This paper investigates how post-school education decisions are affected by a one-year reduction of secondary school duration with an unchanged curriculum. Until recently, Germany had had a longstanding tradition of 13 years of schooling in preparation for university. During the last decade,...

Findings of prolonged non-employment spells due to more generous unemployment benefits are commonly seen as an indication of reduced job search effort and moral hazard behavior. However, to date, there is hardly any direct evidence of benefit-induced reductions in search effort. This paper...

This paper explores the causal influence of Western television programming on crime rates. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in which only geography and topography determined the allocation of individuals to treatment...

This paper explores the causal influence of access to Western television programming on voting behavior. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic in which only geography and topography determined the allocation of individuals to...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level of about €500 per semester, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice and have been abolished recently. Whereas other studies have shown no...

This paper explores the causal influence of media content on voting behavior. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic. Focusing on federal and state election outcomes in the post-reunification decade (i.e., a time at which TV...

We use the separation and later reunification of Germany after World War II to show that a political regime shapes time preferences of its residents. Using two identification strategies, we find that former residents of the German Democratic Republic exhibit a significantly less pronounced...

Are preferences exogenously given? Or do individual tastes and values evolve endogenously within a particular socio-economic environment? In this paper, we make use of a natural experiment to analyse the role of inflation experiences and institutions in the formation of individual inflation...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice, and have been abolished. Whereas other studies have shown no effect on enrollment, we analyze the...