We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy....

At the turn of the millennium three frequently cited potential causes of new challenges for wage policy in Germany are revisited in this study: skilled- biased technological progress, the increasing international integration of labor and product markets, and the monetary integration of the EMU....

Immigrants consist of foreigners and citizens with migration background. We analyze the wage gap between natives and these two groups in Germany. The estimates show a substantial gap for both groups with respect to natives. Discarding immigrants who completed education abroad reduces much of the...

This paper examines the determinants of gross labour flows in a context where modeling the migration decision as a wage-maximizing process may be inadequate due to regional wage rigidities that result from central wage bargaining. In such a context, the framework that has been developed by...

This paper analyzes the evolution of wage inequality and wage mobility separately for men and women in West and East Germany over the last four decades. Using a large administrative data set which covers the years 1975 to 2008, I find that wage inequality increased and wage mobility decreased...

This paper compares trends in wage inequality in the U.S. and Germany using an approach developed by MaCurdy and Mroz (1995) to separate age, time, and cohort effects. Between 1979 and 2004, wage inequality increased strongly in both the U.S. and Germany but there were various country specific...

We analyse the Polish wage and unemployment structure between 1992 and 1995 on the basis of the Polish Labour Force Survey. It is shown that within this period wage inequality has stabilised. Surprisingly, wage inequality is lower in the private than in the public sector. Our test results show...

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...

The paper investigates the evolution of wages and wage inequality in Germany based on samples from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 1984 to 2005. Real gross hourly wages for prime age dependent male workers increased on average by 23 percent between 1984 and 1994 in West Germany and the...