IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2098.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Rising Wage Dispersion, After All! The German Wage Structure at the Turn of the Century

Author

Listed:
  • Kohn, Karsten

    (KfW Bankengruppe)

Abstract

Using register data from the IAB employment sample, this paper studies the wage structure in the German labor market throughout the years 1992-2001. Wage dispersion has generally been rising. The increase was more pronounced in East Germany and occurred predominantly in the lower part of the wage distribution for women and in the upper part for men. Censored quantile wage regressions reveal diverse age and skill patterns. Applying Machado/Mata (2005)-type decompositions I conclude that differences in the composition of the work force only had a small impact on the observed wage differentials between East and West Germany, but changes in the characteristics captured better parts of the observed wage changes over time.

Suggested Citation

  • Kohn, Karsten, 2006. "Rising Wage Dispersion, After All! The German Wage Structure at the Turn of the Century," IZA Discussion Papers 2098, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2098
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp2098.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blau, Francine D & Kahn, Lawrence M, 1996. "International Differences in Male Wage Inequality: Institutions versus Market Forces," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 791-836, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dimitris Pavlopoulos & Ruud Muffels & Jeroen Vermunt, 2010. "Wage mobility in Europe. A comparative analysis using restricted multinomial logit regression," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 115-129, January.
    2. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 2010. "Firm Growth, Institutions and Structural Transformation," Ratio Working Papers 150, The Ratio Institute.
    3. Bonatti, Luigi, 2002. "The effects of wage compression on unemployment and on the intersectoral distribution of employment: a dynamic model," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 127-144, June.
    4. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    5. Bhaskar, V & Holden, Steinar, 2002. "Wage Differentiation via Subsidised General Training," Economics Discussion Papers 8851, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    6. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    7. Glaeser, Edward L., 2005. "Inequality," Working Paper Series rwp05-056, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    8. Stijn Broecke & Glenda Quintini & Marieke Vandeweyer, 2018. "Wage Inequality and Cognitive Skills: Reopening the Debate," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Skills, and Technical Change: Implications for Future US GDP Growth, pages 251-286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. John Dinardo & Thomas Lemieux, 1997. "Diverging Male Wage Inequality in the United States and Ganada, 1981–1988: Do Institutions Explain the Difference?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 50(4), pages 629-651, July.
    10. Pedro Telhado Pereira & Pedro Silva Martins, 2000. "Does education reduce wage inequality? Quantile regressions evidence from fifteen European countries," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp379, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    11. Anna M. Falzoni & Alessandra Venturini & Claudia Villosio, 2007. "Skilled and Unskilled Wage Dynamics in Italy in the ‘90s: Changes in the individual characteristics, institutions, trade and technology," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 61, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.
    12. Almeida, Rita & Carneiro, Pedro, 2006. "Enforcement of Regulation, Informal Labour, Firm Size and Firm Performance," CEPR Discussion Papers 5976, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Levernier, William & Partridge, Mark D. & Rickman, Dan S., 1998. "Differences in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan U.S. Family Income Inequality: A Cross-County Comparison," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 272-290, September.
    14. Verdugo, Gregory, 2014. "The great compression of the French wage structure, 1969–2008," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 131-144.
    15. Taiji Furusawa & Hideo Konishi & Duong Lam Anh Tran, 2020. "International Trade and Income Inequality," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(3), pages 993-1026, July.
    16. Almeida, Rita K. & Carneiro, Pedro, 2005. "Enforcement of Regulation, Informal Labor and Firm Performance," IZA Discussion Papers 1759, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Fersterer, Josef & Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2003. "Are Austrian returns to education falling over time?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 73-89, February.
    18. Zohal Hessami & Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2015. "Has Globalisation Affected Collective Bargaining? An Empirical Test, 1980–2009," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(12), pages 1880-1911, December.
    19. Danièle Meulders & Robert Plasman & François Rycx, 2005. "Les inégalités salariales de genre : expliquer l'injustifiable ou justifier l'inexplicable," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(2), pages 95-107.
    20. Eric S. Lin & Hamid E. Ali, 2009. "Military Spending and Inequality: Panel Granger Causality Test," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 46(5), pages 671-685, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    wage inequality; censored quantile regression; Machado/Mata decomposition; IABS; East Germany; West Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • C24 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Truncated and Censored Models; Switching Regression Models; Threshold Regression Models

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2098. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.