In federal systems, the powers and responsibilities must be divided up between central government and individual states in such a way as to enable the center effectively to carry out its duties for the nation as a whole, while allowing the lower levels of government to pursue their own regional...

In this paper we analyse with the PISA data on literacy achievement of fifteen-year-old pupils in six member countries of the OECD, whether the fact of having many siblings affects the individual educational outcome. The hypothesis that we test is whether parents? resources matter for...

This paper examines differences in educational achievement between immigrants and natives in ten countries with a high population of immigrant pupils: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. The first step of the analysis shows...

Since financial derivatives are key instruments for risk taking as well as risk reduction, it is only straightforward to examine their role in currency crises. This paper addresses this issue by investigating the impact of currency futures trading on the underlying exchange rates. After a...

A famous idea to maintain affordable health expenditures is to cut back statutory health insurance (SHI) to a basic insurance and to introduce supplementary private health insurance (PHI), permitted to cover the remaining benefits and to apply managed care mechanisms. The measure is supposed to...

Literature examining immigrants' educational disadvantage across countries focuses generally on average differences in educational outcomes between immigrants and natives disguising thereby that immigrants are a highly heterogeneous group. The aim of this paper is to examine educational...

This paper uses the findings of a very recent major international research collaboration on the impact of federal arrangements on the development of the welfare state to explore the possibilities of progress beyond Europe's present diversity of nation-state welfare standards. These findings -...

Eine zentrale Aufgabe der Föderalismuskommission II besteht in der Suche nach geeigneten institutionellen Rahmenbedingungen für eine wirksame Begrenzung der Verschuldung von Bund und Ländern. Welche Erfahrungen wurden im Ausland mit Haftungsbegrenzungen von Staatsschulden gemacht? Wäre...

This paper provides a characterization of the fiscal policy framework in four established federal countries with heterogeneous intergovernmental relations and demographic characteristics: Canada, Germany, Switzerland and the United States. We consider the implications of fiscal federalism from...

"The immigration of workers will remain a topic in future. That is why it makes sense to take a look at the immigration regulations of countries with high immigration figures. Switzerland was selected in addition to the classical immigration countries of Australia, Canada and the USA. The...