IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/oxecpp/v53y2001i3p582-603.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Skill Compression, Wage Differentials, and Employment: Germany vs the US

Author

Listed:
  • Freeman, Richard
  • Schettkat, Ronald

Abstract

Germany's more compressed wage structure is widely viewed as the main cause of the German-US difference in employment and unemployment, but part of the compression is due to Germany having a narrower distribution of skills than the US. Even adjusted for skills, however, we find that Germany has a more compressed wage distribution than the US. But relatively little of the US-German employment difference can be attributed to the compressed wage distribution. We find that jobless Germans have nearly the same skills as employed Germans and look more like average Americans than like low skilled Americans, which runs counter to the wage compression hypothesis. Given these patterns, the pay and employment experience of low skilled Americans is a poor counterfactual for assessing how reductions in pay might affect jobless Germans. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Freeman, Richard & Schettkat, Ronald, 2001. "Skill Compression, Wage Differentials, and Employment: Germany vs the US," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 582-603, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxecpp:v:53:y:2001:i:3:p:582-603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nickell, Stephen & Bell, Brian, 1996. "Changes in the Distribution of Wages and Unemployment in OECD Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 302-308, May.
    2. Stephen Nickell, 1997. "Unemployment and Labor Market Rigidities: Europe versus North America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 55-74, Summer.
    3. Freeman Richard B. & Schettkat Ronald, 1999. "The Role of Wage and Skill Differences in US-German Employment Differences / Die Bedeutung von Lohn- und Qualifikationsunterschieden für die deutschen-amerikanischen Beschäftigungsunterschiede," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 219(1-2), pages 49-66, February.
    4. Siebert, Horst, 1997. "Labor market rigidities and unemployment in Europe," Kiel Working Papers 787, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    5. Horst Siebert, 1997. "Labor Market Rigidities: At the Root of Unemployment in Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 37-54, Summer.
    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. Puhani, Patrick, 2001. "Wage Rigidities in Western Germany: Microeconometric Evidence from the 1990s," CEPR Discussion Papers 3009, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Ochel, Wolfgang, 1998. "Mehr Beschäftigung und weniger Arbeitslosigkeit : Amerika, hast du es besser? (More employment and less unemployment : America - are you any better off?)," Mitteilungen aus der Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 31(2), pages 262-276.
    3. Muysken, Joan & Zwick, Thomas, 2000. "Wage divergence and unemployment: the impact of insider power and training costs," ZEW Discussion Papers 00-37, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Kenworthy, Lane, 2002. "Do affluent countries face an income-jobs tradeoff?," MPIfG Discussion Paper 01/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/6761 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ronald Schettkat & Rongrong Sun, 2009. "Monetary policy and European unemployment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(1), pages 94-108, Spring.
    7. Laurence Ball & Nicolás Roux & Marc Hofstetter, 2013. "Unemployment in Latin America and the Caribbean," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 397-424, July.
    8. Hübler, Olaf & Meyer, Wolfgang, 2000. "Industrial Relations and the Wage Differentials between Skilled and Unskilled Blue-Collar Workers within Establishments: An Empirical Analysis with Data of Manufacturing Firms," IZA Discussion Papers 176, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Amable, Bruno & Gatti, Donatella, 2001. "The Impact of Product Market Competition on Employment and Wages," IZA Discussion Papers 276, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Bozani, Vasiliki & Drydakis, Nick, 2011. "Studying the NAIRU and its Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 6079, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Peter Pisár & Ján Huňady & Erika Ľapinová, 2018. "Work Flexibility in Developed Countries: Economic Context and Policy Implications," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2018(6), pages 684-703.
    12. Fehn, Rainer, 2002. "Arbeitsmarktflexibilisierung und Arbeitslosigkeit," Discussion Paper Series 54, Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, Chair of Economic Order and Social Policy.
    13. Ines Perez-Soba Aguilar & Elena Marquez de la Cruz & Ana Rosa Martinez-Canete & Alfonso Palacio-Vera, 2006. "Capital Stock and Unemployment: Searching for the Missing Link," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_475, Levy Economics Institute.
    14. Lapatinas, Athanasios, 2009. "Labour adjustment costs: Estimation of a dynamic discrete choice model using panel data for Greek manufacturing firms," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 521-533, October.
    15. Robert P. Garrett & Chao Miao & Shanshan Qian & Tae Jun Bae, 2017. "Entrepreneurial spawning and knowledge-based perspective: a meta-analysis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 355-378, August.
    16. Edmond Malinvaud, 2001. "The Role of Structural Policies Meant to Promote Employment," 'Angelo Costa' Lectures Serie, SIPI Spa, issue Lect. II.
    17. Jean-Paul Fitoussi & Francesco Saraceno, 2004. "The Brussels-Frankfurt-Washington Consensus. Old and New Tradeoffs in Economics," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2004-02, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    18. Alfred Stiglbauer, 2006. "The (New) OECD Jobs Study: Introduction and Assessment," Monetary Policy & the Economy, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 3, pages 58-74.
    19. Rainer Fehn & Carsten-Patrick Meier, 2001. "The Positive Economics of Labor Market Rigidities and Investor Protection," CESifo Working Paper Series 456, CESifo.
    20. Fung, K.C. & C. Lin, Chelsea, 2005. "European Economic Integration and the Effectiveness of Employment Policies," Journal of Economic Integration, Center for Economic Integration, Sejong University, vol. 20, pages 419-438.
    21. Kluve, Jochen & Schaffner, Sandra & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2006. "Labor Force Status Dynamics in the German Labor Market: Individual Heterogeneity and Cyclical Sensitivity," Technical Reports 2006,20, Technische Universität Dortmund, Sonderforschungsbereich 475: Komplexitätsreduktion in multivariaten Datenstrukturen.

    More about this item

    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:oup:oxecpp:v:53:y:2001:i:3:p:582-603. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/oep .

    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.