Existing estimates of the labor-market returns to human capital give a distorted picture of the role of skills across different economies. International comparisons of earnings analyses rely almost exclusively on school attainment measures of human capital, and evidence incorporating direct...

Policy debates about the balance of vocational and general education programs focus on the school-to-work transition. But with rapid technological change, gains in youth employment from vocational education may be offset by less adaptability and thus diminished employment later in life. To test...

Income distribution as it currently is and its long-term development are studied from a variety of data sources. In terms of workers, the study focuses on the wages and salaries of the dependently employed. It finds that the gap between low- and high-wage earners is broad and has further widened...

In an international hierarchy of labour costs, Austria currently ranks 9th and is thus well within the EU average. Labour is most expensive in Norway, where one hour of work is paid 34 percent higher than in Austria, followed by Denmark (+29 percent), Germany (+26 percent) and Switzerland (+24...

The unit labour cost position of Austrian businesses improved clearly in the second half of the 1990s and has remained largely stable since the year 2000. In Austrian manufacturing, one hour of blue-collar labour cost 20.80 € in 2004, hence approximately 2.25 percent less than the average paid...

Austria currently takes 11th place in an international ranking of unit labour costs. Labour is most expensive in Norway, Germany and Switzerland, where one hour of manufacturing labour costs almost a quarter more than in Austria. In Austrian manufacturing, one hour of work cost € 20.31 in...

In an international hierarchy of labour costs, Austria ranks 11th, after Germany, Switzerland, the Scandinavian countries, Japan, the U.S. and the Netherlands. The labour factor is most expensive in Germany. At ATS 340 per hour of labour, German manufacturers pay more than a quarter over the...

In Austria, the discussion of old-age pensions has so far been based on highly pessimistic demographic perspectives and the assumption of a static labour market situation. Whereas the demographic projections for the next 30 years prepared in the second half of the 1990s were starting out from a...

In an international hierarchy of labour costs, Austria ranks at 10th place. Labour is most expensive in Norway (36 percent more than in Austria), followed by Switzerland (25 percent), Denmark and Germany (some 20 percent). For Austria's manufacturing, an hour of blue-collar labour cost 20.93 €...