Does the supply of a welfare state create its own demand? Many economic scholars studying welfare arrangements refer to Say's law and insinuate a self-destructive welfare state. However, little is known about the empirical validity of these assumptions and hypotheses. We study the dynamic effect...

We study the relationship between education and fertility, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms in Europe as source of exogenous variation in education. Using data from 8 European countries, we assess the causal effect of education on the number of biological kids and the incidence of...

We study the relationship between job quality and retirement using panel data for European countries (SHARE). While previous studies looked at the impact of bad working conditions on retirement intentions, we can use the panel dimension to study actual retirement as well as other pathways out of...

We study the contribution of health-related behaviors to the health-education gradient by distinguishing between short-run and long-run mediating effects: while in the former only current or lagged behaviors are taken into account, in the latter we consider the entire history of behaviors. We...

We study the relationship between education and cognitive functioning at older ages by exploiting compulsory schooling reforms, implemented in six European countries during the 1950s and 1960s. Using data of individuals aged 50+ from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE),...

Prognostizieren ist schwer, vor allem, wenn es die Zukunft betrifft - mit diesen wie mit anderen Mahnungen werden Praktiker wie Wissenschaftler davor gewarnt, sich auf das dünne Eis des Orakels von Delphi zu begeben. Auch ironisierende Menetekel aus der Literatur wie Mark Twains Bemerkung über...

In the spring 2001, the world economy is in a delicate situation. The vigorous growth momentum that prevailed in the recovery in 1999 and into 2000 is clearly gone. In the second half of 2000, global growth decelerated rapidly. In contrast to the last downturn of the world economy in 1997/98,...

European integration is expected to enhance the attractiveness of EL) countries for domestic and foreign investors. This has caused concerns in developing countries that foreign direct investment there may be diverted to Europe. In preparing for the Single Market, European companies have indeed...

The expansion of Western European production accelerated in the first half of 1997. Exports were the main engine, driven by a devaluation of European currencies and strong growth abroad. Domestic demand also picked up somewhat led by investment in machinery and equipment. Inflation remained at...

This paper asks the question: Why has the ?general-to-specific? cointegrated VAR approach as developed in Europe had only limited success in the US as a tool for doing empirical macroeconomics, where what might be called a ?theory comes first? approach dominates? The reason this paper highlights...