Based on new, exceptionally informative and large German linked employer-employee administrative data, we investigate the question whether the omission of important control variables in matching estimation leads to biased impact estimates of typical active labour market programs for the...

We examine whether government ideology was correlated with the growth in military expenditure in Germany over the period 1951-2011. By using various measures of government ideology, the results do not show any effect. The exception is an ideology measure based on the Comparative Manifesto...

Economists, and also economic research institutes, differ in their attitudes towards desirability of economic policies. The policy positions taken can often be determined by ideology. We examine economic policy positions by investigating minority votes in the Joint Economic Forecast of German...

In January 2005 the German Supreme Court permitted the state governments to charge tuition fees. By exploiting the natural experiment, we examine how government ideology influenced the introduction of tuition fees. The results show that rightwing governments were active in introducing tuition...

We examine moonlighting by politicians in Germany. In July 2007, the German Supreme Court adjudicated that members of parliament (MPs) have to publish details of their outside earnings. Using panel data models, we investigate how outside earnings are correlated with absence and parliamentary...

Members of parliament (MPs) often decide on their own salaries. Voters dislike self-serving politicians, and politicians are keen to gratify their voters. In line with the political business cycle theories, politicians thus may well delay deciding on increases in salaries until after elections....

In 2009 a new law on German debt brakes was passed: state governments are not allowed to run structural deficits after 2020. Consolidation strategies initiated today influence if a state can comply with the debt brake in 2020. We describe to what extent government ideology predicts if state...

We estimate short, medium, and long-run individual labor market effects of training programs for unemployed by following program participation on a monthly basis over a ten-year period. Since analyzing the effectiveness of training over such a long period is impossible with experimental data, we...