Skilled labor is a key input to the innovation process. A shortage in supply of skilled labor may hence impede innovation activities, resulting in lower productivity gains. While governments are concerned about these likely negative impacts, there is only limited empirical evidence whether and...

We analyse the Polish wage and unemployment structure between 1992 and 1995 on the basis of the Polish Labour Force Survey. It is shown that within this period wage inequality has stabilised. Surprisingly, wage inequality is lower in the private than in the public sector. Our test results show...

We analyze wage discrimination against foreign male workers in Germany with respect to different nationality groups and focused on its interaction with occupational segregation. We found evidence of strong occupational segregation, which we mainly attribute to institutional factors but also to...

We assess the relevance of formal education for the productivity of the self-employed and distinguish between opportunity entrepreneurs, who voluntarily pursue a business opportunity, and necessity entrepreneurs, who lack alternative employment options. We expect differences in the returns to...

We investigate minimum wage spillovers by exploiting the first-time introduction of a minimum wage within a quasi-experiment in a context with an extraordinary large bite: the German roofing industry. We find positive wage spillovers for medium-skilled workers with wages just above the minimum...

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...

This paper analyzes whether technological change improves equality of labor market opportunities by decreasing returns to parental background. We find that in Germany during the 1990s, computerization improved the access to technology adopting occupations for workers with low-educated parents,...

I study the life-cycle pattern of part-time employment and its impact on wage growth in female careers. I show that the part-time wage penalty consists of two essential components: i) a penalty for promotions and ii) a within-career-level wage penalty. Using dynamic structural modeling, I...

We study how new digital technology reshapes vocational training and skill acquisition and its impact on workers’ careers. We construct a novel database of legally binding training curricula and changes therein, spanning the near universe of vocational training in Germany over five decades,...