Recently, building on the highly polarizing Stiglitz report, a growing literature suggests that statistical offices and applied researchers explore other aspects of human welfare apart from material well-being, such as job security, crime, health, environmental factors and subjective...

This paper compiles a multidimensional poverty index for Germany. Drawing on the capability approach as conceptual framework, I apply the Alkire-Foster method using German panel data. I suggest new operationalizations for two dimensions: social participation and practical reason, the latter...

Local beer breweries in Burkina Faso absorb a considerable amount of urban woodfuel demand. We assess the woodfuel savings caused by the adoption of improved brewing stoves by these micro-breweries and estimate the implied welfare effects through the woodfuel market on private households as well...

This paper analyzes the incentive effects of affirmative action in competitive environments modeled as contest games. Competition is between heterogeneous players where heterogeneity might be due to past discrimination. Two policy options are analyzed that tackle the underlying asymmetry: Either...

This paper examines the role of social assistance payments (SAP or Sozialhilfe) in determining levels of life satisfaction in Germany using the SOEP 1995-2004. We find strong evidence that individuals in Germany are negatively influenced by increased SAP payments controlling for income, whether...

Since 2002 the German government seeks to stimulate private retirement savings by means of special allowances and tax exemptions – the so-called Riester scheme. We apply matching and panel regression techniques to assess the impact of the Riester scheme on households' propensities to save in a...

Recent literature on long-term care looks at the substitutability of informal and professional home-based care arrangements. Other factors that influence the utilization of informal care instead of formal care have been ignored in conditional analyses so far. However, regressors that represent...

This paper examines the impact of a change in the German child benefit system in 1996, which led to a large increase in lump sum transfers to families with children. We analyze the impact on the labor force participation of family members. Comparing behavioral changes of adults with children...