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We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but additionally with respect to non-cognitive skills (personality). We measure the direction of technological change by estimated future digitalization probabilities of occupations, and non-cognitive skills by the Big Five personality traits from four German worker surveys. Even though we control for education and work experience, we find that workers who are more open to experience, emotionally more stable and less agreeable will tend to be less susceptible to digitalization. We also find that future technological progress may not continue to hollow out the middle class as much as it did in the recent past. These results suggest that education and labor market policies should put more emphasis on children’s and workers’ personalities to strengthen their labor market resilience in the digital age.

This paper examines the link between innovation and the endowments of creative and science oriented STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – workers at the level of the firm and at the city-/regional-level in Germany. It also looks into whether the presence of these two groups of workers has greater benefits for larger cities than smaller locations, thus justifying policies to attract these workers in order to make German cities ‘smarter’. The empirical analysis is based on a probit estimation, covering 115,000 firm-level observations between 1998 and 2015. The results highlight that firms that employ creative and STEM workers are more innovative than those that do not. However, the positive connection of creative workers to innovation is limited to the boundaries of the firm, whereas that of STEM workers is as associated to the generation of considerable innovation spillovers. Hence, attracting STEM workers is more likely to end up making German cities smarter than focusing exclusively on creative workers.

Using comprehensive data for German establishments (1999-2008), we estimate plant-level production functions to analyze if 'cultural diversity' affects total factor productivity. We distinguish diversity in the establishment's workforce and in the aggregate regional labor force where the plant is located. We find that a larger share of foreign workers –either in the establishment or in the region –does not affect productivity. However, there are strong spillovers associated with the degree of cultural heterogeneity. The aggregate level is, quantitatively, at least as important as the workforce composition inside the establishment. Diversity thus seems to induce externalities beyond the boundaries of a single firm; it improves local business environments.

There is a broad body of theoretical and empirical literature dealing with trip chaining behaviour. This paper adds to the literature while focusing on the impact of activity chaining on the duration of time spent on individual purposes. Two questions in particular are addressed: first, does an additional purpose added to a trip chain affect the duration of the activities included? Second, is there any pattern of included activities that explains differences in duration? Duration data models are employed using German data. We find evidence that the number of purposes influences duration significantly. Leisure, shopping and personal business activities are affected by the occurrence of obligatory activities (work, school/university). We cannot find any evidence that personal business or leisure activities influence the duration of shopping, whereas the opposite is supported. Therefore, in terms of daily activities, obligatory and shopping activities are superior to leisure and personal business. We conclude that activity chaining and especially the pattern of combined purposes affect the duration of activities allocated to single purposes while controlling for a wide range of other explanatory variables. The results can be used in transport and simulation models.

Because of an inflow of people into the EU but also because of the freedom of workplace choice within the EU, European regions are becoming more diverse in cultural terms. Despite the redistribution of labour and changes in regional labour supply, the ultimate question raised is whether there are additional gains or losses as a result of immigration flows. This paper therefore focuses on the impact of migrants on regional Gross Domestic Product per capita for European regions. Does the proportion of foreigners in the labour force increase or lower regional income? Does the composition of non-natives with respect to their countries of origin matter? We provide evidence that immigration and a higher degree of cultural diversity raise regional income, while controlling for endogeneity. We show that cultural diversity promotes income gains for destination countries. Whereas the presence of dominant groups reduces the costs of interaction and integration, diversity among foreign-born people increases the supply of different skills, knowledge and tasks. Thus, in general immigration has a positive net effect on regional performance and the costs of immigration in destination regions are balanced out. The regions of origin within the EU face a rise or a decline in income, depending on the labour market status of movers.

We explore the impact of the age structure of human capital on average regional productivity by applying a spatial econometric analysis based on an augmented Lucas-type production function. We also apply a new definition of regional human capital focusing on its availability. The estimates provide evidence that there are age specific human capital effects in Germany and that a temporary increase in regional productivity could occur during the demographic transition. Furthermore, it becomes clear that the availability-based definition of human capital provides additional insight and so, could enrich future studies on regional human capital. Resumen Exploramos el impacto de la estructura de edades del capital humano sobre la productividad regional media mediante un analisis econometrico espacial basado en una funcion de produccion tipo Lucas aumentada. Aplicamos tambien una nueva definicion de capital humano regional poniendo enfasis en su disponibilidad. Las estimaciones aportan pruebas de que en Alemania existen efectos del capital humano especificos de la edad y que la productividad regional podria aumentar temporalmente durante la transicion demografica. Ademas, queda claro que la definicion de capital humano basada en la disponibilidad aporta conocimientos adicionales y por lo tanto podria enriquecer en el futuro estudios sobre capital humano regional.

European regions differ considerably in their population age structure. This implies the questions, whether a specific age structure is favorable for regional per capita output growth and whether differences in the age structure induce differences in per capita output growth between regions. To explore this questions we carried out a spatial econometrics cross-section analysis of the NUTS2 regions of the EU15. We found evidence that there is such a link and that spatial autocorrelation matters, even after controlling for country specific effects. The most significant growth effect is generated by the cohort of age 30–44.