This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political down-turn of this proposal were...

This paper presents empirical results from a German case study on how economists and others involved in economic sustainability research from different schools of thought think about the issues of sustainability and economics, how they group around these issues, how they feel about the current...

This papers studies the effects on service quality and consumer surplus of a minimum price which is fixed by a bureaucratic non-monopolistic professional association. It shows that the price floor set by a Niskanen-type professional assocation will maximize consumer surplus only if consumers...

Im vorliegenden kleinen Aufsatz werden der Geschichte der deutschen Wiedervereinigung 1990 drei „Fußnoten“ angefügt. Zu den Themen „Abschätzung der Produktivität der DDR-Wirtschaft“, „Dauer des Aufholprozesses der Neuen Bundesländer“ und „Rentenangleichung“. Anschließend...

It is striking that economists in particular firmly believe in the benefits of rule-binding, even though this belief runs counter to the standard assumption of economic theory that we humans are self-interested and therefore extremely resourceful when it comes to circumventing inconvenient...

Für das im Jahr 2025 stattfindende 100-jährige Jubiläum des DIW Berlin und dessen Geschichte ist die hier vorgelegte Dokumentation eines 1999 geführten Gesprächs zwischen den ehemaligen DIW-Abteilungsleitern Fritz Franzmeyer und Reinhard Pohl einerseits und Gert G. Wagner andererseits von...

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...

This paper examines the implication of the move to CAPI for data quality by analyzing the conversion from PAPI to CAPI of a subsample of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) which was done within an experimental design. The 2000 addresses for the sample E of SOEP were split into two subsamples...

Using data from the long-running German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) 1984-2008, this paper analyses the effects of individual preferences and choices on subjective well-being (SWB). It is shown that preferences and choices relating to life goals/values, partner's personality, hours of work,...

Statistische Daten sind im allgemeinen - gemessen an idealtypischen Erhebungsbedingungen - nicht fehlerfrei, insbesondere können sie durch die Art, wie sie erhoben werden, beeinflusst werden ("Erhebungsartefakte"). Interviewereffekte spielen in diesem Zusammenhang in der Literatur eine...