Using SOEP data (1984-2006) we analyze the role of parental background for transitions to tertiary education in Germany and answer three questions: (a) does the relevance of parental background shift from short-term (contemporary income) to long factors (ability, parental education) at higher...

We use reforms in the Swiss public retirement system to identify the responsiveness of retirement timing to financial incentives. A permanent reduction of retirement benefits by 3.4 percent induces more than 70 percent of females to postpone their retirement. The responsiveness of male workers,...

We study state dependence in the German welfare system and compare transition patterns before and after recent reforms of the welfare system (Hartz Reforms). Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we apply dynamic multinomial logit estimators and find that welfare transitions have...

We study the development of teenage fertility in East and West Germany using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) and from the German Mikrozensus. Following the international literature we derive hypotheses on the patterns of teenage fertility and test whether they are relevant in the...

We investigate the causal effect of youths' age at immigration on subsequent educational attainment in the destination country. To identify the causal effect we compare the educational attainment of siblings at age 21, exploiting the fact that they typically migrate at different ages within a...

Summary The theory of fiscal federalism argues that local governments should only tax mobile tax bases for the purpose of charging user taxes which correct for congestion effects. Empirically, we observe that local governments do levy taxes on mobile bases. In Germany, this is the local business...

The share of immigrants in the German social assistance program exceeds their population share and continues to grow. This study evaluates the causes of this phenomenon and tests for the effects of assimilation, cohort, age at migration, and country of origin on immigrant behaviour. It uses...

Employment protection systems are known to generate significant distortions in firms’ hiring and firing decisions. We know much less about the impact of these regulations on workers behaviour. The goal of this Paper is to fill in this gap and in particular to assess whether the provision of...

This study investigates the determinants of applications for U.S. disability benefits between 1986 and 1993 using a semiparametric discrete factor procedure separately for men and women. Approximating a dynamic optimization model, the estimation accounts for a variety of potential biases that...

We study the development of teenage fertility in East and West Germany using data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) and from the German Mikrozensus. Following the international literature we derive hypotheses on the patterns of teenage fertility and test whether they are relevant in the...