East German wages have been below the West German wage level since unification. Moreover, the East-West wage gap implied by the contractual wages specified in collective wage agreements is drifting ever further apart from the wage gap in terms of effective wages. This paper looks at the role of...

The purpose of this paper is to sort out firm-related differences from effects that result from different economic structures. A non-parametric decomposition is used to analyse firm level difference between the wage spread in the two major regions of unified Germany. If firm-specific effects...

We analyse the effect of skill mismatch in a search model of equilibrium unemployment with risk-neutral agents, endogenous job destruction, and two-sided ex-ante heterogeneity. First, we examine the interaction of labour market institutions and skill mismatch. We find that skill mismatch changes...

Standard models of equilibrium unemployment assume exogenous labour market institutions and flexible wage determination. This paper models wage rigidity and collective bargaining endogenously, when workers differ by observable skill and may adopt either individualised or collective wage...

Empirical observations show that education helps to protect against labor market risks. This is twofold: The higher educated face a higher expected wage income and a lower probability of being unemployed. Although this relationship has been analyzed in the literature broadly, several questions...

We examine collaboration in a one-arm bandit problem in which the players' actions affect the distribution over future payoffs. The players need to exert costly effort both to enhance the value of a risky technology and to learn about its current state. Both product value and learning are public...

In times of increasing oil prices and a weak dollar, European companies that focus their business on the US market may find themselves in a weak position. While many businesses can hedge this kind of risk by relocating production to the US, or employing financial remedies, these strategies may...

In this paper, the following question is posed: Can the New Keynesian Open Economy Model by Galí and Monacelli (2005b) explain Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomicsʺ, as documented in Obstfeld and Rogoff (2000b)? The model features a small open economy with complete markets, Calvo...

The purpose of this study is to extend the current understanding of business divestiture by investigating its potential for triggering strategic reorientation. A divestiture involving strategic reorientation is here denoted as a strategic business exit, otherwise it is a status quopreserving...

This paper analyzes a procurement setting with two identical firms and stochastic innovations. In contrast to the previous literature, I show that a procurer who cannot charge entry fees may prefer a fixed-prize tournament to a first-price auction since holding an auction may leave higher rents...