In light of the remarkable number of young people who pass through a period of temp work at the beginning of their career the question arises whether labor market entry via temporary work agency (TWA) employment has any (persistent) effects on labor market outcomes. We investigate this issue...

This paper examines recent trends in employment patterns on the labor market for youth and changing returns to early employment stability over the past four decades. True state dependence is identified by exploiting exogenous variation in aggregate labor market conditions induced by differences...

We examine patterns of earnings volatility for male employees who are subject to statutory social security contributions in West Germany over the period 1986 - 2005. For this purpose, we analyse individual records covering highly reliable earnings biographies provided by the German Social...

This paper estimates the labor market effects of being awarded with a training voucher using an instrumental variable approach. In Germany all public sponsored further training programs are allocated through vouchers and the system, we study here, thus represents a major case of the use of...

This paper is the first to estimate the effect of one partner's entry into unemployment on the mental health of both spouses in Germany. In order to give the estimates a causal interpretation, this study focuses on an exogenous entry into unemployment (plant closure) and applies a...

Models built on the classical quality-quantity trade-off predict an increase in child quality and a decrease in child quantity in poor developing countries when parental wealth and educational levels increase. This paper tests this prediction empirically in a cross-sectional framework with data...

In this paper incumbency effects in Federal Elections and Mayoral Elections in Germany are estimated using a quasi-experimental design which allows for causal inference under a set of rather mild assumptions. Relying on nonparametric and parametric estimation procedures and exploiting a recently...

In this paper I analyze the relationship between unemployment and criminal activity. Using a unique panel data set on German counties covering the years 2003 to 2009, I estimate the effect of unemployment on crime rates for different kind of offenses. I extensively control for potential...

Empirical work on the causal effect of government fragmentation finds diversified results. This might be explained by the fact that studies typically are settled in different institutional environments. To assess in how far the political system might shape the effects of fragmentation, this...