In allen OECD-Ländern sind die Geburtenraten in den letzten vierzig Jahren erheblich gesunken. Trotz dieses gemeinsamen Trends kann aber sowohl in der zeitlichen Entwicklung als auch im aktuellen Stand des Geburtenverhaltens eine erhebliche Heterogenität beobachtet werden. Deutschland, Spanien...

Österreich und Deutschland sind nicht nur Nachbarländer sondern auch in der Geschichte Mitteleuropas historisch eng verbunden - so sehr, daß Österreicher und Deutsche neben der gemeinsamen Sprache auch wichtige Grundüberzeugungen politischer, sozialer und kultureller Art teilen. Trotzdem...

Im System der deutschen Privaten Krankenversicherung kommt es bei lebenslangen Verträgen zum Aufbau von Alterungsrückstellungen. Beim Versichererwechsel werden diese nach alter Rechtslage gar nicht, nach der Gesundheitsreform 2007 nur im Rahmen eines Basistarifs übertragen. Zu ermitteln ist...

This paper studies a two-region model in which unemployment, education decisions andinterregional migration are endogenous. The poorer region exhibits both lower wagesand higher unemployment rates, and migrants to the richer region are disproportionallyskilled. The brain drain from the poor to...

The consequences of introducing or tightening time limits on receiving high unemploymentbenefits are studied in a shirking model. Stricter time limits have an ambiguousimpact on the net wage, and changes of utility levels of employed workers and recipientsof high unemployment benefits have the...

We consider lifetime health insurance contracts in which ageing provisions are used tosmooth the premium profile. The capital stock accumulated for each individual can bedecomposed into two parts: a premium insurance and an annuitised life insurance, onlythe latter being transferable between...

There exists substantial variation across countries as to whether and how students are grouped in classes according to ability. Economic analyses stress that there is joint production of human capital in schools, where output increases with mean ability in the class. Ability tracking may...

Hierarchical and comprehensive school systems are compared with respect to efficiency. At given ability, a student's probability of not completing school rises with increasing mean ability in class. Both school systems can yield identical average failure rates. Given that output losses in case...

The paper deals with the question of whether fiscal transfers re-ceived by cities can be justified by a higher cost of producing publicly provided goods. In the model, increasing the population density implies both a higher output per capita due to agglomeration economies and a higher cost of...

Two alternative relative compensation schemes are compared with respect to total output that can be generated at a given sum of salaries. While the promotion regime guarantees that any salary increase is permanent, the premium system allows a reduction in the income of an agent to the base...