"German employment relations are characterized by a distinct dual system: First, working conditions and wages are determined by industry level collective bargaining agreements. Second, on the establishment level the works council is responsible for employer-employee negotiations. But since the...

"Does the low wage sector serve as a stepping stone towards integration into better-paid jobs or at least towards integration of jobless people into employment? There is evidence for a 'low-wage trap' and for a high risk of low-wage earners to get unemployed, but this may also be due to sorting...

"Is there a reward for basic skills in the German labor market? To answer this question, we examine the relationship between literacy, numeracy and monthly gross earnings of full-time employed workers. We use data from the ALWA survey, augmented by test scores on basic cognitive skills as well...

"Reservation wages indicate the wage threshold for which individual workers are inclined to supply their working capacity. In important theoretical approaches it is assumed that this threshold depends on the unemployment rate. If this is true, the variation of reservation wages might be an...

"Der durchschnittliche Bruttojahreslohn pro Beschäftigtem in einer Region liefert wertvolle Informationen über die regionalen Verdienstmöglichkeiten. Bedingt durch das Meldeverfahren an die Sozialversicherungsträger werden die Einkommen jedoch nicht mit ihrer vollen Höhe erfasst, sondern...

"Since the early 90's the West German firms have to deal with sharp changes of economic environment: the German Unification, the emerging competitors in the east European countries and the deregulation of several labour market institutions. We analyse the wage structure, the wage changes and the...

"Collective wage contracts impose restrictions on wage-setting. We utilize German linked employer-employee data for blue-collar worker to compute the dispersion of wages and wage components within and across firms under three different wage-setting regimes: Establishments applying sectoral...

"Lohnunterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern werden in der ökonomischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskussion unter anderem auf die unterschiedlichen beruflichen Tätigkeiten von Männern und Frauen (Segregation) sowie die unterschiedliche Ausstattungen mit Humankapital zurückgeführt. In...

"We analyze the wage effects of employment breaks of women entering motherhood using a novel within-firm matching approach where mothers' wages upon return to the job are compared with those of their female colleagues within the same firm. Using an administrative German data set we investigate...

"Hardly noticed in Western Europe the fall of the Iron Curtain had also effects on the regional structures of the labour markets in the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC). I analyse whether during the undoubtedly increasing integration of markets the Czech border region close to the...