Occupational upgrading and the business cycle in West Germany

Thomas Büttner, Peter Jacobebbinghaus and Johannes Ludsteck

Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, 2010, vol. 4, issue 10, pages 1-37

Abstract: The occupational skill structure depends on the business cycle if employers respond to shortages of applicants during upturns by lowering their hiring standards. Devereux uses this implication to construct empirical tests for the notion of hiring standards adjustment (the so-called Reder hypothesis) and finds affirmative evidence for the U.S labour market. The authors replicate his analysis using German employment register data. Regarding the occupational skill composition they obtain somewhat lower but qualitatively similar responses to the business cycle despite of well known institutional differences between the U.S. and German labour market. The responsiveness of occupational composition wages to the business cycle is considerably lower in Germany. --

Keywords: Hiring standards; business cycle adjustment; occupational upgrading; wage structure; wage setting; overqualification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J62 J31 J41 C24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2010-10
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Related works:
Working Paper: Occupational upgrading and the business cycle in West Germany (2009)
Working Paper: Occupational upgrading and the business cycle in West Germany (2009)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifweej:201010

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