In Germany, employers used to pay union members and non-members in a plant the same union wage in order to prevent workers from joining unions. Using recent administrative data, we investigate which workers in firms covered by collective bargaining agreements still individually benefit from...

ABSTRACT: While it is a stylized fact that exporting firms pay higher wages than non-exporting firms, the direction of the link between exporting and wages is less clear. Using a rich set of German linked employer-employee panel data we follow over time plants that start to export. We show that...

Using a large administrative dataset for Germany, this paper compares employment developments in exiting and surviving establishments. For both West and East Germany we find a clear shadow of death effect reflecting lingering illness: establishments shrink dramatically already several years...