Essays in labour economics

This thesis includes three essays that study the labor market in Germany and the United Kingdom, focusing on firm responses to globalization, the career trajectories of young workers, and the trade-off between wages and job amenities. Chapter 1 studies how German manufacturing firms adjust their labor inputs in response to trade shocks from the rising trade integration with China and Eastern Europe over the 1988–2010 period. Chapter 2 studies young workers’ job transitions in their first decade after entering the labor market in Germany, using a dynamic multinomial choice model. Chapter 3 attempts to estimate the compensating wage differential for paid holiday entitlement in the United Kingdom.