It is often argued that the labor market outcomes of several ?problem groups? of German workers suffer disproportionately in an economic downturn. These groups are women, the unskilled, and young and old workers, respectively. Using monthly individual-level data for West Germany for the period...

The theory of differential overqualification, developed by Robert Frank (1978), claims that married women in smaller labor markets have a higher risk of working in jobs for which they are overqualified. This stems from the problem of dual job search for couples which is much more difficult to...

This paper presents new evidence on the distribution of risk attitudes in the population, using a novel set of survey questions and a representative sample of roughly 22,000 individuals living in Germany. Using a question that asks about willingness to take risks on an 11-point scale, we find...

We use monthly personnel records of a large German company to analyse the gender wage gap (GWG). Main findings are: (1) the unconditional GWG is 15 percent for blue-collar and 26 percent for white-collar workers; (2) conditional on tenure, entry age, schooling, and working hours, the GWG is 13...

This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany. We use unique newly...

This empirical research note documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance with respect to innovative activities (outlays and employment in research and development (R&D)) for a large representative sample of...