German family policy underwent a reform in 2007, when the new instrument of "Elterngeld" replaced the previous "Erziehungsgeld". The transfer programs differ in various dimensions. We study the effects on the labor supply of young mothers, by comparing behavior before and after the reform. We...

This paper contributes to the debate about the optimal design of tax-transfer systems. Based on the theory of optimal taxation, combined with microsimulation and microeconometric techniques we derive the welfare function which makes the current German tax and transfer system for single women...

This paper decomposes the differences in aggregate market hours between US and Europe across gender-skill groups and finds that low-skilled women are the biggest contributors to aggregate differences, with the exception of Nordic countries. We develop a model to account for the gender-skill...

We analyze empirically the optimal design of social insurance and assistance programs when families obtain insurance by making labor supply choices for both spouses. For this purpose, we specify a structural life-cycle model of the labor supply and savings decisions of singles and married...

The study examines the effects of work orientations and work-leisure choices alongside the effect of genes or personality traits on subjective well-being (SWB). The former effects are assumed to be mediated by the match between women's preferred and actual number of working hours indicating...