Is there a reward for basic skills in the German labor market? To answer this question, we examine the relationship between literacy, numeracy and monthly gross earnings of full-time employed workers. We use data from the ALWA survey, augmented by test scores on basic cognitive skills as well as...

This paper investigates the short-term effects of a reduction in the length of high school on students' personality traits using a school reform carried out at the state level in Germany as a quasi-natural experiment. Starting in 2001, academic-track high school (Gymnasium) was reduced from nine...

This paper investigates the extent to which the returns to gaining a PhD degree depend upon the region of birth, the region where the degree was earned, and the place of work. Eastern Germany serves as an interesting showcase in light of the ongoing debate surrounding the underrepresentation of...

Increasing wage inequality is associated with changes in the degree of labor market sorting, i.e. the allocation of workers to firms. To measure sorting, we propose a new method which disentangles the respective contributions of worker and firm heterogeneity to wage inequality. Inspired by...

This paper analyses the relationship between wage inequality and labour market development. Relevant economic theories are ambiguous, just as public debates. We measure the effects of wage inequality, skill-biased and skill-neutral technology on hours worked, productivity and wages in a novel...

Drawing on newly available panel data, this paper presents an empirical analysis of the wage effects of changing job tasks, assessed for individuals at their workplace. I am therefore able to exploit within-occupation within-individual variation, over time, to study wage returns to cognitive,...

I analyze the effects of further training subsidies for low-skilled employees on individual labor market outcomes in Germany for the period from 2007 to 2012. Using detailed administrative data, I exploit cross-regional variation in the conditional policy styles of local employment agencies and...

In zahlreichen Studien zeigt sich der Einfluss von Risikobereitschaft auf individuelles Verhalten in unterschiedlichen Bereichen wie etwa Rauchen, Portfolioinvestitionen und auch Bildungsentscheidungen. Es gibt jedoch kaum Evidenz darüber, ob und welchen Einfluss Risikoeinstellungen von Eltern...

We investigate whether the Big Five Personality Dimensions contribute to explaining gender and migrant wage gaps by using a linked employer-employee dataset. We expand the scarce literature concerning personality traits and gender wage gaps in Germany and we provide first evidence for the...