Occupational Upgrading and the Business Cycle in West Germany

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.