We bring together the strands of literature on the returns to education, its spillovers, and the role of the employer shaping the wage distribution. The aim is to analyze the labor market returns to education taking into account who the worker is (worker unobserved ability), what he does (the...

Earlier literature on the gender pay gap has taught us that occupations matter and so do firms. However, the role of the firm has received little scrutiny; occupations have most often been coded in a rather aggregate way, lumping together different jobs; and the use of samples of workers...

This paper aims at answering the question: How does a typically 'European' bargaining system - with collective bargaining, extension mechanisms and national minimum wage - coexist with low unemployment rate and high wage flexibility? A unique data set on workers, firms and collective bargaining...

A number of studies have reported that union decline is associated with rising overall wage inequality, not least in Germany where the phenomenon has been linked to economic resurgence. The present paper takes an unconventional approach to this potential source of rising inequality by examining...

Recent studies have pointed to the association between declining collective bargaining coverage and rising overall wage inequality. This association holds more or less across-the-board, at least for broad swathes of recent history. That said, the exact contribution of deununionization is a...

Recent studies have pointed to the association between declining collective bargaining coverage and rising overall wage inequality. This association holds more or less across-the-board, at least for broad swathes of recent history. That said, the exact contribution of deununionization is a...