Early intervention is considered the optimal response to developmental disorders in children. We evaluate a nationwide developmental screening programme for preschoolers in Austria and the resulting interventions. Identification of treatment effects is determined by a birthday cutoff-based...

The incidence of Cesarean deliveries (CDs) has been on the rise. The procedure's cost and benefits are discussed controversially; in particular, since non-medically indicated cases seem widespread. We study the effect of CDs on subsequent fertility and maternal labor supply. Identification is...

We analyze mortality and follow-up costs of heart attack patients using administrative data from Austria from 2002-2011. As treatment intensity in a hospital largely depends on whether it has a catheterization laboratory, we focus on the effects of patients' initial admission to these...

This paper examines the influence of implicit information on willingness to pay (WTP) values for prevention of the risk of dying in an avalanche. We present the results of a contingent valuation (CV) study carried out in Austria in two different periods (fall 2004 and winter 2005). The...

Sensitivity (proportionality) of willingness to pay to (small) risk changes is often used as a criterion to test for valid measures of economic preferences. In a contingent valuation (CV) study conducted in Austria, 1,005 respondents were asked their willingness to pay (WTP) for preventing an...

A publisher uses an honor system for selling a newspaper in the street. The customers are supposed to pay, but they can also pay less than the price or not pay at all. We conduct an experiment to study honesty in this market. The results show that appealing to honesty increases payments, whereas...

We study the effect of the size of the welfare state on family outcomes in OECD member countries. Exploiting exogenous variation in public social spending, due to varying degrees of political fractionalization (i.e. the number of relevant parties involved in the legislative process), we show...

Does tax evasion run in the family? To answer this question, we study the case of the commuter tax allowance in Austria. This allowance is designed as a step function of the distance between the residence and the workplace, creating sharp discontinuities at each bracket threshold. The distance...

Social insurance programs typically comprise sick-leave insurance. An important policy parameter is how the costs of lost productivity due to sick leave are shared between workers, firms, and the social security system. We show that this sharing rule affects not only absence behavior but also...

Numerous papers report a negative association between parental divorce and child outcomes. To provide evidence whether this correlation is driven by a causal effect, we exploit idiosyncratic variation in the extent of sexual integration in fathers' workplaces: Fathers who encounter more women in...