A shortage of skilled labor and low female labor market participation are problems many developed countries have to face. Besides activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences...

The reaction of the German labor market to the Great Recession 2008/09 was relatively mild – especially compared to other countries. The reason lies not only in the specific type of the recession – which was favorable for the German economy structure – but also in a series of labor market...

This paper examines the impact of trade liberalization on firms' product and labor market power. We estimate the prevalence and intensity of firm-level price-cost markups and either wage markups or wage markdowns. We take the dependence between these model-consistent measures of product and...

This paper examines the links between the internationalization mode of firms and market imperfections in product and labor markets. We develop a framework for modelling heterogeneity across firms in terms of (i) product market power (price-cost markups), (ii) labor market imperfections (workers'...

As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel...

This paper applies semiparametric regression models to shed light on the relationship between body weight and labor market outcomes in Germany. We find conclusive evidence that these relationships are poorly described by linear or quadratic OLS specifications, which have been the main approaches...

Institutions, social norms and the nature of industrial relations vary greatly between Latin American and Western European countries. Such institutional and organizational differences might shape firms' operational environment in general and the type of competition in product and labor markets...

This paper tests the pro-competitive effect of trade in the product and labor markets of UK manufacturing sectors between 1988 and 2003 using a two-stage estimation procedure. In the first stage, we use data on 9820 firms from twenty manufacturing sectors to simultaneously estimate mark-up and...

We study the relationship between offshoring and the prevalence and intensity of labor market imperfections at the firm level in Belgium and the Netherlands. Wage-markup pricing stemming from workers' monopoly power is more prevalent than wage-markdown pricing originating from firms' monopsony...