Compulsory military service typically drafts young men when they are at the height of their learning ability. Thus, it can be expected to depress the demand for higher education since skill atrophy and the delayed entry into the civilian labor market reduce the returns to human-capital...

We identify the causal effect of compulsory military service on conscripts’ subsequent labor-market outcomes by exploiting the regression-discontinuity design of the military draft in Germany during the 1950s. Unbiased estimates of military service on lifetime earnings, wages, and employment...

Based on multivariate linear regression models, we analyze the effect of the lunar cycle and the number of sunspots occurring on a particular day on the number of births using social security data and controlling for a number of other potential confounders. The daily number of births between...

Das Ruhrgebiet hat in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten einen bemerkenswerten Strukturwandel durchlaufen. Stellenweise sind durchaus beachtliche Ansätze zu seiner wirtschaftlichen Revitalisierung erkennbar, es präsentiert sich heute wirtschaftlich vielfältiger als je zuvor. Nichtsdestoweniger sind...

In Deutschland wird bereits seit einiger Zeit eine lebhafte Debatte um die Einführung von Mindestlöhnen geführt. Kritiker des Mindestlohns verweisen insbesondere auf zu erwartende erhebliche Beschäftigungsverluste durch Einführung einer Lohnuntergrenze, Befürworter dagegen argumentieren...

Against the background of the current discussion on the introduction of statutory minimum wages in Germany, this paper analyzes the potential employment and fiscal effects of such a policy. Based on estimated labor demand elasticities obtained from a structural labor demand model, the empirical...

Using data on the valuation of Christmas gifts received by students in different fields at a German university, we investigate whether the endowment effect differs between students of economics and other respondents and whether it varies with the market price of the object under consideration....

Applied econometrics has recently emphasized the identification of causal parameters for policy analysis. This revolution has yet to fully propagate to the field of regional science. We examine the scope for application of the matching approach – part of the modern applied econometrics toolkit...

The reliability of general self-rated health status is examined using the reform of the public health insurance system of Germany in 2004 as a source of exogenous variation. Among others, the reform introduced a co-payment for ambulatory doctor visits and increased the co-payments for...