Using data from the SOEP, we analyze the well-being impact of underemployment through over-education to examine a broader definition of employment loss. Persons leaving a job through exogenous reasons but entering directly into immediate employment may not find a perfect employment match and...

Using a large panel data set of German manufacturing establishments, this paper investigates the impact of competition on training incidence as well as on the number of trained workers. According to theory, one would expect a negative relationship between product market competition and firms'...

We test whether financial incentives have an effect on weight reduction in a randomized controlled trial involving 700 obese persons assigned to three experimental groups. While two treatment groups obtain €150 and €300, respectively, for achieving an individually assigned target weight...

When properly implemented, Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) can achieve a high degree of internal validity. Yet, if an RCT is to inform policy interventions that extend beyond the experimental population, it is critical to establish external validity. In this paper, we first present a...

Today 2.6 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass as primary cooking fuel, with profound negative implications for their well-being. Improved biomass cooking stoves are alleged to counteract these adverse effects. This paper evaluates take-up and impacts of low-cost improved...

Today 2.6 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass as primary cooking fuel, with profound negative implications for their well-being. Improved biomass cooking stoves are alleged to counteract these adverse effects. This paper evaluates take-up and impacts of low-cost improved...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the first time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were first assigned...

The classical Heckman (1976, 1979) selection correction estimator (heckit) is mis-specified and inconsistent if an interaction of the outcome variable and an explanatory variable matters for selection. To address this specifi cation problem, a full information maximum likelihood estimator and a...

For spatial data with a sufficiently long time dimension, the concept of global cointegration has been recently included in the econometrics research agenda. Global cointegration arises when non-stationary time series are cointegrated both within and between spatial units. In this paper, we...

In this paper, we study the long- and short-run relationship between regional public debt and economic performance for a sample of German federal states over the period of four decades (1970-2010). By choosing a sample of regional entities with comparable institutional settings, we complement...