Using longitudinal data on fathers and their children, this study compares the extent of intergenerational mobility in Germany and the United States and introduces an estimation strategy that corrects estimates of intergenerational earnings elasticities for a possible lifecycle bias. In contrast...

This paper develops a multi-sectorial search and matching model with endogenous occupational choice in a context of structural change. Our objective is to shed light on the way labor market institutions affect aggregate employment, job polarization and inequalities observed in the US and in...

Given that well-being is a concave function of income, inequality is inefficient from a utilitarian perspective. This paper proposes a way to express the utilitarian benefit from redistributive reforms in terms of out- put, i.e. as a share of GDP. Three applications are presented: First, in nine...

We analyze how an entry regulation that imposes a mandatory educational standard affects entry into self-employment and occupational mobility. We exploit the German reunification as a natural experiment and identify regulatory effects by comparing differences between regulated occupations and...

The secular rise of European unemployment since the 1960s is hard to explain without reference to structural change. This is especially true in Germany, where industrial employment has declined by more than 30% and service sector employment has more than doubled over the past three decades....

This paper estimates wage losses arising due to changes in the structure of demand for occupations. The data on occupational changes made for the sake of adjustment to the changes in the demand structure come from the German reunification of 1990. Endogenous occupational changes are instrumented...

By analyzing occupational task profiles, an occupational change can be split up into two components: (1) transferability of task portfolios between occupations and (2) change in the value of the occupation-employee match. Extending the task-based approach of Gathmann and Schönberg (2009) by...

This paper uses the task-based view of technological change to study employment and wage polarization at the level of local labor markets in Germany between 1979 and 2007. In order to directly relate technological change to subsequent employment trends, we exploit variation in the regional task...

Building on the task-based approach of technological change, this paper discusses the interaction between occupational polarization (e.g. a gradual increase of native employment in the lowest and highest-paying jobs) and employment opportunities of immigrant workers. Using high quality...

This paper extends Pissarides (1990)’s matching model by considering two sectors (routine and manual) and workers’ occupational choices, in the context of skill-biased demand shifts, to the detriment of routine jobs and in favour of manual jobs because of technological changes. The...