This paper uses micro data to analyze the wage structures in East Germany and West Germany before and after unification. In 1988, the wage distribution in East Germany was much more compressed than in West Germany or in the U.S. Since the collapse of Communism and unification with West Germany,...

Bei der Vereinheitlichung der Lebensverhältnisse in Ost- und Westdeutschland spielen die Arbeitseinkommen eine zentrale Rolle. Nach der Übernahme des westdeutschen Tarifsystems werden auch in Ostdeutschland die Arbeitseinkommen durch Tarifverhandlungen von Arbeitnehmer- und...

This paper presents estimates of the unification bonus for East Germans over the period 1991 to 1998. The unification bonus is defined as the discounted value of the difference between a person's actual income and his or her counterfactual real income stream forecast for a hypothetical...