Does switching to a western German employer still pay off?

Abstract

"This paper deals with the medium-term effects of job mobility on the average wage growth of job-movers in eastern Germany. The analysis is based on all employees subject to social insurance contributions working in eastern Germany in 2004. Using a statistical matching procedure combined with a difference-in-differences estimator, we observe that job-movers achieve an average annual wage increase of 2.68 % between 2004 and 2009, which is significantly higher than the annual wage growth of selected non-movers (1.34 %). In contrast to the evidence in the 1990’s, the positive wage effect is now significantly lower for movers from eastern to western Germany compared to movers within eastern Germany." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Alm, B., Engel, D. & Weyh, A. (2014): Does switching to a western German employer still pay off? An analysis for eastern Germany. In: Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, Vol. 234, No. 5, p. 546-571. DOI:10.1515/jbnst-2014-0501