Administrative data are considered the "gold standard" when measuring program participation, but little evidence exists on the potential problems with administrative records or their implications for econometric estimates. We explore issues with administrative data using the FoodAPS, a unique...

Within-country differences in educational outcomes are compared for a large group of industrialised countries. We investigate where inequality is greatest, the association between inequality in learning and average levels of learning, the interpretation of measured levels of inequality, and...

Nowcasting has been a challenge in the recent economic crisis. We introduce the Toll Index, a new monthly indicator for business cycle forecasting and demonstrate its relevance using German data. The index measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across...

The paper presents the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (ULMS), which is one of the most widely used household and labor force surveys in Eastern Europe. It is based on a statistically representative sample of the Ukrainian population aged between 15 and 72 years, comprising about 4,000...

Using a retrospective monthly calendarium of individuals' major economic activities, this paper characterizes the monthly employment and unemployment rates and the monthly transition intensities between the states of employment, unemployment, and out-of-thelabor- force for the German labor...

The international development community has used the World Bank's Statistical Capacity Index since its inception in 2004. The Sustainable Development Goals create new challenges for national statistical systems to produce high-quality and internationally comparable data. This paper reviews...

A country's statistical capacity takes an indispensable part in its development. We offer a comprehensive comparison between the World Bank's Statistical Performance Indicators and Index (SPI) and its predecessor, the Statistical Capacity Index (SCI) regarding different conceptual and empirical...

Country statistical capacity is increasingly recognized as crucial for development, but no academic study exists that reviews the available assessment tools. We offer the first review study that fills this gap, paying particular attention to data and practical measurement challenges. We compare...

In many environments, tournaments can elicit more effort from workers, except perhaps when workers can sabotage each other. Because it is hard to separate effort, ability and output in many real workplace settings, the empirical evidence on the incentive effect of tournaments is thin. There is...