This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political down-turn of this proposal were...

This papers studies the effects on service quality and consumer surplus of a minimum price which is fixed by a bureaucratic non-monopolistic professional association. It shows that the price floor set by a Niskanen-type professional assocation will maximize consumer surplus only if consumers...

The differing paradigms of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics have been described in various articles and books and are also embedded in different institutional settings. However, we cannot take for granted that the paradigm debates described in the literature are actually...

This paper uses data from the GSOEP to look at the relationship between labor force status and fatherhood among men in East and West Germany. For many years, in particular from the late fifties through the mid-seventies, fertility patterns in the East and West were quite similar. With the...

As from a political economy perspective, politicians often fail to implement structural reforms, we investigate if the resistance to reform is based on the differences in the risk preferences of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. Based on the empirical results of a survey of the population in...

Für das im Jahr 2025 stattfindende 100-jährige Jubiläum des DIW Berlin und dessen Geschichte ist die hier vorgelegte Dokumentation eines 1999 geführten Gesprächs zwischen den ehemaligen DIW-Abteilungsleitern Fritz Franzmeyer und Reinhard Pohl einerseits und Gert G. Wagner andererseits von...

To the best of our knowledge, most of the few methodological studies which analyze the impact of faked interviews on survey results are based on 'artificial fakes' generated by project students in a 'laboratory environment'. In contrast, panel data provide a unique opportunity to identify data...

"Soziale Dienste" wie die institutionalisierte Kinderbetreuung werden in Deutschland vorwiegend vom Staat selbst bzw. von frei-gemeinnützigen Trägern angeboten. Für die Nutzung dieser sozialen Dienste werden dabei in der Regel Gebühren verlangt, die unterhalb der tatsächlichen Kosten...

This paper studies the current crisis in the German pension system and discusses the various reform proposals.