This article investigates how age diversity within a company's workforce affects company productivity. It introduces a theoretical framework that helps integrate results from a broad disciplinary spectrum of ageing and diversity research to derive empirically testable hypotheses on the effects of age diversity on company productivity. It argues that first the balance between costs and benefits of diversity determines the effect of age diversity on company productivity, and that second the type of task performed acts as a moderator. To test these hypotheses, it uses a large-scale employer-employee panel data set. Results show that increasing age diversity has a positive effect on company productivity if and only if a company engages in creative rather than routine tasks.

This paper proposes a new measurement for the specificity of occupations based on a content analysis of training curricula that we link to labor market demands. We apply Lazear's (2009) skill weights approach and test predictions on labor market outcomes derived from his theory. We find clear evidence of a trade-off between earning higher returns with more specific training and higher occupational mobility with less specific training. Our measure improves the micro-foundation of human capital specificity and provides an evidence-based approach to evaluate the specificity of training curricula.

Little is currently known about the effects of skill composition on academic entrepreneurship. Therefore, in this paper, following Lazear's (2005) jack-of-all-trades approach, we study how the composition of a scientist's skills affects his or her intention to become an entrepreneur. Extending Lazear, we examine how the effect of balanced skills is moderated by a balance in working time and peer effects. Using unique data collected from 480 life sciences researchers in Switzerland and Germany, we provide first evidence that scientists with more diverse and balanced skills are more likely to have higher entrepreneurial intentions, but only if they also balance their working time and are in contact with entrepreneurial peers. Therefore, to encourage the entrepreneurial intentions of life scientists, it must be ensured that scientists are exposed to several types of work experience, have balanced working time allocations across different activities, and work with entrepreneurial peers; e.g., collaborating with colleagues or academic scientists who have started new ventures in the past.

This paper presents the first survey evidence about the agent and associated event which triggers the establishment of a works council. We argue that the request of risk protection is a relevant trigger mechanism and show that an organisational shock causes the establishing of a works council. We argue that an organisational shock increases uncertainty of the workforce based on information asymmetries about the security of the workplaces. Furthermore, we show that the workforce alone calls for election in around two third of all cases and in the other third, the management was involved in the establishment. Here, the management values the expected productivity enhancement more than the potential rent redistribution.JEL Classification: J53, J32, J83, M54

This study provides the first econometric analysis on the dynamic dimension of establishmentlevel codetermination in Germany. We hypothesize that learning implies a change in the nature and scope of codetermination over time. Using unique data from small-and medium-sized establishments, our empirical analysis provides strong evidence that learning indeed plays a crucial role in the functioning of works councils. First, the probability of an adversarial relationship between management and works council is decreasing in the age of the council. Second, the council's age is positively associated with the probability that the council has an influence even on decisions where it has no legal powers. Third, productivity is increasing in the age of the council. Fourth, the quit rate is decreasing in the age of the council. However, the estimates also provide evidence of a codetermination life cycle.

Unlike traditional start-ups, innovative start-ups and their respective market partners are faced with severe problems of asymmetric information due to their lack of prior production history and reputation. Here, we study whether and how entrepreneurial signaling via education can help innovative entrepreneurs signal their abilities to banks and prospective employees. We argue that innovative entrepreneurs signal their quality by means of certain characteristics of their educational history. In particular, we expect potential employees to use an entrepreneur’s university degree as a quality signal when deciding whether to accept a job at an innovative start-up, and we expect banks to use a more precise indicator, namely the actual length of study in relation to a standard length, as a signal when deciding to extend credit to an innovative founder. By contrast, traditional start-ups are not faced with the same problems of asymmetric information, so we do not expect employees or banks to require the same signals from them. We empirically test our hypotheses using a dataset of more than 700 German start-ups collected in 1998/99. All hypotheses are borne out by the data. Copyright Springer 2007M13, M5, D82, M21,

Although studies of student employment (‘earning while learning’) mostly find positive wage effects, they do not adequately consider the relation of the employment to the field of study. We investigate how different types of student employment during tertiary education affect short‐ and long‐term labour market returns. Beyond examining differences between non‐working and part‐time working students, we distinguish between student employment related and unrelated to the field of study. Our results show significant positive labour market returns of ‘earning while learning’ only for student employment related to the field of study. These returns consist of a lower unemployment risk, shorter job‐search duration, higher wage effects, and greater job responsibility.

This study analyzes the relationship between discriminatory social attitudes toward gender equality and firms’ pay-setting behavior by combining information about regional votes on constitutional amendments on equal rights for women and men with a large data set of multi-establishment firms and workers. The results show a strong relationship between discriminatory social attitudes toward gender equality and gender pay gaps within firms across regions. The results remain robust, even when the authors account for detailed worker and job characteristics and for regional sorting of firms. Overall, the results suggest that gender pay gaps are larger in regions where more people oppose gender equality rights. In other words, in the same firm women earn lower wages than their male coworkers in regions where more people have discriminatory social attitudes toward gender equality.