Empirical studies find that the age-variance profile of wages is U-shaped. The objective of this paper is to explore the driving forces of the U-shape in a model with search frictions. I introduce endogenous search effort and a fixed retirement age into Cahuc, Postel-Vinay, and Robin s (2006)...

We implement a laboratory experiment in which a principal has to decide on monitoring intensity and pay to investigate whether they are complements or substitutes. Wage level, monitoring intensity, and consequently the desired enforceable effort level are jointly determined by the maximization...

In the present paper I provide novel evidence on the formation of the gender pay gap with respect to directly measured job task contents. Using high-quality administrative employment data for Germany, and augmenting these by individual-level task information, I provide detailed evidence on the...

This paper analyzes gender differences in the investment activity of German small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The empirical analysis is carried out on a sample of firms drawn from the KfW Mittelstandspanel, a representative survey of German SMEs for the period from 2003 to 2009. We find...

Using an epidemiological approach, we study the cultural influence on fertility outcomes of first- and second-generation female immigrants based on a 1% sample of the German population. We proxy for culture in the country of origin using total fertility rates from the year of migration, survey...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the determinants of female labour supply in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Using data from the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), the author finds that women in STEM work more hours, but have a higher...

Exploiting a natural voting experiment we identify female preferences for real policy issues in the electorate. We then analyze whether female or male politicians in parliament more closely correspond to female preferences. Holding constant revealed constituent preferences, there is generally no...

We study the differences in behavior of males and females in a two-player tournament with sabotage in a controlled lab experiment. Implementing a real-effort design and a principal who is paid based on the agent s output, we find that males and females do not differ in their achievements in the...

Does the enfranchisement of women lead to an increase in public support for government spending? By utilizing a natural experiment from Switzerland, I test this hypothesis empirically. I analyze the voting outcomes of two very similar referendum ballots concerning the federal government's...

We analyze how subjects' self-assessment depends on whether its accuracy is observable to others. We find that women downgrade their self-assessment given observability while men do not. Women avoid the shame they may have if others observe that they overestimated themselves. Men, however, do...