This paper investigates the role of self-productivity and home resources in ability formation from infancy to adolescence. In addition, we study the complementarities between basic cognitive, motor and noncognitive abilities and social as well as academic achievement. Our data are taken from the...

This paper investigates the role of self-productivity and home resources in capability formation from infancy to adolescence. In addition, we study the complementarities between basic cognitive, motor and noncognitive abilities and social as well as academic achievement. Our data are taken from...

Using experimental data of children and their mothers, this paper explores the intergenerational relationship of impatience. The child's impatience stems from a delay of gratification experiment. Mother's impatience has been assessed by a choice task where the mothers faced trade-offs between a...

This study investigates institutional and economic reasons for downward wage rigidity regarding three occupational skill groups. Based on a survey of 801 firms in Germany and an econometric analysis, we find strong support for explanations based on the effects of labour union contracts and...

Despite a sequence of labor market reforms in recent years, employment of older workers in Germany is still lower than in many other European countries. The paper explains this by institutional factors that affect labor supply, labor demand and matching, i.e. labor market regulation, human...

Entrepreneurial activity is often regarded as an engine for economic growth and job creation. Through tax policy, governments possess a potential lever to influence the decisions of economic agents to start and close small businesses. In Germany, the top marginal income tax rates were reduced...

This paper contributes to the policy-relevant question whether self-employment is a way out of (long-term) unemployment. We estimate the relationship between the entry rate into self-employment and previous (long-term) unemployment on the basis of pseudo-panel data for Germany in the period...

With the Hartz reforms active labor market policies in Germany were overhauled considerably. The paper reviews the recent evaluation findings and draws some conclusion for the future setup of active labor market policies in Germany. It argues in favor of a streamlined repertoire of active labor...

We evaluate three policy reforms targeted at older unemployed people: (i) an hourly wage subsidy, (ii) an in-work credit, and (iii) a subsidy of social security contributions on low wages. The work incentive, labour supply and welfare effects of these hypothetical reforms are analysed on the...

The paper reviews national and international experiences with different combinations of in-work benefits, subsidized employment, statutory minimum wages and implicit minimum wages defined by social assistance provisions. It calls for a cautious approach regarding the introduction of additional...