Different empirical studies suggest that the structure of employment in the U.S. and Great Britain tends to polarise into "good" and "bad" jobs. We provide updated evidence that polarisation also occurred in Germany since the mid-1980s until 2008. Using representative panel data, we show that...

Labour economists typically assume that pay differences between occupations can be explained with variations in productivity. The empirical evidence on the validity of this assumption is surprisingly thin and subject to various potential biases. The authors use matched employer-employee panel...

The authors use matched employer-employee panel data on Belgian private-sector firms to estimate the relationship between wage/productivity differentials and the firm's labor composition in terms of part-time and sex. Findings suggest that the groups of women and part-timers generate employer...

This paper examines whether the results of the earnings equation developed in the overeducation/required eduation/under-education (ORU) literature are sensitive to whether the usual or reference levels of education are measured using the Realized Matches or Worker Self-Assessment methods. The...

This paper applies the quantile regression methodology to the study of the determinants of the distribution of earnings among the native born and immigrants in the United States and Australia. The analysis for immigrants is performed separately for those from English-speaking and non-English...

This paper is an analysis of the English-language proficiency and labor market earnings of adult male Soviet Jewish immigrants to the United States from 1965 to 2000, using the 2000 Census of Population. Comparisons are made to similar analyses using the 1980 and 1990 Censuses. A consistent...

The paper explores the link between different institutional features of minimum wage systems and the minimum wage bite. We notably address the striking absence of studies on sectoral-level minima and exploit unique data covering 17 European countries and information from more than 1100...

This paper explores how the diversity of minimum wage systems affects earnings inequalities within European countries. It relies on the combination of (a) harmonized micro-data from household surveys, (b) data on national statutory minimum wages and coverage rates, and (c) hand-collected...

We provide first evidence regarding the direct impact of educational mismatch on firm productivity. To do so, we rely on representative linked employer-employee panel data for Belgium covering the period 1999-2006. Controlling for simultaneity issues, time-invariant unobserved workplace...

One in nine people between the ages of 18 and 64 in the US, and every second foreign-born person in this age bracket, speaks Spanish at home. And whereas around 80 percent of adult immigrants in the US from non-English speaking countries other than Mexico are proficient in English, only about 50...