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...

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...

The introduction of the German parental leave benefit (Elterngeld) applied to all children born on January 1st, 2007 or later. The new Elterngeld considerably changed the amount of transfers to families during the first two years postpartum. We show that the incentives created by using a cut-off...

Over the last decades many OECD countries introduced parental leave regulations in order to counteract low and decreasing birth rates. In general, these regulations aim at making parenthood more attractive and more compatible with a working career, especially for women. The recent German...

Informal care by close family members is the main pillar of most long-term care systems. However, due to demographic ageing the need for long-term care is expected to increase while the informal care potential is expected to decline. From a budgetary perspective, informal care is often viewed as...

Germany introduced a new mandatory insurance for long-term care in 1995 as part of its social security system. It replaced a system based on means tested social welfare. Benefits from the long-term care insurance are not means tested and depend on the required level of care. The insurance...

Increasing mothers’ labor supply is a key policy challenge in many OECD countries. Germany recently introduced a generous parental benefit that allows for strong consumption smoothing after childbirth and, by taking into account opportunity costs of childbearing, incentivizes working women to...

In Germany, individuals in need of long-term care receive support through benefits of the long-term care insurance. A central goal of the insurance is to support informal care provided by family members. Care recipients can choose between benefits in kind (formal home care services) and benefits...

The production of charcoal to meet cooking needs of urban households is one of the main causes of deforestation and degradation of Africa’s tropical forests, which offer significant carbon sequestration capacity to the global economy. In collaboration with a reputable local microfinance...

The perception of risks associated with climate change appears to be a key factor for the support of climate policy measures. Using a generalized ordered logit approach and drawing on a unique data set originating from two surveys conducted in 2012 and 2014, each among more than 6,000 German...