The outcomes of the 2013 German Bundestag (federal parliament) are analyzed from the viewpoint of direct democracy. For this purpose, the party positions on 36 topical issues are compared with the results of public opinion polls, and the party and coalition indices of popularity (the average...

Reducing disparities among regions within European countries is the aim of European and national structural policies. In particular, a European grant contributes to the German governmental program for equalizing regional unemployment. The goal is to bring it down to the national average by...

The social security systems in 22 European countries are evaluated with a specially constructed indicator. It is based on a census-simulating model which combines both empirical (statistical) and normative (rule-based) approaches. The individual answers of unemployed on social security benefits...

Nach einer umfassenden Auswertung der Ergebnisse der Bundestagswahl 2005 hinsichtlich der Wahlprogramme bleibt die SPD die repräsentativste Partei Deutschlands, obwohl ihr Stimmenanteil nicht der höchste ist. Um dies zu zeigen, werden die Indikatoren der Popularität und der Universalität der...

The notion of flexicurity promotes the idea of compensation of labour market deregulation (= flexibilization) with advantages in employment and social security. To monitor effects of flexicurity policies in Europe, flexicurity indices are constructed from (a) scores of the strictness of...

The composite indicator "Quality of work" for comparing European countries is con- structed from data of the Third European Survey on Working Conditions. The main findings are as follows: (a) European countries differ with respect to working conditions statistically more significantly than with...

Reducing disparities among regions within European countries together with economic development is the aim of European and national structural policies. In particular, a European grant contributes to the German governmental program for reducing and equalizing regional unemployment. The goal is...

German structural policy is characterized by a composite indicator with three targets:(1) minimization of unemployment, (2) maximization of GDP, and (3) equalization of regional unemployment rates. The composite indicator with given target weights is maximized subject to budget constraints and...