Firm Dynamics and Employment Outcomes
In a market economy, firm foundations and closures are important drivers of resource (re)allocation, structural change, and economic development which is particularly important with respect to the economic transformation of East Germany from a state-directed to a market economy. At the same time, job displacement coming along with structural change may have serious consequences for affected employees, such as unemployment, earnings losses, or lower job quality in a new job. This research group uses microeconometric methods to analyze foundation, evolution, and failure of firms, the amount and quality of jobs created by new firms and the consequences of firm closures for employees, in particular in terms of labor market outcomes such as employment and wages.
Research Cluster
Productivity and InstitutionsYour contact

Mitglied - Department Structural Change and Productivity
EXTERNAL FUNDING
01.2020 ‐ 12.2023
The Rise of Populist Parties in Europe: The Dark Side of Globalization and Technological Change?
VolkswagenStiftung
Globalisation may have increased prosperity in general, but has also led to unemployment, wage inequality, outward migration and, thus, ageing populations in many European regions. This project examines whether these economic burdens lead to votes for populist parties.
01.2019 ‐ 06.2022
MICROPROD („Raising EU Productivity: Lessons from Improved Micro Data“)
European Commission
The goal of MICROPROD is to contribute to a greater understanding of the challenges brought about in Europe by the fourth industrial revolution and the associated ‘productivity puzzle’ in a context of globalisation and digitisation, and to provide alternative policy options to better address these challenges.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 764810.
07.2018 ‐ 12.2020
Firm Wage Differentials in Imperfect Labour Markets: The Role of Market Power and Industrial Relations in Rent Splitting between Workers and Firms
German Research Foundation (DFG)
The main purpose of this proposal is to grasp a firmer understanding of how employment rents are split between workers and employers in imperfect labour markets and how labour market institutions, such as unions and works councils, influence the distribution of rents. In that it not only promises new insights into the wage formation process and the likely consequences of important labour market trends like falling unionisation and worker codetermination, but also promises to inform important public policy debates, such as which rights should be granted to organised labour.
02.2019 ‐ 09.2019
Evaluation of the IAB Establishment Panel 2018 and Preparation of a Results Report for West and East Germany
Final report: Fehlende Fachkräfte in Deutschland – Unterschiede in den Betrieben und mögliche Erklärungsfaktoren: Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 2018. IAB-Forschungsbericht 10/2019. (in German, English abstract available)
04.2016 ‐ 03.2019
Wage and Employment Effects of Bankruptcies
German Research Foundation (DFG)
The project analyzes the process and the consequences of firm failure. For the first time, evidence on the consequences of small firms’ bankruptcy on employees’ earnings and wages is provided. The project e.g. shows that employees of small firms are more likely to see their employer failing but, at the same time, face smaller earnings and wage losses than employees displaced from larger firms. Check the below research articles for further insights.
01.2018 ‐ 12.2018
Evaluation of the IAB Establishment Panel 2017 and Preparation of a Results Report for West and East Germany
Final report: Lohnunterschiede zwischen Betrieben in Ost- und Westdeutschland: Ausmaß und mögliche Erklärungsfaktoren. Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 2017. IAB-Forschungsbericht 6/2018. (in German, English abstract available)
01.2017 ‐ 09.2017
Evaluation of the IAB Establishment Panel 2016 and Preparation of a Results Report for West and East Germany
Final report: Produktivitätsunterschiede zwischen West- und Ostdeutschland und mögliche Erklärungsfaktoren. Ergebnisse aus dem IAB-Betriebspanel 2016. IAB-Forschungsbericht 16/2017. (in German, English abstract available)
Refereed Publications

Is There a Gap in the Gap? Regional Differences in the Gender Pay Gap
in: Scottish Journal of Political Economy, No. 4, 2013
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate regional differences in the gender pay gap both theoretically and empirically. Within a spatial model of monopsonistic competition, we show that more densely populated labour markets are more competitive and constrain employers’ ability to discriminate against women. Utilizing a large administrative data set for western Germany and a flexible semi-parametric propensity score matching approach, we find that the unexplained gender pay gap for young workers is substantially lower in large metropolitan than in rural areas. This regional gap in the gap of roughly 10 percentage points remained surprisingly constant over the entire observation period of 30 years.

The Effect of Housework on Wages in Germany: No Impact at all
in: Journal for Labour Market Research, No. 2, 2013
Abstract
This paper presents evidence on the impact of hours spent on housework activities on individuals’ wages for Germany using data from both the German Socio-Economic Panel and the German Time Use Survey. In contrast to most of the international literature, we find no negative effect of housework on wages. This holds for men and women, for married and single individuals, and for part-time and full-time workers both in West and East Germany. Our insights do not change when we distinguish different types of housework activities or address the endogeneity of housework in our wage regressions by using instrumental variables estimators.

The Impact of Female Managers on the Gender Pay Gap: Evidence from Linked Employer–Employee Data for Germany
in: Economics Letters, No. 3, 2013
Abstract
We find that increasing the female share in first-level management by 10% points decreases the unexplained within-job gender pay gap by 0.5 log points. The effect is more pronounced for the female share in second-level than in first-level management.

