This paper analyses the contribution of capital income to income inequality in a cross-national comparison. Using micro-data from the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) for three prominent panel studies, namely the BHPS for Great Britain, the SOEP for West Germany, and the PSID for the USA, a...

We study the impact of office and computing machinery (OCM) on the demands for workers with different educational levels. The empirical analysis relies on a system of demand equations that nests the translog, the generalised Leontief and the normalised quadratic specifications. Using panel data...

In this paper we use a reform in the applicability of the Protection Against Dismissal Act or Kündigungsschutzgesetz in Germany to identify employment effects of the legislation for small establishments. Using a panel of establishments for the period 1997-2001, we find some evidence that a...

This paper provides a descriptive analysis of the demand for high-skilled workers using a new firm data set, the IZA International Employer Survey 2000. Our results suggest that while workers from EU-countries are mainly complements to domestic high-skilled workers, workers from non-EU countries...

Despite recent changes in the relationship between unionism and various indicators of firm performance, there is one seeming constant in the Anglophone countries: unions at the workplace are associated with reduced employment growth of around -2.5% a year. Using German data, we examine the...

In this paper we analyse with the PISA data on literacy achievement of fifteen-year-old pupils in six member countries of the OECD, whether the fact of having many siblings affects the individual educational outcome. The hypothesis that we test is whether parents? resources matter for...

In this paper we investigate the dynamic adjustment of labour and capital in German and Dutch firms. The Dutch labour market is characterised by greater flexibility in wages and work arrangements in comparison to Germany. These institutional differences imply that employment dynamics in the two...

In October 1999 the unemployment rate of people with severe disabilities in Germany was more than double that of the non-disabled population. To improve this situation, the People with Severe Disabilities Act was reformed to increase incentives for the severely disabled to enter the work force...

The distribution of job satisfaction widened across cohorts of young men in the U.S. between 1978 and 1988, and between 1978 and 1996, in ways correlated with changing wage inequality. Satisfaction among workers in upper earnings quantiles rose relative to that of workers in lower quantiles. An...

In this paper, the inter-industry wage structure in West Germany and USA is compared using the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), the German Mikrozensus (MZ), the American Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and the American Current Population Survey (CPS) from 1984 to 1996. Using a sample...