Verbreitete Armut ist nach wie vor eines der zentralen Probleme der arabischen Entwicklungsländer, das nicht nur auf begrenzte Erwerbsmöglichkeiten und geringe Einkommen zurückgeht. Große Teile der Bevölkerung verarmen auch deshalb immer wieder, weil sie keinen adäquaten Zugang zu...

Drei große Reformenpakete und eine Reihe kleinerer Begleitmaßnahmen prägen das renten¬politische Erbe der rot-grünen Bundesregierung. Einerseits greifen sie Trends in der Reformpolitik seit Beginn der 90er Jahre auf. So verstärkt die Rentenstrukturreform 2001 beispielsweise die...

In 1993, the State of Iowa, through waivers, implemented reforms to its welfare program creating the Family Investment program (FIP), a program similar to the Federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program created in 1996. This paper examines the experiences of individuals and...

This paper models the fertility decision of individuals who differ in their wage rate and their intensity of preferences for rearing children, and whose utility of having a child out of wedlock depends on the level of “social approval” associated with doing so. This social approval in turn...

The first two essays of this dissertation use policy experiments to show that low-skilled newly arriving immigrants help keep the economy in geographic equilibrium by differentially selecting destinations that provide better labor market prospects. The first essay finds that immigrants choose...

This paper explores the relationship between economic growth and the welfare state. We argue that: (i) the institutional constraints set by the international monetary system may be at least as effective determinants of growth differentials between countries as the different dimensions of their...

Since the early 1970s, the scope for national social and economic policy in advanced industrial societies has been constrained by three consecutive changes in the international political economy. These were: 1) the breakdown of the Bretton Woods currency regime of fixed exchange rates and the...

The capitalist welfare state achieved its full development within the nearly closed national economies of the early postwar decades. After the rampant protectionism following the Great Depression, and after the complete breakdown of world markets in World War II, the restoration of international...