Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung

About: Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung is a facility organization based out in Nuremberg, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Unemployment & Wage. The organization has 266 authors who have published 460 publications receiving 8007 citations.

Revisiting the German Wage Structure

Abstract: This paper challenges the view that the wage structure in West Germany has remained stable throughout the 80s and 90s. Based on a 2% sample of social security records, we show that wage inequality has increased in the 1980s, but only at the top of the distribution. In the early 1990s, wage inequality started to rise also at the bottom of the distribution. Hence, while the US and Germany experienced similar changes at the top of the distribution throughout the 80s and 90s, the patterns at the bottom of the distribution are reversed. We show that changes in the education and age structure can explain a substantial part of the increase in inequality, in particular at the top of the distribution. We further argue that selection into unemployment cannot account for the stable wage structure at the bottom in the 80s. In contrast, about one third of the increase in lower tail inequality in the 90s can be related to de-unionization. Finally, fluctuations in relative supply play an important role in explaining trends in the skill premium. These findings are consistent with the view that technological change is responsible for the widening of the wage distribution at the top. The widening of the wage distribution at the bottom, however, may be better explained by episodic events, such as changes in labour market institutions and supply shocks.

Revisiting the German Wage Structure

Abstract: This paper shows that wage inequality in West Germany has increased over the past three decades, contrary to common perceptions. During the 1980s, the increase was concentrated at the top of the distribution; in the 1990s, it occurred at the bottom end as well. Our findings are consistent with the view that both in Germany and in the United States, technological change is responsible for the widening of the wage distribution at the top. At the bottom of the wage distribution, the increase in inequality is better explained by episodic events, such as supply shocks and changes in labor market institutions. These events happened a decade later in Germany than in the United States.

Sensitivity Analysis for Average Treatment Effects

Abstract: Based on the conditional independence or unconfoundedness assump- tion, matching has become a popular approach to estimate average treatment effects. Checking the sensitivity of the estimated results with respect to devia- tions from this identifying assumption has become an increasingly important topic in the applied evaluation literature. If there are unobserved variables that affect assignment into treatment and the outcome variable simultaneously, a hidden bias might arise to which matching estimators are not robust. We address this prob- lem with the bounding approach proposed by Rosenbaum (Observational Studies, 2nd ed., New York: Springer), where mhbounds lets the researcher determine how strongly an unmeasured variable must influence the selection process to undermine the implications of the matching analysis.

The impact of COVID-19 on gender inequality in the labor market and gender-role attitudes

Abstract: COVID-19 and ensuing changes in mobility have altered employment relations for millions of people across the globe. Emerging evidence shows that women may be more severely affected by this change. ...