We report empirical evidence from the first field experiments to be conducted in Germany with program and control groups between 1999 and 2002. The evaluated program called ?Targeted Negative Income Tax (TNIT)? is a time-restricted employee subsidy for means-tested welfare recipients. We focus...

This paper evaluates the linkage between social security strategies and redistributive effects in EU social transfer systems. It is argued that the various European systems produce different patterns of redistribution that may be explained by the adoption of different mixes of social security...

This paper advocates the cautious and constitutional evolution of existing basic income schemes (?unemployment benefit II?) and Targeted Negative Income Tax (TNIT = "Einstiegsgeld") into a means-tested combi-wage model for the future long-term unemployed (gradualism strategy). The paper argues...

Wie lässt sich die Grundsicherung in Deutschland effizienter und gerechter ausgestalten, wenn das Arbeitslosengeld II aus politischen Gründen nicht generell gesenkt werden soll und keine zusätzlichen unteren Lohngruppen durch die Tarifpartner vereinbart werden? Das Mannheimer...

Assar Lindbeck has pointed to the problem that generous welfare state institutions may in the long-run undermine those social norms which limit the costs and incentives effects of the welfare state and thus guarantee its viability. This study is the first to assess the empirical validity of...

This paper analyses the distributive impacts of various regulatory and institutional settings of European schemes of social assistance. For this purpose, two sets of classifications of European schemes of social assistance are introduced that classify the systems according to regulatory...

We estimate the effects of the reform of the German Unemployment Insurance that replaced the wage related Unemployment Assistance with an income maintenance program and stronger means testing. We model the tax-benefit system and use the Socio-Economic Panel. We estimate a discrete labour supply...

In this paper, the relationship between the degree of centralisation and the distributive outcomes in European schemes of social assistance is investigated. For this purpose, a scheme of classification suitable for grouping the EU15 schemes except for Luxembourg according to features related to...

The current empirical literature on the impact of EU Cohesion Policy on the economic growth rates of the European regions mainly relies on functional form assumptions. However, it is ex ante not clear which functional form is appropriate with regard to the relationship between structural funds...

This paper evaluates the effects of a professionally assisted consumer-directed program (Personal Budgets) compared to the standard home care programs of the German long-term care insurance. The evaluation makes use of a long-run social experiment at seven different sites with a random...