Occupational upgrading and the business cycle in West Germany

Arbeitspapier

The occupational skill structure depends on the business cycle if employers respond to shortages of applicants during upturns by lowering their hiring standards. The notion and relevance of hiring standards adjustment was advanced by Reder and investigated formally in a search-theoretic framework by Mortensen. Devereux implements empirical tests for these theories and finds affirmative evidence for the U.S. labour market. We replicate his analysis using German employment register data. Regarding the occupational skill composition we obtain somewhat lower but qualitatively similar responses to the business cycle despite of well known institutional differences between the U.S. and German labour market. The responsiveness of occupational composition wages to the business cycle is considerably lower in Germany.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Economics Discussion Papers ; No. 2009-34

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Job, Occupational, and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion ; Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials ; Labor Contracts ; Single Equation Models; Single Variables: Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models
• Subject: Hiring standards ; business cycle adjustment ; occupational upgrading ; wage structure ; wage setting ; overqualification ; Erwerbsverlauf ; Arbeitsmobilität ; Humanvermögen ; Konjunktur ; Qualifikation ; Lohnstruktur ; Überqualifikation ; Deutschland

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Büttner, Thomas ; Jacobebbinghaus, Peter ; Ludsteck, Johannes
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
• (where): Kiel
• (when): 2009

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/27732
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET