This paper investigates how post-school education decisions are affected by a one-year reduction of secondary school duration with an unchanged curriculum. Until recently, Germany had had a longstanding tradition of 13 years of schooling in preparation for university. During the last decade,...

An important education reform in Germany reduced the duration of university preparatory schooling from 13 to 12 years, but left the curriculum unchanged. In the state of Saxony-Anhalt the reform was completed in 2007 with a double cohort of graduates, providing a natural experiment. We use...

The undersupply of spots in German daycare facilities for toddlers challenges parents' possibilities to work. To ease the situation, the government implemented a new law entitling every child between ages one and three to daycare supervision for about four hours per day. Nevertheless, the...

Less than a decade ago, several German states introduced tuition fees for university education. Despite their comparatively low level, fees were perceived by the public to increase social injustice, and have been abolished. Whereas other studies have shown no effect on enrollment, we analyze the...

The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt...

"This study evaluates the effects of job-creation measures (ABM) in Germany on the participants' individual integration into regular employment. An extensive and informative data set from the data stock of the Federal Employment Services (Bundesagentur für Arbeit - BA) is used for the study....

"In a number of empirical studies, the effects of job creation schemes for participating individuals in Germany were analysed from various standpoints by means of microeconometric evaluation. Based on the findings of those studies, we assess the effectiveness of the programmes with regard to the...

We analyze the role of personality in occupational choice and wages using data from Germany for the years 1992 to 2009. Characterizing personality by use of seven complementary measures, the empirical findings show that it is an important determinant of occupational choice. Associated with that,...

There is an increasing economic literature considering personality traits as a source of individual differences in labor market productivity and other outcomes. This paper provides an overview on the role of these skills with a particular focus on measurement and estimation. Based on the...