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...

This paper shows that in a search model where future employers of trained workers donot benefit from the training in other firms, investment into general training will only be below the competitive level if workers are credit constrained. If workers are credit constrained, then the training firm...

We introduce skill groups and different production technologies into the Burdett-Mortensen model of on the job search. Supermodularity of the different skill groups in the production process leads to a positive intra-firm wage correlation between skill groups. Increasing returns to scale allow...

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...

Since its inception, the traditional form of providing survivor benefits through public pension schemes has lost much of its legitimacy. As a result of fundamental changes in marriage behaviour and the typical division of labour between married spouses, offering non-contributory benefits of this...

Die Öffentlichkeit hat ein Interesse zu wissen, ob politische Maßnahmen die mit ihnen verfolgten Ziele wirksam und wirtschaftlich erreichen. In empirischen Studien, die als Grundlage für evidenzbasierte Wirtschaftspolitik dienen können, werden häufig komplexe Methoden verwendet, um...

We investigate a case of political favoritism. Some members of the Bavarian parliamenthired relatives as office employees who were paid using taxpayers’ money. The familyscandal was a hot issue in the German media because of the upcoming state and federalelections. We examine whether being...

In this study, we evaluate whether survey-based indicators produce lower forecast errorsfor export growth than indicators obtained from hard data such as price and costcompetitiveness measures. Our pseudo out-of-sample analyses and forecastencompassingtests reveal that survey-based indicators...

Exploiting the information contained in an economy’s input-output matrix and using the novel approach developed by Fisher and Marshall (2011), we calculate Rybczynski effects and Stolper-Samuelson effects for Germany in 2007. We show how sectoral outputand factor remuneration react to...

This paper explores the implications of gender-based income taxation in a noncooperative model of household behavior. In a first step, we show how gender-based taxes can act as Pigou taxes and correct the externality induced by a non-cooperative household equilibrium. We find that the first-best...