Advocates of apprenticeship programs often argue as if it is simply a matter of historical accident which has hindered such investment by U.S. firms. This paper explores the structure of incentives undergirding the German system of apprenticeship training. First, we describe three...

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,...

Although explanations of the persistence of high unemployment in Germany, in particular long-term unemployment, have increasingly focused on structural factors, there is only very limited evidence on their empirical importance so far. In this paper, these factors are analyzed based on a...

This paper analyses annual, age-specific retirement rates in Germany between 1971 and 1991. The time-series data show significant changes in overall and age-specific retirement behavior over the 21 year period. The literature provides two alternative explanations for the observed developments:...

Academic education is generally rewarded by employers, but what happens to graduates if they are trained for two years less and have to compete with vocationally trained labor market entrants in a similar field of study? Focusing on Germany, we analyze labor market entries of individuals...

Data from German social security notifications and internal procedures of the Federal Employment Agency are an important source for analyzing labor market trajectories. However, for East Germans these data are only fully available from 1992 onwards. As a consequence of German reunification, by...