general equilibrium model, this paper shows that skilled insiders in the USA enjoy higher rents and increase the skilled wage … outsiders in the USA do not possess a powerful credible threat to improve their position. This is a consequence from higher … training and education costs in the USA for unskilled employees and unemployed. In Germany, the lower skill wage mark-up leads …

Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Swe­den, Switzerland and the UK. We exploit within-country variation in social …