The German Excellence Initiative was intended to strengthen university-based research and to create a set of internationally competitive elite institutions. The present article analyses whether or not designation as an elite institution has had an impact on the number of first-year students. Our...

Since 2006 school achievement of German students has been measured on a regular basis within the so-called national educational monitoring. The most recent results show considerable differences between the states. At first glance, students in the eastern and southern states perform well while...

Being granted a title enhances the status of the awardee while its loss has an opposite effect. The present article examines whether the latter effect dominates the former in the sense that elevation is less status-enhancing than relegation is status-damaging. Thereto, we use the three...

This paper studies whether the introduction of tuition fees at public universities in some German states had a negative effect on enrollment, i.e., on the transition of high school graduates to public universities in Germany. In contrast to recent studies, we do not find a significant effect on...

We use the recent introduction of tuition fees at public universities in seven of the sixteen German states to identify the effects of tuition fees on university enrollment of first-year students at German public universities. Our study differs from previous research in two important ways....

University level data are used to determine whether different types of fees affect university enrolment of first-year students differently at public universities in Germany. We find a significantly negative effect of the recently introduced tuition fees on enrolment. In contrast, the effect of...

This paper studies whether the introduction of tuition fees at public universities in some German states had a negative effect on enrollment, i.e., on the transition of high school graduates to public universities in Germany. In contrast to recent studies, we do not find a significant effect on...

We use the recent introduction of tuition fees at public universities in seven of the sixteen German states to identify the effects of tuition fees on university enrollment of first-year students at German public universities. Our study differs from previous research in two important ways....

We use matched survey and administrative data to study interviewer and interview related determinants of misreporting on welfare receipt in interviews. In our data, 12.2 % of German welfare recipients underreport benefit receipt. We find that underreporting is more likely in formal and...