Using German administrative data, we study across‐regime low‐pay persistence in the context of an economic transformation process. We first show that individuals' initial allocation to the post‐unification low‐wage sector was close to random in terms of market‐regime unobservables. Consistent with a weak connection between individuals' true productivity and their pre‐unification low‐wage status, the extent of across‐regime state dependence is found to be small and appears to vanish over time. For males, across‐regime state dependence is most pronounced among the medium‐ and high‐skilled, suggesting the depreciation of human capital as an explanation.

中文翻译：

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低薪是否会在不同制度下持续存在？来自德国统一的证据

使用德国的行政数据，我们在经济转型过程中研究了跨区域的低薪持续性。我们首先表明，就市场体制不可观察而言，个人对统一后低工资部门的初始分配几乎是随机的。由于个人的真实生产率与其统一前的低工资状态之间的联系较弱，因此发现跨制度国家的依赖程度很小，并且随着时间的流逝而消失。对于男性，跨领域的国家依赖性在中级和高级技术人员中最为明显，这表明人力资本的贬值可以作为一种解释。