The East German Wage Structure after Transition
نویسندگان
چکیده
The East German Wage Structure after Transition We extend the literature on transition economies’ wage structures by investigating the returns to tenure and experience. This study applies recent panel data and estimation approaches that control for hitherto neglected biases. We compare the life cycle structure in East and West German wages for fulltime employed men in the private sector. The patterns in the returns to seniority are similar for the two regional labor markets. The returns to experience lag behind in the East German labor market, even almost 20 years after unification. The results are robust when only individuals are considered who started their labor market career in the market economy and they hold across skill groups. JEL Classification: J31, J24
منابع مشابه
The East German Wage Structure in the Transition to a Market Economy
An important question for the development of the East German labour market in the transition to a market economy is whether wage differentials by qualification, industry or region which were relatively small in the former GDR adjust to those in market economies which are more in line with differences in productivities and economic conditions. We estimate empirical earnings functions to quantify...
متن کاملUnderstanding Changes in Gender Earnings Di¤erentials during Economic Transition: The East German Case
Relative wages have changed dramatically after the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. Though the basic facts have been well documented, little is known about their underlying causes. This paper studies the determinants of the gender wage gap in East Germany and its evolution over time. In contrast to most other transition economies, wage di¤erentials between East Germa...
متن کاملWages in the East German Transition Process – Facts and Explanations
We analyze wage developments in the East German transition process both at the macro and at the microeconomic level. At the macroeconomic level, we draw special attention to the important distinction between product and consumption wages, describe the development of various wage measures, labor productivity and unit labor costs in East Germany in relation to West Germany, and relate these devel...
متن کاملMinimum Wages and Employment: The Case of German Unification
Analysis in terms of the two-sector open economy shows that in bringing the market economy to East Germany, West Germany seems to have disregarded important fundamentals. Premature formation of a currency union led to a substantial real appreciation of the East German currency. Premature implementation of the West German system of wage bargaining resulted in inappropriate minimum wage schedules...
متن کاملGetting behind the East - West
Labor markets are the most important mediator of German uniication and wages are a central indicator of its progress. Starting from the observation that a wage diierential between two workers can arise either because workers have diierent endowments of human capital characteristics or remuneration to these characteristics diier, we apply an Oaxaca-style decomposition to the post-uniication wave...
متن کامل