There is a widespread belief among economists that adding additional variables to a regression model causes higher standard errors. This note shows that, in general, this belief is unfounded and that the impact of adding variables on coefficients' standard errors is unclear. The concept of...

We analyze survey data on the proposal to introduce a tax exemption for caregiving heirs to the German inheritance tax. Some 80 percent of the participants support this exemption. We explain interpersonal differences in the support for this tax exemption using a wide range of personal...

In order to analyze if heterogeneity in psychological traits affects individual performance in sequential tournaments, we conducted a tennis field experiment. In the experiment, we also varied the payment schemes (individual, team, competition) to control for moderating effects of different...

This paper estimates the effect that changes in the size of the youth population have on the wages of young workers. Assuming that differently aged workers are only imperfectly substitutable, economic theory predicts that individuals in larger age groups earn lower wages. We test this hypothesis...

When countries need to implement costly economic policy reforms, these often imply uncertainties about their effectiveness for the home country and their spillovers to other countries. We develop a model to show that under these circumstances countries implement too few or too many policy...

This paper estimates the effect that the size of an individual's labour-market entry cohort has on the subsequent duration of search for employment. Survival-analysis methods are applied to empirically assess this relationship using a sample of apprenticeship graduates who entered the German...

Levels of CO2 emissions from electricity generation in the U.S. have changed considerably in the last decade. This development can be attributed to two factors. First, the shale gas revolution has reduced gas prices significantly, leading to a crowding out of the more CO2-intensive coal for...

This paper explores the causal influence of Western television programming on crime rates. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in which only geography and topography determined the allocation of individuals to treatment...

This paper explores the causal influence of access to Western television programming on voting behavior. We exploit a natural experiment involving access to West German TV within the German Democratic Republic in which only geography and topography determined the allocation of individuals to...

Interoperability has become a buzzword in European policy debates on the future of the digital economy. In its Digital Agenda, the EU Commission has identified a lack of interoperability as one of the significant obstacles for the thriving of the digital economy. The EU Commission and a number...