"In 2010, the German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) declared the level of social assistance according to the Second and Twelfth Book of the Social Code (SGB II and SGB XII) in its form at that time as non-constitutional. In response to the verdict the...

University level data are used to determine whether different types of fees affect university enrolment of first-year students differently at public universities in Germany. We find a significantly negative effect of the recently introduced tuition fees on enrolment. In contrast, the effect of...

"Die Studie beschäftigt sich mit den Einkommenswirkungen, die die Umsetzung des vierten Gesetzes für moderne Dienstleistungen am Arbeitsmarkt auf die Bezieher von Arbeitslosenhilfe hatte. Datengrundlage ist die Querschnittsbefragung 'Lebenssituation und soziale Sicherung 2005', die vom...

"Almost twenty years after German reunification there are still huge income disparities between western and eastern regions in Germany. The main purpose of the paper is to show how social transfer payments reduce these inter-regional disparities. In a first step we examine inequalities in the...

"We present first estimates of rates of non-take-up for social assistance in Germany after the implementation of major social policy reforms in 2005. The analysis is based on a microsimulation model, which includes a detailed description of the German social assistance programme. Our findings...

This paper studies whether the introduction of tuition fees at public universities in some German states had a negative effect on enrollment, i.e., on the transition of high school graduates to public universities in Germany. In contrast to recent studies, we do not find a significant effect on...

We use the recent introduction of tuition fees at public universities in seven of the sixteen German states to identify the effects of tuition fees on university enrollment of first-year students at German public universities. Our study differs from previous research in two important ways....

"We present first estimates of rates of non-take-up for social assistance in Germany after the implementation of major social policy reforms in 2005. The analysis is based on a microsimulation model, which includes a detailed description of the German social assistance programme. Our findings...

The reduction of income disparities between regions is a basic target of regional policy in most advanced economies. Although expenditures on social policies are substantial parts of government spending as compared with regional policies, yet little is known about their effects on regional...

Purpose International empirical evidence suggests that immigrants have a significantly higher risk than their native counterparts of being on welfare due to their observed characteristics. Nevertheless, it remains unclear if immigrants are also more prone to take-up benefits, conditional on...