Refine
Document Type
- Report (4)
- ResearchPaper (2)
Keywords
- Germany (6) (remove)
Institute
- Frühere Fachbereiche (6) (remove)
An empirical analysis of various waves of the ALLBUS social survey shows that union density fell substantially in western Germany from 1980 to 2004 and in eastern Germany from 1992 to 2004. Such a negative trend can be observed for men and women and for different groups of the workforce. Regression estimates indicate that the probability of union membership is related to a number of personal and occupational variables such as age, public sector employment and being a blue collar worker (significant in western Germany only). A decomposition analysis shows that differences in union density over time and between eastern and western Germany to a large degree cannot be explained by differences in the characteristics of employees. Contrary to wide-spread perceptions, changes in the composition of the workforce seem to have played a minor role in the fall in union density in western and eastern Germany.
Do exporters really pay higher wages? First evidence from German linked employer-employee data
(2006)
Many plant-level studies find that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. This paper uses a large set of linked employer-employee data from Germany to analyze this exporter wage premium. We show that the wage differential becomes smaller but does not completely vanish when observable and unobservable characteristics of the employees and of the work place are controlled for. For example, blue-collar (white-collar) employees working in a plant with an export-sales ratio of 60 percent earn about 1.8 (0.9) percent more than similar employees in otherwise identical non-exporting plants.
Using a large recent representative sample of the adult German population this paper demonstrates that nascent necessity and nascent opportunity entrepreneurs are different with respect to some of the characteristics and attitudes considered to be important for becoming a nascent entrepreneur, and that they behave differently. Given the lack of longitudinal data, however, we have no information about the performance of entrepreneurs from both groups in the longer run.
Based on data from a recent representative survey of the adult population in Germany this paper documents that the patterns of variables influencing nascent and infant entrepreneurship are quite similar and broadly in line with our theoretical priors – both types of entrepreneurship are fostered by the width of experience and a role model in the family, and hindered by risk aversion, while being male is a supporting factor. Results of this study using cross section data are in line with conclusions from longitudinal studies for other countries finding that between one in two and one in three nascent entrepreneurs become infant entrepreneurs, and that observed individual characteristics – with the important exception of former experience as an employee in the industry of the new venture - tend to play a minor role only in differentiating who starts and who gives up.