Using administrative data from Germany, this paper analyzes the relation between wages and past and current labor market conditions. Specifically, it explores whether the data is more consistent with implicit contract models (Beaudry/DiNardo, 1991) or a matching model with on-the-job search and...

Using administrative employer-employee data from Germany, we investigate the relationship between wages and past and present labor market conditions. Furthermore, we revisit recent findings of greater wage cyclicality of new hires. Overall, we find strong evidence for history dependent wages,...