Embedded Files
“Minimum Wages and the Rise in Solo Self-Employment” (joint with Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage and Angelika Ganserer), updated January 2024, Major Revision at Industrial and Labor Relations Review.
Effects of a minimum wage introduction on the share of solo self-employed individuals (synthetic difference-in-differences)
The figure shows the estimates for East and West Germany based on the synthetic difference-indifferences outlined in Equation 1. The 95 % confidence intervals are based on bootstrapped standard errors with 100 replications. The dashed line represents the introduction of minimum wages in 1997.
Abstract: Within a quasi-experimental setting, we show that the first-time adoption of industry-specific minimum wages led to a doubling in the share of solo self-employment in areas with a strong bite. We explain this with the minimum wage-driven cost shock, which led to reduced labor demand and wages for dependent employment while creating incentives for independent employment. Our results suggest that dependent workers have been involuntarily pushed into more precarious alternative work arrangements, with poorer social security and lower incomes. Such unintended side effects are likely to occur when the minimum wage is set extraordinarily high, especially during an economic downturn.
Press: IZA Newsroom, ZEW News.
Versions: Earlier versions published as IZA Discussion Paper No. 15283 as well as ZEW Discussion Paper No. 22-024 .
“Frontier Technology Adopters and the Aggregate Decline of Routine Jobs” (joint with Melanie Arntz, Sabrina Genz, Florian Lehmer, and Ulrich Zierahn-Weilage), 2024, R&R at Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization.
De-routinization by adoption group between 2011 and 2016, Germany
The figure depicts the change in the share of occupations by task domain among the workforce employed at adoption group g. Weighted with time-varying employment-weighted firm stratification weights.
Abstract: This paper highlights the nuanced relationship between firms' technology adoption and the employment structure of the economy. Leveraging a novel firm survey that we link to German administrative employment records, we categorize firms based on their technology adoption status. We find that frontier technology adopters significantly contribute to the economy-wide decline in routine and rise of non-routine cognitive jobs, primarily through firms with complementary workforce skills. Our results suggest (1) a continued de-routinization with frontier technology adoption, (2) the importance of complementary skills for the decline of routine jobs, and (3) a fallacy of drawing economy-wide conclusions from within-firm workforce adjustments.
Press: IZA Newsroom
Awards: Best Poster Award 2018 of the European Association of Labour Economics (EALE) .
Versions: Earlier version published as IZA Discussion Paper No 16740 and ZEW Discussion Paper.
"Firm-level Technology Adoption in Times of Crisis" (joint with Melanie Arntz, Michael Böhm, Georg Graetz, Florian Lehmer and Cäcilia Lipowski), 2025, updated in Aug, submitted.
Annualized investment rates in frontier technology before and during Covid-19
The figure shows the investment rates in office and production frontier technology before versus during the Covid-19 pandemic. Investments during the pandemic are further categorized based on whether
they were made due to the pandemic. Only main investments included. Annualized numbers from Table 3 in the paper are given that the period before (during) the pandemic was on average approximately 3.54 (2.11) years long.
Abstract: We investigate the diffusion of frontier technologies across German firms before and during the Covid-19 crisis. Our analysis tracks the nature, timing, and pandemic-related motivations behind technology investments, using tailor-made longitudinal survey data linked to administrative worker-firm records. Technologies adopted after the onset of the pandemic increasingly facilitated remote work and mitigated the negative employment effects of the crisis. Overall, however, investments in frontier technologies declined sharply, equivalent to a loss of 1.4 years of pre-pandemic investment activity. This procyclical adoption pattern is particularly striking since the pandemic created clear incentives to experiment with new technologies. Our findings highlight how short-run fluctuations may influence medium-run economic growth through their impact on technology diffusion.
Press: Der Spiegel, t3n, Heise Online, ZEW press release, Mannheimer Morgen, Markenartikel, IZA Newsroom.
Versions: Published as ZEW Discussion Paper No 24-057. See also ZEW Policy Brief No. 24-14.
