In recent decades, many industrialized economies have witnessed a pattern of job polarization. While shifts in labor demand, namely routinization or offshoring, constitute conventional explanations for job polarization, there is little research on whether shifts in labor supply along the labor...

A model is presented where workers of differing abilities and from different social backgrounds are assigned to jobs based on grades received at school. It is examined how this matching is affected if good grades are granted to some low ability students. Such grade inflation is shown to reduce...

In a simulation-based study with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we analyze the effects of the newly introduced statutory minimum wage of 8.50 Euro per working hour in Germany on the gender wage gap. In our first scenario where we abstain from employment effects, the pay...

A large share of workers receives bonus payments besides their base wage. The benefits of flexible wage components in remuneration are twofold: they can incentivize workers and make it easier to adjust wages downward in response to negative shocks. Using data on bonus payments of Hungarian...

We analyze the economic factors which have contributed to the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in German manufacturing, in particular the role played by the relatively rigid earnings structure. Potential effects of intensified international competition and skill-biased...