The essay reports the personal experience of providing policy advice in the early years of the labor market reforms at the beginning of the last decade after the scientific reorientation carried out by the German research institutes on the request of the German Research Council. The Council was...

The request for a strengthening of academic research at the German economic research institutes by the German Science Council more than a decade ago was founded on the crucial insight that sound policy advice the traditional task of the institutes can only be guaranteed in the long term if it is...

Based on the hypothesis that microdata are of crucial importance for internationally competitive economic research and scientific advice in economic and social policy, the authors develop various proposals for an improved data supply for empirical work in Germany. Present shortcomings are mainly...