We analyze the distributive justice of the combined burden of taxes, social security contributions and public transfers on employee households. In order to investigate whether the treatment of families by the aggregate tax-benefit system can be regarded as "fair" we compare the equivalent...

Single parents and unmarried couples are increasingly replacing the traditional nuclear family. This paper investigates if the greater variety in living arrangements contributes to increased resource disparities among children in Germany. Children in single parent families are disadvantaged in...

Microcredit, a financial tool providing uncollateralized loans to low-income individuals, has seen a shift from joint-liability (JL) to individual liabil- ity (IL) lending models. This article tests a theory explaining this shift, focusing on borrowers matching into groups exposed to similar...

Most bibliometric databases only provide names as the handle to their careers leading to the issue of namesakes. We introduce a universal method to assess the risk of linking documents of different individuals sharing the same name with the goal of collecting the documents into personalized...

This study focuses on the role of heterogeneity in network peer effects by accounting for network-specific factors and different driving mechanisms of peer behavior. We propose a novel Multivariate Instrumental Variable (MVIV) estimator which is consistent for a large number of networks keeping...

Since redemocratization in 1985, Brazil’s system of social protection became more focused on the neediest while at the same time emphasizing universal access, especially focusing education and healthcare. In a traditional context of severe inequality, the sub-national units of government...

Patent renewal studies reveal a highly rightward-skewed distribution of patent values. Our approach elicits valuations approximating those of the patented invention. This paper focuses on the full-term patents of the application year 1977 held by West German and U.S. residents. The tail of...

Rising poverty and inequality increases the risk of social instability in countries all around the world. For measuring poverty and inequality there exists a variety of statistical indicators. Estimating these indicators is trivial as long as the income variable is measured on a metric scale....

Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes...

We explore the tail of patented invention value distributions by using value estimates obtained directly from patent holders. The paper focuses on those full-term German patents of the application year 1977 which were held by West German and U.S. residents. The most valuable patents in our data...