This paper analyses the wage premia associated with workers' occupational use of foreign languages in Germany. After eliminating time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity and other confounding factors, sizable returns of about 10 percent to applying fluent English skills are found. Returns to...

This paper sheds light on how changes in the organization of work lead to wage inequality. We present a theoretical model in which workers with a wider span of competence (higher level of multitasking) earn a wage premium. Since abilities and opportunities to expand the span of competence are...

In recent publications it has been argued that the change of the skill structure of industrial employment is caused by biased technical progress rather than by increasing international trade with low wage countries. However, in linking prices for final goods with prices of primary factors, most...

Using rich linked employer-employee data for (West) Germany between 1996 and 2014, we conduct a decomposition analysis based on recentered influence function (RIF) regressions to analyze the relative contributions of various plant and worker characteristics to the rise in German wage dispersion....

We investigate the impact of offshoring on individual level wages and unemployment probabilities and pay particular attention to the question of whether workers on temporary contracts are affected differently than workers on permanent contracts. Data are taken from the German Socio-Economic...

This paper addresses the question of why prolonged regional unemployment differentials tend to persist even after their proximate causes have been reversed (e.g., after wages in the highunemployment regions have fallen relative to those in the low-unemployment regions). We suggest that the...

Since there is scant evidence on the role of industrial relations in wage cyclicality, this paper analyzes the effect of collective wage contracts and of works councils on real wage growth. Using linked employer-employee data for western Germany, we find that works councils affect wage growth...

Die vorliegende Arbeit befaßt sich mit den Effekten beruflicher Weiterbildung auf die Entlassungswahrscheinlichkeit und die Wahrscheinlichkeit eigenmotivierter Kündigungen westdeutscher Arbeitnehmer. Als Datengrundlage dient das Sozio-oekonomische Panel (SOEP) 1984-1999. Zur Berücksichtigung...

This paper compares the aggregate effects of sectoral reallocation in the United States and Western Germany using a stochastic volatility model of sectoral employment growth. Reallocative shocks have no effect on the natural rate of unemployment in either country, and there is mild evidence that...

This study investigates the relation between human capital depreciation during family-related career interruptions and occupational choice of women in the (West) German labour market. In contrast to other studies that do not explicitly focus on family-related career interruptions, we find that...