“Evolving Skill Demands in the Age of AI: Evidence from Europe” (joint with Najada Feimi, Christina Gathmann, and David Marguerit).
“Evolving Skill Demands in the Age of AI: Evidence from Europe” (joint with Najada Feimi, Christina Gathmann, and David Marguerit).
Trends of Skills Demand, 2018–2023
Trends of Skills Demand, 2018–2023
Panel shows the evolution of the index of demand for each skill group over the same period. All values are aggregated across occupations and industries using EU-LFS employment weights.
Abtract: The capabilities of AI have expanded rapidly in recent years; yet, our understanding how AI affects labor demand remains very limited. We use 31 million online job ads from four European countries to investigate how the demand for skills and occupations has shifted in response to AI. Our analysis relies on advanced ML models to extract and classify skills from job ads in multiple languages. We document a significant growth in the demand for AI, data and prediction skills in exposed occupations, but a decline in social skills since 2018. We also observe significant shifts in the skill sets of exposed occupations pointing towards greater skill specialization. Finally, we show that there is some indication that there is exposed occupations become less labor-intensive, but that employers demand more workers in these occupations.
"Impact of Firm-Level Technology Adoption on Workers" (joint with Sabrina Genz and Florian Lehmer), 2025, currently in revision.
Abstract: We estimate the impact of firm-level adoption of new digital technologies on workers wages, employment stability, and earnings. For this, we collected novel data that links survey information on firms' technology adoption to administrative social security data. Our survey measure allows us to distinguish between waves of technology and captures not only developments in automation but also digitalization spurred by a greater connection of technologies. After providing some stylized facts on technology adoption in Germany, we compare individual outcomes of comparable workers employed at technology adopters with those at non-adopters. Endogenous firm-level technology adoption is instrumented with firms' historical share of tech workers prior to the imvestment. Depending on the wave of technology, we find evidence for improved employment stability, higher wage growth, and increased cumulative earnings in response to digital technology adoption.
Press: IZA Newsroom, NBC
Versions: earlier version published as IZA Discussion Paper No 14626 and ZEW Discussion Paper No. 21-073.
"Mapping Artificial Intelligence: Evidence from Firm-Level Web Data in Europe (joint with Julio Garbers).
"Mapping Artificial Intelligence: Evidence from Firm-Level Web Data in Europe (joint with Julio Garbers).
Abtract: We develop a novel firm-level indicator of Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption in Europe by applying a Large Language Model to more than three million firm websites from Belgium, France, Germany, and Luxembourg (2016–2024). The method detects not only whether firms adopt AI, but also their role in the AI ecosystem and the type of AI technology they employ. The share of AI-active firms grew from 1\% in 2016 to 12\% in 2024, with acceleration after 2022. We document a structural transformation: the ecosystem is shifting from specialized AI core technology providers toward broader AI adopters, signaling widespread diffusion. While adoption is concentrated among larger, younger, knowledge-intensive firms in urban innovation clusters, workforce skills emerge as a key factor associated with AI adoption. Our skill-level analysis suggests that foundational Data skills form the necessary base for adoption, while specialized AI skills act as strong complements.
Work in progress
Work in progress
"Do Minimum Wages Encourage Capital Deepening?” (joint with Christina Gathmann and Boris Ivanov).
"Do Minimum Wages Encourage Capital Deepening?” (joint with Christina Gathmann and Boris Ivanov).
Abtract: Much of the literature on the labor market impact of minimum wages has focused on employment or displacement effects. We investigate instead whether the adoption of minimum wages encourages firms to invest in capital intensity or outsource some of their production steps. Our analysis exploits rich balance sheet data, matched with administrative data, on firms that became exposed to industry-specific minimum wages in Germany. The data allows us to investigate whether incumbent firms with more scope for capital-labor substitution increase their capital intensity, and/or whether firms entering the treated industries raise their capital intensity after the minimum wage introduction. We also look at the effect of minimum wages on outsourcing, and show how firms adjust their workforce alongside changes in capital expenditures.
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