The request for a strengthening of academic research at the German economic research institutes by the German Science Council more than a decade ago was founded on the crucial insight that sound policy advice - the traditional task of the institutes - can only be guaranteed in the long term if...

Using a stochastic frontier approach this paper evaluates the effects of substantial changes in the teaching material on students' learning efficiency. The results indicate that the main effects of the re-organization on the learning efficiency was a decreasing importance of students' attendance...