When a key responsibility of a manager is to allocate more or less attractive tasks to subordinates, these subordinates have an incentive to work hard and demonstrate their talents. As a new manager is less well acquainted with these talents this incentive mechanism is reinvigorated after a...

This paper provides a comprehensive description of the nature and extent of ethnic segregation in Germany. Using matched employer-employee data for the universe of German workers over the period 1975 to 2008, I show that there is substantial ethnic segregation across both workplaces and...

This paper analyzes the extent to which intergenerational upward and downward mobility in earnings are related to individuals' preferences for redistribution. A novel survey question from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study - whether the taxes paid by unskilled workers are too high, adequate...

Why are better educated and more risk-friendly persons more mobile across regions? To answer this question, we use micro data on internal migrants from the German Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) 2000-2006 and merge this information with a unique proxy for region-pair-specific cultural distances...

There is a large body of literature analyzing the relationship between objective economic conditions and voting behavior, but there is very little evidence of how perceived economic insecurity impacts on political preferences. Using seventeen years of household panel data from the German...

Using comprehensive data for German establishments (1999-2008), we estimate plant-level production functions to analyze if cultural diversity affects total factor productivity. We distinguish diversity in the establishment's workforce and in the aggregate regional labor force where the plant is...

Thermal-based power stations rely on water for cooling purposes. These water sources may be subject to incidents of scarcity, environmental regulations and competing economic concerns. This paper analyses the effect of water scarcity and increased river temperatures on German electricity prices...

Many countries use centralized exit exams as a governance devise of the school system. While abundant evidence suggests positive effects of central exams on achievement tests, previous research on university-bound students shows no effects on subsequent earnings. We suggest that labor-market...

We review research on the impact of immigration on income distribution. We discuss routes through which immigration can affect income distribution in the host and source countries, including compositional effects and effects on native incomes. Immigration may affect the composition of skills...

A rise in population caused by increased immigration is sometimes accompanied by concerns that the increase in population puts additional or differential pressure on welfare services which might affect the net fiscal contribution of immigrants. The UK and Germany have experienced significant...