The German apprenticeship training system is generally acknowledged to solve the youth unemployment problem prevalent in many European countries by providing on-the-job training that often leads into subsequent regular employment within the training firms. Little attention has been paid to those...

In this paper we predict the pure demographic effect on medical expenditure of the German Statutory Health Insurance Scheme. To isolate this effect, we assume that the age-specific expenditure for medical treatment as observed in 1991 remains constant over the whole prediction period (1991 until...

The paper develops and applies a Grossman-style health production model set up in discrete time to explain the impact of environmental pollution on the demand for both health and health care. In order to introduce the environment, our analysis takes changes in environmental conditions to...

This paper analyses the pure demographic effect on medical expenditure and the contribution rate of the German Statutory Health Insurance Scheme. To isolate this effect, we assume that the age-specific expenditure for medical treatment as estimated in 1995 remains constant over the whole...

In the face of complex budget constraints the assumption of rationally acting individuals having complete knowledge of the tax system is a theoretical borderline. The specific issues examined in this study are (i) to what extent do consumers (here married women) perceive their true marginal tax...

This paper addresses three major aspects of firms' process innovative activity: forward- looking behaviour, uncertainty w.r.t. returns of R&D investments, and oligopolistic competition on the product market. Assuming that R&D expenditures are cost-reducing investments, we derive an Euler...

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly...