Any serious empirical study of factor substitutability has to allow the data to display complementarity as well as substitutability. The standard approach reflecting this idea is a translog specification - this is also the approach used by numerous studies analyzing the relative capital-skill...

Large-scale environmental programs generally commit substantial societal resources, making the evaluation of their actual effects on the relevant outcomes imperative. As the example of the subsidization of energy-saving appliances illustrates, much of the applied environmental economics...

More than 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity. The UN have proclaimed the goal of providing electricity to all by 2030. In recent years, Pico-Photovoltaic kits have become a lower cost alternative to investment intensive grid electrification. Using a randomized controlled trial we...

Providing electricity to the unconnected 1.1 billion people in developing countries is one of the top political priorities of the international community, yet the costs of reaching this objective are very high. The present paper examines whether the objective and the associated costs are...

We investigate the extent to which asylum policies that aim to deter individuals from migrating irregularly in fact do so. We specifically consider effects of Germany's recent and high-profile asylum policy adjustments, which include accelerated asylum decision processes, the prospect of asylum...

Arguably, one of the most important developments in the field of applied economics during the last decades has been the emergence of systematic policy evaluation, with its distinct focus on the establishment of causality. By contrast to the natural sciences, the objects of our scientific...

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...

Since interventions by the public sector generally commit substantial societal resources, the evaluation of effects and costs of policy interventions is imperative. This paper outlines why program evaluation should follow well-respected scientific standards and why it should be performed by...

It is often argued that the labor market outcomes of several "problem groups" of German workers suffer disproportionately in an economic downturn. These groups are women, the unskilled, and young and old workers, respectively. Using monthly individual-level data for West Germany for the period...

Trotz des beachtlichen personellen und finanziellen Aufwands, der in der Bundesrepublik für die Durchführung arbeitsmarktpolitischer Maßnahmen betrieben wird, ist ihr Erfolg in keiner Weise gesichert. Im Gegenteil, die bisherige Evaluierungspraxis verletzt nahezu durchgängig eine der...