While monthly wage inequality in Germany continued to increase strongly until 2010, it recently returned to the level of the year 2000. We assess the role of the national minimum wage introduced in 2015. Unconditional quantile regressions combined with difference-indifferences show significant...

This article shows how the impulses of the transformation process in eastern Germany have spread through the economy and the labour market. The form of transformation has long-term effects on the form of control over the economy; it is managed largely from western firms. This fact has manifold...

Against the background of bad labor market conditions with high unemployment, poor job prospects, and low wages, East Germany used to experience long-standing high net migration outflows. During the last years, however, the situation on the East German labor market changed fundamentally, and...

20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall there is still a strong division between the economies and labour markets of eastern and western Germany. In the last few years, however, unemployment has been reduced especially in the East, even in times of economic crisis. Within eastern Germany a...

There is a successful and growing number of studies published in top-economics journals that exploit the division and re-unification of Germany as a natural experiment for analysing the effects of political regimes on economic behaviour. One strand of the literature shows that socialism shaped...

We investigate the impact of start-up rates on regional economic development. We argue that in line with Schumpeter's view this effect is mediated by a process of creative destruc-tion: Start-ups spark a process of creative destruction which in turn leads to regional eco-nomic development....

Spatial proximity facilitates transfer of knowledge and technology between research institutes or universities (RIU) and firms. Against this background the location of research institutions and universities is often seen as an instrument of regional policy to promote knowledge flows and R&D...

The regional employment growth in Germany is characterized by huge disparities. Whereas institutional factors might explain the disparities of employment growth between nations, they can only account for a minor fraction of the regional employment growth. Instead the sectoral structure of...

We demonstrate that almost one half of the observed wage gap between East and West Germany reflects differences in worker, establishment, and regional characteristics rather than differences in productivity at the establishment level. Regional price and establishment size differentials alone...