In 2004, the German Social Health Insurance introduced a co-payment for the first doctor visit in a calendar quarter. I combine a structural model of health care demand and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the effect of that reform on the number of visits. In the model, the...

This paper focuses on human capital and physical capital of households in Slovakia during the economic reforms of the last two decades. We compare households who entered the labor market before and after the economic reforms in 1990. On the one hand, we study the returns to education by...

The literature suggests that in developing countries illness shocks at the household level can have a negative and severe impact on household income. Few studies have so fare examined the effects of mortality. The major difference between illness and mortality shocks is that a death of a...

It is sometimes argued that introducing Indoor Residual Spray (IRS) in areas with high coverage of mosquito bed nets may discourage net ownership and use, which would hinder Malaria eradication rather than promote it. We analyze new data from a Randomized Control Trial conducted in Eritrea in...

We study the Medicare Part D prescription drug insurance program as a bellwether for designs of private, non-mandatory health insurance markets that control adverse selection and assure adequate access and coverage. The value that Part D or other prescription drug coverage has for an individual...

We investigate the additionality effects of Eurostars, Europe's largest multilateral subsidy program for R&D-performing small and medium sized enterprises. A specific budget allocation rule serves as an instrument and allows us to identify the local average treatment effect of public R&D grants....

In Germany as in many other European countries there will be a shift in the age structure of the workforce in the next decades. The number of older workers will increase whereas the number of young and middle aged workers will decline. This paper provides evidence how the demographic ageing...

This paper compares endogenous social interactions models to determine which one fits the classroom reality best. The analysis uses data from German 9th-graders and considers the effect of the best and worst peers scores, the peers sum and peers average scores on own achievement. Although each...

This paper examines the relationship between economic growth and the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector for a panel of 503 Brazilian micro-regions for the period 1980-2004 using panel spatial econometrics. It investigates the importance of the SME sector size measured by the share of the...