We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use...

We review the empirical literature that studies the effect of ethnic diversity on the welfare state and on individual attitudes. The outcome variables that we cover in the survey are on the one hand public spending, and on the other hand individual attitudes and behaviour, including charity...

Using data from the 1997 and 2002 waves of the German Socio-Economic Panel and from official statistics, I study whether natives are less supportive of state help for the unemployed in regions where the share of foreigners among the unemployed is high. Unlike previous studies, I use...

How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2005 (with a phase-in period between 2002-04), the German pension administration started to send out annual letters providing detailed and...

Der Anfang der 1990er Jahre eingeführte Solidaritätszuschlag ist eine Ergänzungsabgabe zur Einkommensteuer, Kapitalertragsteuer und Körperschaftsteuer in Deutschland. In steuerpolitischen Debatten wird in regelmäßigen Abständen seine Abschaffung gefordert. Als eine Alternative zur...

How can retirement savings be increased? We explore a unique policy change in the context of the German pension system to study this question. As of 2004, the German pension authority started to send out annual letters providing detailed and comprehensible information about the pension system...

Based on a structural model of fertility and female labour force supply with unobserved heterogeneity and state dependence, we evaluate the 2007 reform of parental leave benefits in Germany, which replaced a flat, means-tested benefit by a generous earnings-related transfer. The model predicts a...

We estimate a structural life-cycle model of fertility and female labour supply and use it to evaluate the effects of a number of key family policy measures based on data for Germany. Parental leave benefits, child benefits and subsidized childcare are found to have substantial fertility...

This paper quantifies the life-cycle incidence of key family policy measures in Germany. The analysis is based on a novel dynamic microsimulation model that combines simulated family life-cycles for a base population from the 2009 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) with a...