Based on a novel dataset, the ‘German Management and Organizational Practices’ (GMOP) Survey, we calculate establishment‐specific management scores following Bloom and van Reenen as indicators of management quality. We find substantial heterogeneity in management practices across establishments in Germany, with small establishments having lower scores than large establishments on average. We show a robust positive and economically important association between the management score and establishment level productivity in Germany. This association increases with establishment size. Comparison to a similar survey in the United States indicates that the average management score is lower in Germany than in the United States. Overall, our results point toward lower management quality being at least in part to blame for the differences in aggregate productivity between Germany and the United States.

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Wage gaps between migrants and natives persist in Germany, and traditional human capital endowments or work environments only partially explain these gaps. This article investigates whether noncognitive skills contribute to explaining male migrant wage gaps in Germany. While the economics literature shows that noncognitive skills affect educational and occupational outcomes, such as gender wage gaps, it is unclear if the same applies to the migrant wage gap. To address this lingering question, we analyze risk preference and the “Big Five Personality Dimensions,” a psychological concept categorizing an individual's personality into five factors. In doing so, we show that male migrants and male German natives differ in their average noncognitive skills and that these skills significantly relate to wages. The results of Oaxaca–Blinder wage decompositions reveal that noncognitive skills significantly contribute six percentage points to explaining the male migrant wage gap in Germany. We conclude that noncognitive skills are important predictors of heterogeneities in labor market outcomes.