Teacher Experience and the Class Size Effect - Experimental Evidence
in: Journal of Public Economics, 2013
Abstract
We analyze teacher experience as a moderating factor for the effect of class size reduction on student achievement in the early grades using data from the Tennessee STAR experiment with random assignment of teachers and students to classes of different sizes. The analysis is motivated by the high costs of class size reductions and the need to identify the circumstances under which this investment is most rewarding. We find a class size effect only for senior teachers. The effect exists at all deciles of the achievement distribution but is less pronounced at lower deciles. We further show that senior teachers outperform rookies only in small classes. Interestingly, the class size effect is likely due to a higher quality of instruction in small classes.

Women Move Differently: Job Separations and Gender
in: Journal of Labor Research, No. 4, 2012
Abstract
Using a large German linked employer–employee data set and methods of competing risks analysis, this paper investigates gender differences in job separation rates to employment and nonemployment. In line with descriptive evidence, we find lower job-to-job and higher job-to-nonemployment transition probabilities for women than men when controlling for individual and workplace characteristics and unobserved plant heterogeneity. These differences vanish once we allow these characteristics to affect separations differently by gender. When additionally controlling for wages, we find that both separation rates are considerably lower and also significantly less wage-elastic for women than for men, suggesting an interplay of gender differences in transition behaviour and the gender pay gap.
Working Papers

Oxytocin, Empathy, Altruism and Charitable Giving: Experimental Evidence from Blood Donations
in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 4, 2023
Abstract
We conducted a field experiment in the natural setting of blood donations to test how oxytocin relates to empathy and altruism. We randomly assigned blood donors in the Croatian Institute for Transfusion Medicine to three groups with the aim to induce different levels of empathy by showing a neutral video to the donors from the control group and an emotional to the donors from the first and second treatment groups. In addition to watching the emotional video, donors from the second treatment group are given a gift which relates to the emotional story from the video. We find no effect of our treatment on induced levels of oxytocin. Null effects of our treatments could be explained by the above average baseline levels of oxytocin and inability of our treatments to provoke emotional stimuli in blood donors. Nonetheless, for our empathy measures we find the effect of gift exchange on empathic concerns, but not on perspective taking. After our experimental treatments, we followed the return of our blood donors for a whole year. We find that only variable which consistently predicts return for blood donation in stated period is the number of previous donations. From policy perspective it is an important finding. Especially for hospitals and other blood providers when faced with time and resource constraints.

Organised Labour, Labour Market Imperfections, and Employer Wage Premia
in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 20, 2022
Abstract
This paper examines how collective bargaining through unions and workplace codetermination through works councils shape labour market imperfections and how labour market imperfections matter for employer wage premia. Based on representative German plant data for the years 1999–2016, we document that employer monopsony involving below competitive wages is far more prevalent than the contrary worker monopoly. We further find a smaller prevalence and intensity of employer monopsony when unions or works councils are present and the opposite for worker monopoly. Finally, we document a close link between labour market imperfections and employer wage premia. The presence and intensity of employer monopsony are associated with a lower level and larger dispersion of premia, whereas more intense worker monopoly is accompanied by a higher level only.

Identifying Rent-sharing Using Firms‘ Energy Input Mix
in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 19, 2022
Abstract
We present causal evidence on the rent-sharing elasticity of German manufacturing firms. We develop a new firm-level Bartik instrument for firm rents that combines the firms‘ predetermined energy input mix with national energy carrier price changes. Reduced-form evidence shows that higher energy prices depress wages. Instrumental variable estimation yields a rent-sharing elasticity of approximately 0.20. Rent-sharing induced by energy price variation is asymmetric and driven by energy price increases, implying that workers do not benefit from energy price reductions but are harmed by price increases. The rent-sharing elasticity is substantially larger in small (0.26) than in large (0.17) firms.

Preferred Field of Study and Academic Performance
in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 16, 2022
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of studying the first-choice university subject on dropout and switching field of study for a cohort of students in Germany. Using detailed survey data, and employing an instrumental variable strategy based on variation in the local field of study availability, we provide evidence that students who are not enrolled in their preferred field of study are more likely to change their field, delay graduation and drop out of university. The estimated impact on dropout is particularly strong among students of low socio-economic status and is driven by lower academic performance and motivation.

The Impact of Delay: Evidence from Formal Out-of-Court Restructuring
in: IWH Discussion Papers, No. 10, 2021
Abstract
Bankruptcy restructuring procedures are used in most legal systems to decide the fate of businesses facing financial hardship. We study how bargaining failures in such procedures impact the economic performance of participating firms in the context of Croatia, which introduced a „pre-bankruptcy settlement“ (PBS) process in the wake of the Great Recession of 2007 - 2009. Local institutions left over from the communist era provide annual financial statements for both sides of more than 180,000 debtor-creditor pairs, enabling us to address selection into failed negotiations by matching a rich set of creditor and debtor characteristics. Failures to settle at the PBS stage due to idiosyncratic bargaining problems, which effectively delays entry into the standard bankruptcy procedure, leads to a lower rate of survival among debtors as well as reduced employment, revenue, and profits. We also track how bargaining failures diffuse through the network of creditors, finding a significant negative effect on small creditors, but not others. Our results highlight the impact of delay and the importance of structuring bankruptcy procedures to rapidly resolve uncertainty about firms‘ future prospects.