Empirical Essays on Occupations, Reallocation and Wage Differentials.

In this thesis I aim to contribute to the labor economics literature by casting more light on i) measurement errors regarding data on occupational affiliations, ii) worker mobility across occupations and iii) wage differentials between part-time and full-time workers with comparable skills. Throughout, I focus on German labor markets. Germany is one of the major economies in the world and the most important one in Europe. I employ individual level panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The GSOEP has started in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1984 with around 12,000 respondents representative of the entire residential population. Since then, several samples are added occasionally to reflect the changing population structure of the Germany, like the expansion of the GSOEP to the former German Democratic Republic in June 1990. GSOEP has several advantages as it is based on a rather stable set of questions regarding the demographics, education, earnings and labor market dynamics. Due to its panel data structure, individuals can be followed over time. Together with recently developed econometric methods for panel data, this allows for analyzing the importance of dynamics in individual’s decisions.Wages -- European Economic Community countries; Wage differentials -- European Economic Community countries;

Occupational Affiliation Data and Measurement Errors in the German Socio-Economic Panel

This paper shows that there are severe measurement errors regarding the occupational affiliations in the German Socio-Economic Panel. These errors are traced back to the survey structure: in years where occupational information is gathered from the entire employed population instead of only from those declaring job or labor market status changes, average occupational mobility is around five times higher. In order to construct reliable occupational affiliation data, a correction method based on related job or labor market status changes is proposed. The corrected occupational mobility patterns are then analyzed for different samples.Measurement errors, occupational mobility, Panel data

Worker Reallocation across Occupations in Western Germany

This paper analyzes the determinants of annual worker reallocation across disaggregated occupations in western Germany for the period 1985-2003. Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, the pattern of average occupational mobility is documented. Worker reallocation is found to be strongly procyclical. Its determinants at the individual level are then investigated while controlling for unobserved worker heterogeneity. A dynamic probit fixed effects model is estimated to obtain coefficients and marginal effects. The incidental parameter bias is reduced by the method proposed in Hahn and Kuersteiner (2004). An interesting finding is that workers changing occupation are about 8 to 9 percent less inclined to experience occupational mobility in the subsequent year than workers who do not change. Except for workers with only compulsory education, the impact of age on the probability of occupational change is declining in the level of education. The unemployment rate has a negative effect on the probability of occupational changes, especially for female foreigners.Dynamic binary choice models, fixed effects, incidental parameter bias, occupational mobility, Panel data

Empirical Essays on Occupations, Reallocation and Wage Differentials

Defense date: 09/11/2009Examining Board: Professor Francis Vella, Georgetown University, Supervisor Professor Andrea Ichino, University of Bologna Professor Harmut Lehmann, University of Bologna Professor Ana Rute Cardoso, Institut d’Anàlisi Economica, BarcelonaIn this thesis I aim to contribute to the labor economics literature by casting more light on i) measurement errors regarding data on occupational affiliations, ii) worker mobility across occupations and iii) wage differentials between part-time and full-time workers with comparable skills. Throughout, I focus on German labor markets. Germany is one of the major economies in the world and the most important one in Europe. I employ individual level panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). The GSOEP has started in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1984 with around 12,000 respondents representative of the entire residential population. Since then, several samples are added occasionally to reflect the changing population structure of the Germany, like the expansion of the GSOEP to the former German Democratic Republic in June 1990. GSOEP has several advantages as it is based on a rather stable set of questions regarding the demographics, education, earnings and labor market dynamics. Due to its panel data structure, individuals can be followed over time. Together with recently developed econometric methods for panel data, this allows for analyzing the importance of dynamics in individual’s decisions

Occupational mobility in Germany

This paper studies the patterns and the determinants of worker mobility across occupations in West Germany employing the German Socioeconomic Panel (GSOEP) over the 1984-2004 period. The occupational mobility is considered at the most detailed level possible provided by the dataset, namely four-digit ISCO-88 (International Standard Classification of Occupations-1988) occupational classification generated by the International Labor Organization (ILO). The measurement errors in occupational coding and the strategy to control for it are argued extensively. The time series patterns of occupational mobility demonstrate strong procyclicality where the degree is changing according to the characteristics of the individual such as age, skill and origins. No obvious trend over the time span under analysis is found. Results examining the contributions to these time series patterns show that cross occupation dispersion in labor demand i.e. net reallocation has a strong positive association with worker mobility across occupations. High unemployment, which becomes statistically significant only after the inclusion of the interaction term with education levels, and some individual characteristics such as age, being married or not and belonging to the first generation of foreigner groups has negative interaction with mobility

Occupational Affiliation Data and Measurement Errors in the German Socio-Economic Panel

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