I extend a two-skill group model by Katz andMurphy (1992) to estimate relative demand and supply for skills as well as wage rigidity in Germany. Using three data sets for Germany, two for Britain and one for the United States, I simulate the change in relative wage rigidity (wage compression) in...

Switzerland, traditionally a ?zero unemployment? economy, has seen an unprecedented rise in joblessness in the 1990s although unemployment fell again to a rather low level after 1997. This paper tests whether Switzerland experienced a negative relative net demand shock against the low skilled...

Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

Switzerland, traditionally a ‘zero unemployment’ economy, has seen an unprecedented rise in joblessness in the 1990s although unemployment fell again to a rather low level after 1997. This paper tests whether Switzerland experienced a negative relative net demand shock against the low...

Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

Switzerland, traditionally a ‘zero unemployment’ economy, has seen an unprecedented rise in joblessness in the 1990s although unemployment fell again to a rather low level after 1997. This paper tests whether Switzerland experienced a negative relative net demand shock against the low...

Whereas Anglo-Saxon economies have recently experienced a widening wage distribution between skill groups, the Swiss wage structure has remained almost stable. This raises the question whether the Swiss labour market did not experience a decrease in the relative demand for low-skilled workers as...

Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...