This paper studies the Balassa-Samuelson effects in two areas with strong differences in economic development, sixteen OECD countries and sixteen Latin American economies. The USA is taken as a benchmark. Applying recent panel cointegration and bootstrapping techniques that solve for...

In this paper we develop a methodology for identifying a population group surveyed latently in the (target) survey relevant for further processing, for example poverty calculations, but surveyed explicitly in another (source) survey, not suitable for such processing. Identification is achieved...

Nach den Armuts- und Reichtumsberichten der Bundesregierung hat die Einkommensarmut in Deutschland den höchsten Stand seit 20 Jahren erreicht. Dieser statistische Befund wird vielfach als Beleg für die Existenz und das Wachstum einer "abgehängten Unterklasse" gesehen. In anderen Szenarien...

My research examines within-nation differences as well as cross-national differences in socially stratified outcomes, specifically the distribution of household incomes. I build on the considerable empirical evidence suggesting that group memberships are important factors in shaping one' s life...

While some scholars interpret the frequently documented association between age and the strength of party identification as evidence of accumulated political learning, others stress the importance of critical life stages. Germany's turbulent last century, with its suspensions of democratic...

This paper is the first to analyze the impact of family background on permanent earnings based on sibling correlations in Germany and to provide a cross-country comparison of Germany, Denmark, and USA. The main findings are that family and community background has a stronger influence on...

The belief that both the behavior and outcomes of students are affected by their peers is important in shaping education policy. I analyze two polar education systems -tracking and mixing- and propose several criteria for their comparison. I find that tracking is the system that maximizes...