This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been ?rigid? in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

Trotz der günstigen Beschäftigungsentwicklung ist die Zahl der Hartz IV-Empfänger in den letzten zweieinhalb Jahren nur wenig gesunken. Die Zahl der erwerbsfähigen und nicht arbeitslosen Leistungsempfänger ist sogar gewachsen. Die Arbeitslosigkeit unter den Hilfeempfängern hat zwar...

Im Falle handwerklicher Produkte und Dienstleistungen des Baugewerbes handelt es sich um sogenannte Vertrauensgüter, da ein (Laien-)Kunde ihre Qualität auch nach dem Kauf meist nur schwer beurteilen kann. Ohne ein geeignetes Regulierungsinstrument birgt diese Asymmetrie in der Verteilung der...

18 studies using data from 20 highly developed, developing, and less developed countries document that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. The existence of these so-called exporter wage premia is one of the stylized facts...

This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been ?rigid? in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

This paper tests the theory recently put forward by Edward Lazear that individuals with competence in many skills should have a higher probability of being self-employed than others. The empirical results for Germany support this jack-of-all-trades view.