an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal … and had no negative employment effects. The ineffectiveness of a minimum wage in Germany is mainly due to the existing …

The very first minimum wage in Germany was introduced in 1997 for blue-collar workers in sub-sectors of the …-employee data. Estimation results reveal a sizable positive average impact on wages in East Germany and no effect in West Germany …

The paper concentrates on the question whether the low level of productivity in East Germany can be explained by … human capital endowments; in fact, the effective stock on human capital in East Germany is lower than in West Germany when … younger cohorts. This impedes a fast convergence in productivity between East and West Germany. …