In response to increasing health expenditures and a high number of physician visits, the German government introduced a copayment for ambulatory care in 2004 for individuals with statutory health insurance (SHI). Because persons with private insurance were exempt from the copayments, this health...

In this paper we develop a dynamic structural life-cycle model of labor supply behavior which fully accounts for the effects of income tax and transfers on labor supply incentives. Additionally, the model recognizes the demand side driven rationing risk that might prevent individuals from...

In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal minimum wage of € 7.5 per hour on the basis of a...

We analyze the effect of imposed benefit sanctions on the unemployment-to-employment transition of unemployed people entitled to unemployment compensation on the basis of register data from the German Federal Employment Agency. We combine propensity score matching with a discrete-time hazard...

In a carbon constrained world, at least four classes of greenhouse gas mitigation options are available: Energy efficiency, fuel switching, introduction of carbon dioxide capture and storage along with renewable generating technologies, and reductions in emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases....

Increasing work incentives for people with low incomes is a common topic in the policy debate across European countries. The Mini-Jobʺ reform in Germany - introduced on April 1, 2003 - can be seen in line with these policies, exempting labour income below a certain threshold from taxes and...

This paper shows that the measurement of hand grip strength provides a non-invasive and reliable objective health indicator for social science research and is easy to collect in general population surveys. Grip strength is not only a useful complement of self-reported indicators of health, but...

Using micro panel data, labor market transitions are analyzed for the EU-member states by cumulative year-by-year transition probabilities. As female (non-)employment patterns changed more dramatically than male employment in past decades, the analyses mainly refer to female labor supply. In...

In this study we have addressed the relationship between the stock market, the measure of real economic activity (represented by the real GDP), the economic sentiment indicator, and real interest rate for the five European countries: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. We find...

We investigate the relevance of the Carroll's sticky information model of inflation expectations for four major European economies (France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom). Using survey data on household and expert inflation expectations we argue that the model adequately captures the...