This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been 'rigid' in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

This paper gives a short overview of Monte Carlo studies on the usefulness of Heckman's (1976, 1979) two-step estimator for estimating a selection model. It shows that exploratory work to check for collinearity problems is strongly recommended before deciding on which estimator to apply. In the...

Using retrospective survey data that covers 1939, 1950, 1960, and 1971, I compare individual-level changes in employment industry and occupational status in Germany from the beginning of World War II to the post-war reconstruction era dubbed the Economic Miracle (Wirtschaftswunder). This...

This note tests whether the extraordinary rise in Spanish unemployment in the 1980s can be traced back to rigidities in the earnings structure in the face of relative net demand shocks against the unskilled (this claim is also known as the Krugman hypothesisʺ). I can establish that youth...