This study examines changes in block ownership for a large sample of listed and non-listed German firms. The frequency of block trading is similar to other countries, and the vast majority of block trades leads to changes in ultimate ownership (control transfers). Such changes are more likely...

The participation of women in top-level corporate boards (or rather the lack of it) is subject to intense public debate. Several countries are considering legally binding quotas to increase the share of women on boards. Indeed, research on board diversity suggests positive effects of gender...

This study investigates the determinants of changes in corporate ownership and firm failure, taking into account different types of sellers and buyers of control blocks. For a large panel of German corporations we find that firms are more likely to fail or to be sold when performance is poor,...

This paper studies the return-to-job of female employees after first birth based on exceptional longitudinal data from personnel records of a large German company. Given a very long maternity leave coverage, we investigate to what extent data available to management allow to predict the...

This paper jointly analyses the consequences of adverse selection and signalling on entry wages of skilled employees. It uses German linked employer employee panel data (LIAB) and introduces a measure for relative productivity of skilled job applicants based on apprenticeship wages. It shows...

From 2002-2004, the German government passed several laws that curtailed the generosity of the unemployment compensation system. One of the most ambitious changes was a considerable reduction in unemployment benefit entitlement lengths for older unemployed, which was effective during 2006 and...

We examine job durations of German workers using a linked employeremployee dataset. The descriptive evidence suggests that firm characteristics have a substantial influence on the job exit rate. However, the extent of dispersion in durations is not substantially lower at the firm level than for...

Using a large linked employer-employee data set, this paper studies the relationship between job reallocation, worker reallocation and the flexibility of wages in western German manufacturing. Using the plant-specific residual wage dispersion as a proxy for wage flexibility, we find that more...

This paper provides empirical evidence on both the magnitude and determinants of unfilled positions for information technology workers using cross-sectional data on 4150 German firms. Vacancies are defined as unfilled positions excluding those created by replacement needs during the first half...

Firms are affected by the product demand. This leads to employment adjustments. In the literature we find only very few contributions investigating the issue whether internal adjustments are linked and which relationships exist with external adjustments. Are they of a complementary or...