We analyze the effects of the unprecedented rise in trade between Germany and “the East” – China and Eastern Europe – in the period 1988 – 2008 on German local labor markets. Using detailed administrative data, we exploit the cross-regional variation in initial industry structures and...

This paper studies the impact of international trade on individual labour market outcomes in the German manufacturing sector for the period 1995-2006. Combining micro-level data from the German Socioeconomic Panel and industry-level trade data from input-output tables, we examine the impacts on...

This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...

This study is the first to examine employment effects by gender in Austrian firms and thus provides insight into the role of Austrian firms engaged in foreign trade for women's labour market opportunities and participation in firms. Using a matched employer-employee dataset based on various...

This volume was prepared by Sebastian Benz while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in December 2013 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes five self-contained chapters. All chapters discuss different...

In the last few decades, international trade has expanded not only between industrialised countries, but also between high- and low-wage countries. This important change has raised questions on how international trade affects the labour market. In this spirit, this paper aims to investigate the...

At the turn of the millennium three frequently cited potential causes of new challenges for wage policy in Germany are revisited in this study: skilled- biased technological progress, the increasing international integration of labor and product markets, and the monetary integration of the EMU....

During the last two decades, the labour demand structure in Germany has experienced a decrease in the demand for the low skilled. Possible explanations for this trend are investigated in this study for West Germany (1994- 1997) using a unique linked employer-employee panel data set for Germany....

The analysis of the effects of firm-level international trade on wages has so far focused on the role of exports, which are also typically treated as a composite good. However, we show in this paper that firm-level imports can actually be a wage determinant as important as exports. Furthermore,...

Advanced industrial countries have been exhibiting a steady decline of the labor income shares in the last two decades. We explain this phenomenon by resorting to the old Stolper-Samuelson theorem. The conclusions concerning the impact of free trade on the income distribution are unambiguous in...