This study was prepared by Nadine Fabritz while she was working at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in the Department for Human Capital and Innovation. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in October...

This paper examines regional differences in subjective well-being (SWB) in Germany. Inferential statistics indicate a diminishing but still significant gap between East and West Germany, but also differing levels of SWB within both parts. The observed regional pattern of life satisfaction...

A key goal of politicians is to ensure a sustainable and stable economic growth path for their domestic economy. Economic forecasts are powerful tools for reducing uncertainty about future economic growth. While most of the research conducted to date has focused on nation states, this thesis by...

This volume was prepared by Constantin Mang while he was working at the Ifo Institute. It was completed in 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich. It includes a short introduction and four self-contained chapters that focus on ICT...

While available evidence suggests that the events of September 11th negatively influenced the relative earnings of employees with Arab background in the US, it is not clear that they had similar effects in other countries. Our study for Germany provides evidence that the events also affected the...

Throughout adulthood and old age, levels of well-being appear to remain relatively stable. However, evidence is emerging that late in life well-being declines considerably. Using long-term longitudinal data of deceased participants in national samples from Germany, the UK, and the US, we examine...

This paper is the first to analyze intergenerational economic mobility based on sibling correlations in permanent earnings in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and the US. The main findings are as follows: the importance of family and community background in...

Previous estimates of unfair inequality of opportunity (IOp) are only lower bounds because of the unobservability of the full set of endowed circumstances beyond the sphere of individual responsibility. In this paper, we suggest a new estimator based on a fixed effects panel model which...

Why has the college wage premium risen rapidly in the United States since the 1980s, but not in European economies such as Germany? We argue that differences in employment protection can account for much of the gap. We develop a model in which firms and workers make relationship-specific...

This volume was prepared by Benedikt Siegler while working at the Center for the Economics of Education of the Ifo Institute. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich (LMU) in November 2014. The thesis includes...