This paper investigates the evolution of wages and the recent tendency to rising wage inequality in Germany, based on the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for 1984 to 2004. Between 1984 and 1994 the wage distribution was fairly stable. Wage inequality started to increase around 1994 in...

According to our research, some 12% of young people in Germany between the ages of 17 and 19 are disconnected, i.e. not in school, unemployed, and not living with a partner. The percentage of disconnected youths has been on the rise since 2002. There is evidence that an adverse family...

In this study, we try to connect the economic literature on human capital formation with findings from neurobiology and psychology on early childhood development and self-regulation. Our basic framework for assessing the distribution of agespecific returns to investment in skills is an...

This paper investigates the wage convergence between East German workers and their West German counterparts after reunification. Our research is based on a comparison of three groups of workers defined as stayers, migrants and commuters to West Germany, who lived in East Germany in 1989, with...

Der seit 1997 im Dachdeckerhandwerk eingeführte und seit 2003 bundeseinheitlich geregelte, allgemeinverbindliche Mindestlohn führt vor allem in Ostdeutschland auch im internationalen Vergleich zu einer starken Betroffenheit der Branche vom Mindestlohn. Die damit einhergehende effektive...

The paper analyses the theoretical and empirical relationship between employment, skill structure and innovation in East and West German manufacturing firms. The econometric part builds on firm data from the Mannheim Innovation Panel 1993, 1994 and 1995. In the German industrial sector,...

This paper analyses the effects of minimum wages on competition in the German roofing sector. The case is particularly interesting since this sector is faced with a uniform minimum wage despite significant regional disparities in productivity and wages. As a control industry we take the plumbing...

This paper investigates the relationship between kindergarten attendance and secondary school track choice in West-Germany. Our analysis is based on a panel of 12 to 14-year olds with information from age two on, drawn from the German SocioEconomic Panel (GSOEP) 19842005. We estimate binary...

Nirgends sonst im ökonomischen Handeln fallen Kosten und Nutzen im Zeitablauf und aufgeteilt nach Investoren und Nutznießern so eklatant auseinander wie bei Bildungsinvestitionen. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass in der sozialen Realität die Bildungsungleichheit im...