Information about special events can improve economic forecasts substantially. However, due to the lack of timely quantitative data about these events, it has been difficult for professional forecasters to utilise such information in their forecasts. This paper investigates whether Internet...

According to the German SAVE survey, more than 40 percent of households regularly save fixed amounts rather than flexibly adjusting savings to income variations as assumed by the Permanent Income Hypothesis (PIH). Fixed amount saving behaviour could thus imply a challenge to PIH-based standard...

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...

This study focuses on the long term eff ects of unemployment on subjective wellbeing in a family context for 17-24 year old sons living with at least one parent, using data from the German SOEP. As fathers enter unemployment, sons‘ subjective wellbeing is not only reduced immediately, but also...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is misspecified and inconsistent if an interaction of the outcome variable and an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specification problem, a full information maximum likelihood estimator and a...

This paper contributes to the analysis of policy measures that attempt to reduce health care expenditures of insurers. We examine the impact of a cash bonus program for preventive health behavior of a German health insurer on prevention effort and health care expenditures using a unique...

This study presents credible estimates for the causal effect of a variation in obesity on employment. By exploring random assignment of a weight loss intervention based on monetary rewards, I provide convincing evidence that weight loss positively affects the employment prospects of obese women...

This paper investigates the co-movements of job security perceptions and household saving rates using data from the 1992 to 2010 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel. The empirical analysis reveals that higher job insecurity is generally accompanied by slightly lower saving which suggests...