When similar patterns of expansion and contraction are observed across sectors, we call this a business cycle. Yet explaining the similarity and synchronization of these cycles across industries remains a puzzle. Whereas output growth across industries is highly correlated, identifiable shocks,...

We analyze the pace and patterns of job reallocation in Ukraine using 1992-2000 panel data on nearly the surviving universe of manufacturing firms inherited from the Soviet Union. Employment growth displays substantial increase in heterogeneity during this transition period, with a corresponding...

This paper analyzes the implications of labor market institutions and policies on the employment-labor productivity trade-off. We consider an equilibrium search model with wage posting and specific human capital investment where unemployment and the distribution of both wages and productivity...

We use a simple regression-based approach to measure the relationship between employment growth, hirings and separations in a large panel of German establishments over the period 1993-2009. Although the average level of hiring and separation is much lower in Germany than in the US, as expected,...

Most Continental European labour markets and welfare states underwent a substantial transformation over the last two decades moving from a situation of low employment and limited labour market inequality to higher employment, but also more inequality. Germany is a case in point as it exhibits...

We reassess the empirical effect of income and employment on self-reported well-being. Our analysis makes use of a novel two-step estimation procedure that allows applying instrumental variable regressions with ordinal observable data. As suggested by the theory of incomplete markets, we...

When workers adopt technology at the point where the costs equal the increased productivity, output per worker increases immediately, while the productivity benefits increase only gradually if the costs continue to fall. As a result, workers in computer-adopting labor market groups experience an...

We present the first panel estimates of the productivity effects of the unique German institution of parity, board-level co-determination. Although our data span two severe recessions when labour hoarding costs of co-determination are probably highest, and the panel is too short to capture the...

This paper investigates the interaction between establishment-level codetermination and industry-level collective bargaining in Germany. Based on a simple bargaining model we derive our main hypothesis: In establishments covered by collective bargaining agreements works councils are more likely...