Government agencies and other national and international institutions are asked to perform forecasts over the medium term. In particular, the EU Stability and Growth Pact contains the obligation to formulate stability programmes over four years, covering a general economic outlook as well as the...

Despite similar levels of per capita income, education, and technology the development of labour shares in OECD countries has displayed different patterns since 1960. The paper examines the role of demography in this regard. Employing an overlapping generations model we first examine the...

Using data on German university graduates, this paper analyzes wage differentials by field of study at labor market entry and five to six years later. At both points in time, graduates from Arts and Humanities have lower average monthly wages compared to other fields of study. Blinder-Oaxaca...

In this paper we use the frequency domain Granger causality test of Breitung/Candelon (2006) to analyse short- and long-run causality between energy prices and prices of food commodities. We find that the oil price Granger causes all the considered food prices. However, when controlling for...

This paper examines the patterns of educational assortative mating in East and West Germany. In the literature it is well known that individuals do not mate randomly with respect to social and cultural traits, and that highly assortative mating can lead to polarization and exacerbate economic...

The increasing use of food commodities for biofuel production has substantial impact on prices and quantities of these and other food commodities. It is therefore likely that this trend also intensifies the competition for arable land. However, evidence for this hypothesis is generated by...

German universities are regarded as being under-financed, inefficient, and performing below average if compared to universities in other European countries and the US. Starting in the 1990s, several German federal states implemented reforms to improve this situation. An important part of these...

There is a large literature on the influence of institutional characteristics on student academic achievement. In contrast, relatively little research focuses on student time allocation and its effects on student performance. This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the effect...

In the academic debate there is a broad consensus that house price fluctuations have a substantial impact on financial stability and real economic activity. Therefore, it is important to have timely information on actual and expected house price developments. The aim of this paper is to measure...