In many economic models a central variable of interest is lifetime or permanent income which is not observed in survey data sets and typically proxied by annual income information. To assess the quality of such approximations, we use a unique source of lifetime earnings - the German pension...

This paper investigates the transferability of human capital across countries and the contribution of imperfect human capital portability to the explanation of the immigrant-native wage gap. Using data for West Germany, our results reveal that, overall, education and labor market experience...

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 are...

In this paper we argue that future inflation in an economy depends on the way people perceive current inflation, their inflation sentiment. We construct some simple measures of inflation sentiment which capture whether price acceleration is shared by many components of the CPI basket. In a...

This paper analyses the monetary policy interdependence between the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Federal Reserve (Fed) for the period 1999-2006. Two models are specified: a partial Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) and a general VECM. In the partial VECM, we look for a long-run...

Using a newly available and multifaceted dataset provided by the German Federal Statistical Office, this paper is the first to investigate both technical and cost efficiency of more than 1500 German general hospitals conducting a stochastic frontier analysis. The empirical results for the years...

Previous studies argued that low investment-cash flow sensitivities of German firms may be caused by dominance of public banking.The paper addresses this topic and applies a unique accounting dataset of German firms. Results from a dynamic panel data approach show that the dependence of...

Individual heterogeneity plays a key role in explaining variation in self-reported well-being and, in particular, health satisfaction. It is hypothesised that the influence of this heterogeneity varies over levels of health and increases over the life-cycle. These hypotheses are tested with data...