind das Problem. Bislang hat der Robotereinsatz die Löhne nur schwach in Mitleidenschaft...

"The labor markets of most industrialized countries are polarized. This means that employment has grown in jobs at the upper and lower tails of the wage distribution, while employment in the middle part of the distribution has stagnated or declined. However, there exists no measure that allows a...

In most industrialized countries, employment has grown predominately in jobs at the upper and lower tails of the wage distribution, while employment in the middle part of the distribution has stagnated or declined. This process of job polarization is well documented for a number of countries. We...