For some time, it has been debated whether a lack of wage flexibility is at the roots of the high and persistent unemployment in West Germany. In the presence of a skill bias in labor demand, which increases the relative de mand for more highly skilled labor over time, there only seems to exist the choice between higher wage inequality or higher unemployment rates. This study scrutinizes whether and in what way this line of thought is consis tent with empirical findings for West Germany. The analysis ranges from extensive descriptive evidence on wage trends to the estimation of a struc tural model of wage bargaining. As the most important database, I use the IAB-Beschiiftigtenstichprobe from 1975 to 1990. This study was accepted as a Habilitation thesis by the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Konstanz in October 1998. The only major change relates to appendix B on the block bootstrap procedure now summarizing the main aspects of the method. I am very grateful to my advisor Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Franz for his support, encouragement, and inspiration. From 1993 to 1997, he ran the Center for International Labor Economics at the University of Konstanz in such a way that it provided a fruitful environment for empirical research in labor economics. I am also indebted to Prof. Dr. Winfried Pohlmeier and to Prof. Dr. Gerd Ronning for undertaking the task to evaluate my Habilitation thesis.

This title was first published in 2000. The result of an international meeting organized by the European Centre, this book reports from economists, social scientists and experts from government and inter-governmental institutions who came together to investigate the best way to overcome mass unemployment in Europe.

During the past two decades, wages of skilled workers in the United States rose while those of unskilled workers fell; less-educated young men in particular have suffered unprecedented losses in real earnings. These twelve original essays explore whether this trend is unique to the United States or is part of a general growth in inequality in advanced countries. Focusing on labor market institutions and the supply and demand forces that affect wages, the papers compare patterns of earnings inequality and pay differentials in the United States, Australia, Korea, Japan, Western Europe, and the changing economies of Eastern Europe. Cross-country studies examine issues such as managerial compensation, gender differences in earnings, and the relationship of pay to regional unemployment. From this rich store of data, the contributors attribute changes in relative wages and unemployment among countries both to differences in labor market institutions and training and education systems, and to long-term shifts in supply and demand for skilled workers. These shifts are driven in part by skill-biased technological change and the growing internationalization of advanced industrial economies.

Quantile regression has emerged as an essential statistical tool of contemporary empirical economics and biostatistics. Complementing classical least squares regression methods which are designed to estimate conditional mean models, quantile regression provides an ensemble of techniques for estimating families of conditional quantile models, thus offering a more complete view of the stochastic relationship among variables. This volume collects 12 outstanding empirical contributions in economics and offers an indispensable introduction to interpretation, implementation, and inference aspects of quantile regression.

John T. Addison and Paul J. J. Welfens Because inflation seems moribund in OECD countries, stubborn unemployment became the top policy priority of the 1990s. Unemployment has increased in many countries, reaching critical levels for unskilled and young workers in most continental EU countries. Europe's employment performance has continued to lag that in North America. The U. S. in particular achieved a remarkable combination of low inflation and full employment in the late 1990s, at a time when the EU suf fered from record unemployment rates, even if inflation was remarkably low. Since the 1980s, the consensus view among economists is that structural unem ployment plays a much more important role than cyc1ical unemployment in Europe, but that labour costs (wage costs plus nonwage costs) are also part of Europe's labour market problem. Most EU countries rely on a pay-as-you-go pub lic pension system. Contribution rates gradually increased in the 1980s and 1990s, when the share of young workers in overall employment was dec1ining and life expectancy increasing. Rising nonwage costs from the pension system are but one important feature of labour markets in Europe. Given the remarkable dynamics of labour markets, new entry into the labour force, labour turnover, and changes in employment characteristics, one has to also search for other factors behind sus tained unemployment. High unemployment is critical for EU countries, where one can point to rela tively few positive developments after 1975. The U. K.

In this book, Fauri and Tedeschi bring together contributions that outline the movement of job seekers and ethnic minority entrepreneurs in Europe, to analyse the overall impact of different forms of migration on European economies in the last 100 years. Contributions address a broad range of themes, from the motivations of migrants and the process of their integration into their destination country, to their overall social and economic impact onto said country at a structural level. In addressing questions as to why some ethnic groups seem to compete more successfully in business, as well as addressing questions about how skilled labour can be attracted and retained, this volume forms part of a very important multidisciplinary dialogue on labour migration. The policy implications of answering such questions are also discussed, as contributors ultimately examine whether skills-dependent migration policy needs to form part of a common strategy, either at a national or an international level.