Job Market Candidates 2025/26
Ph.D. Program in Economics

Education

Ph.D., Economics, Goethe University Frankfurt, GSEFM program, 2019-present
M.Sc., Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, 2016
B.Sc., Economics, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, China, 2014

Fields of Specialization

Empirical labor economics, Labor and corporate finance, Income inequality, Firm dynamics

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant - Chair of Applied Statistics and Econometrics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

Ph.D. level: Advanced Econometrics

Master level: Econometrics of Cross-Section and Panel Data; Empirical Labor Economics (Seminar); Microeconometrics; Supervision of Master’s Theses

Bachelor level: Empirical Labor Economics (Seminar)

Curriculum Vitae

Click here to download the CV.

References

Working Papers

Firms’ Risk Adjustments to Minimum Wage: Financial Leverage and Labor Share Trade-off (Job Market Paper)

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact of the German minimum wage policy on firms’ financial leverage, using firm-level variation in treatment intensity. The results show that the minimum wage reduces financial leverage by 0.5 to 0.9 percentage points (1–2% of the mean). Mechanism analysis indicates that the minimum wage increases firms’ labor share, reflecting higher operating risk and firms substitute it by deleveraging. The rise in labor share is closely tied to changes in production: on the input side, there is no significant capital–labor substitution; on the output side, value added rises and is redistributed more toward labor. Firms' risk substitution behavior enhances firm resilience following the reform and during the pandemic.  Overall, while the minimum wage benefits workers by allocating more earnings to the labor force, it also introduces greater operating risks and encourages conservative financial behavior among firms.

The Devil is in the Details: Heterogeneous Effects of the German Minimum Wage on Working Hours and Minijobs (with M. Bossler and T. Schank) (Revise and Resubmit at Journal of Public Economics)

Abstract: Germany introduced a national minimum wage in 2015. While prior studies find limited effects on overall employment, we go into detail and examine its impact on working hours and minijobs. The minimum wage significantly reduces inequality in hourly and monthly wages. While average working hours remain stable, minijobbers experience notable cuts in working hours, which is explained by the institutional context shaping the effects of the minimum wage. Employment in regular jobs remains unaffected, but minijobs decline, driven by transitions into both regular jobs and non-employment. The latter implies an employment elasticity of -0.16 for minijob employment. Following the first major minimum wage increase in 2022, we reveal a reduction in working hours that is not limited to minijobs, corresponding to an employment volume elasticity of -0.38.

Unpacking Wage Inequality: Minimum Wage Effects on Within- and Between-Firm Disparities

Abstract: This paper investigates how minimum wage policies can reduce wage inequality by influencing within and between firm inequality. Using rich administrative employer-employee linked data from Germany, I exploit the introduction of the national minimum wage in 2015 to analyze changes in the overall variance of daily wages and decompose these changes into within-firm and between-firm components. The Difference-in-Differences estimations reveal that the minimum wage lowers the overall variance of log daily wages by 8% to 12.6%. Crucially, most of this reduction stems from declines in between-firm variance, driven by decreases in worker-firm assortativeness, worker segregation, and the dispersion of firm-specific wage premia. I also detect substantial spillover effects among firms that were not directly exposed to the minimum wage requirement, accounting for 12% to 37% of the total drop in wage inequality.