This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...

This paper surveys the empirical evidence on causal effects of education on earnings for Germany and compares alternative studies in the light of their underlying identifying assumptions. We work out the different assumptions taken by various studies, which lead to rather different...