Social and/or political involvement within the population is often argued to enhance public sector performance. The underlying idea is that engagement fosters political awareness and interest and increases the public?s monitoring ability. Still, although extensive voter involvement may put...

German municipalities are expected to suffer from (often significant) population losses in the upcoming decades. We assess these local governments? vulnerability to the fiscal consequences of this demographic decline through two means (using a sample of 1021 municipalities in the state of...

We show that U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol is straightforward under political economy considerations. The reason is that U.S. compliance costs exceed low willingness to pay for dealing with global warming in the U.S. The withdrawal had a crucial impact on the concretion of the Protocol...

In Germany, the entry into the labor market for students in the nonacademic tracks of secondary schools may take multiple pathways. Students graduating from lower track secondary schools (LTSS) face major problems in school-towork transitions, prompting the provision of intensive career guidance...

There is an increasing economic literature considering personality traits as a source of individual differences in labor market productivity and other outcomes. This paper provides an overview on the role of these skills regarding three main aspects: measurement, development over the life...

There is an increasing economic literature considering personality. This paper provides an overview on the role of these skills regarding three main aspects of economic analysis: measurement, theoretical modeling, and empirical estimates. Based on the relevant literature from different...

This paper studies the effect of teacher expectations on essay grades in an experimental setting. To this purpose, we randomly assign Turkish or German first names to a set of essays so that some teachers believe a given essay was written by a German native pupil, whereas others believe it was...

Self-productivity is a crucial feature in the process of skill formation. It means that skills and health acquired at one stage in the life cycle enhance skills and health formation at later stages. This paper presents an empirical investigation of self-productivity in early childhood in...

Self-productivity is a crucial feature in the process of skill formation. It means that skills and health acquired at one stage in the life cycle enhance skills and health formation at later stages. This paper presents an empirical investigation of self-productivity in early childhood in...

It is a well-known fact that the level of parents' education is strongly correlated with the educational achievement of their children. In this paper,we shed light on the potential channels through which human capital is transmitted from mothers to their children in early childhood. The main...