This thesis analyzes two different aspects Social Policy in Germany is concerned with. This relates to (1) the aging of society and (2) the shifting household composition from 'classic' families to single-parent households. In Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 we analyze the evolution of the financial...

Economic theory suggests that the deterrence of deviant behavior is driven by a combination of severity and certainty of punishment. This paper presents the first controlled experiment to study a third important factor that has been mainly overlooked: the swiftness of formal sanctions. We...