East Germany's wage gap: A non-parametric decomposition based on establishment characteristics

Bernd Görzig, Martin Gornig and Axel Werwatz

No 2006-044, SFB 649 Discussion Papers from Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk

Abstract: East German wages have been below the West German wage level since unification. Moreover, the East-West wage gap implied by the contractual wages specified in collective wage agreements is drifting ever further apart from the wage gap in terms of effective wages. This paper looks at the role of establishment-specific factors - such as sectoral affiliation and size of the labour force - in this process. A non-parametric decomposition that has played a prominent role in the gender wage-gap literature is applied to breakdown the East- West wage gap into its constituent components. Using establishment data from the German employment statistics, the paper demonstrates that the divergence between wage agreements and effective wages is probably not a consequence of a massive escape from collective wage agreements, or the intense use of opt-out clauses in such agreements in East Germany. Rather, the shift of East Germany's economic structure towards lower-paying types of companies has caused the lagging behind in the adjustment of wages.

Keywords: Regional Wage Gap; Decomposition; Nonparametric Regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 C31 J31 L16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/25127/1/518429601.PDF (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: East Germany's Wage Gap: A Non-Parametric Decomposition Based on Establishment Characteristics (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:sfb649:sfb649dp2006-044

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SFB 649 Discussion Papers from Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().