In this paper we reassess the evidence on labor income risk. There are two leading views on the nature of the income process in the current literature. The .first view, which we call the .Restricted Income Profiles.(RIP) process, holds that individuals are subject to large and very persistent...

This paper analyzes the impact of labor market competition and skill-biased technical change on the structure of compensation. The model combines multitasking and screening, embedded into a Hotelling-like framework. Competition for the most talented workers leads to an escalating reliance on...

We use income satisfaction data in order to estimate equivalence scales. Our method differs from previous attempts to use satisfaction data for this purpose in that it can be used to estimate or evaluate any given parametric equivalence scale. It can also be employed to investigate specific...

Despite the recovery of economic growth in Latin America during the 1990s, rising unemployment, high informality rates and sluggish wages lie at the root of high inequality and poverty. This paper looks at changes in hourly earnings from the early 1990s to the early 2000s in three relatively...

This paper interprets accidents occurring on the way to and from work as negative health shocks to identify the causal effect of health on labor market outcomes. We argue that in our sample of exactly matched treated and control workers, these health shocks are quasi-randomly assigned. A...

This paper investigates the changes in the German wage structure for fulltime working males from 1999 to 2006. Our analysis builds on the task-based approach introduced by Autor et al. (2003), as implemented by Spitz-Oener (2006) for Germany, and also accounts for job complexity. We perform a...

Using data from the German Socio Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1984 to 2007, this paper analyses the amount, the development and the explanations of wage mobility, as well as volatility in West Germany, measured by ranks in the wage distribution. Individual wage mobility decreased between...

The demographic problems in developed countries are getting more and more important. Very low fertility rates especially among skilled individuals will soon become relevant for a country's economy. Also of importance is education of children. Since there is an increasing demand for skilled...

High poverty rates as well as a very unequal distribution of income and wealth are distinctive features of post Apartheid South Africa. Studies analysing the extent of income inequality show that since the end of Apartheid the distribution of income has at best not changed at all, but depending...

Deploying data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) we analyze the variability of individual earnings and equivalent household income. Permanent and transitory variances of male income over the period 1984-2008 are estimated for Old German Laender in order to determine their importance...