In response to PISA, all German federal states but one have adopted central exit examinations (CEEs) at the end of all secondary school tracks. Theoretically, the advantages of CEEs are fairly undisputed. CEEs make teaching and learning output observable and comparable across schools, and...

In this paper, we use data from the German PISA 2003 sample to study the effects of central exit examinations on student performance, student attitudes, and teacher behavior. Unlike earlier studies we use (i) a value-added measure to pin down the effect of central exit exams on learning in the...

Direct provision of public services can alter the balance of resources across income groups. We focus on the issues arising when taking account of the impact of publicly provided education services across the income distribution. We combine OECD information on spending per student in particular...

Die Pflegeversicherung steht unter finanziellem Druck: In den vergangenen Jahren wurden die Leistungen durch mehrere Reformen erheblich ausgeweitet. Die Leistungsausweitung zeigte sowohl bei der sozialen als auch bei der privaten Pflegeversicherung Folgen. Bei der sozialen Pflegeversicherung war...

Conventional wisdom suggests that if private health insurance plans compete alongside a public option, they may endanger the latter's financial stability by cream-skimming good risks. Documenting cream-skimming in dual insurance systems empirically is challenging, since selection into private...

This paper analyzes the German market for supplemental dental insurance (SuppDI) to identify selection behavior based on individuals’ private information. The rather limited underwriting by German private health insurers makes this market especially prone to selection effects. Although the...

Die Leistungen der Pflegeversicherung wurden seit 2017 durch das zweite Pflegestärkungsgesetz ausgeweitet. Weitere Leistungsausweitungen werden diskutiert. Als Beitrag zur Finanzierung wurde ein Finanzausgleich zwischen der privaten und der sozialen Pflegeversicherung vorgeschlagen, um diese zu...

The question non longer is if more competition should be introduced in the German water and sewerage sector. The issue rather is what kind of competition ought to be implemented. There are mainly three different approaches: Competition in the Market; Competition for the Market and the...

Due to recent legislation, Benchmarking in the German water and sewerage sector will be introduced as widely as possible. Under certain conditions this decision by the German Bundestag might help to improve the efficiency of the industry. I will define two sets of conditions. First, a useful...