The US labour market is characterized by a high skill wage mark-up and low unemployment, while the German labour market has a low skill wage mark-up and a high, mainly unskilled unemployment rate. This paper adds an innovative labour supply explanation to the discussion how these distinct labour...

Germany is widely known for its high-quality vocational education and training (VET) system. The two key features of that system are (a) firm-based training programs accompanied by a schoolbased component (of one to two days per week), in which apprentices acquire upper secondary general...

We study how beliefs about the automatability of workers' occupation affect labor-market expectations and willingness to participate in further training. In our representative online survey, respondents on average underestimate the automation risk of their occupation, especially those in...

This paper examines the publication of quality indicators in service markets with public finance systems, such as education and healthcare markets. We provide a spatial model of product differentiation in which the reporting of such indicators increases consumers’ decision weight on quality...

Using data from the National Educational Panel Study of 2009/2010, this paper investigates the relationship between regional training supply and employees ́training participation. Controlling for other regional factors such as the local unemployment rate, the educational level, the population...

To increase employee participation in training activities, the German government introduced a large-scale training voucher program in 2008 that reduces training fees by half. Based on a randomized field experiment, this paper analyzes whether providing information about the existence and the...

This paper analyzes the returns to training that was co-financed by the German voucher program Bildungsprämie. The estimation strategy compares outcomes of participants in voucher training with voucher recipients who intended to participate in training, but did not do so because of a random...

The paper analyses the theoretical and empirical relationship between employment, skill structure and innovation in East and West German manufacturing firms. The econometric part builds on firm data from the Mannheim Innovation Panel 1993, 1994 and 1995. In the German industrial sector,...