This paper studies the causal effects of graduating from university with an honors degree on subsequent earnings. While a rich body of literature has focused on estimating returns to human capital, few studies have analyzed returns at the very top of the education distribution. We highlight the...

This paper studies the causal effects of graduating from university with an honors degree on subsequent labor market outcomes. While a rich body of literature has focused on estimating returns to human capital, few studies have analyzed returns at the very top of the education distribution. We...

This paper studies the causal effects of graduating from university with an honors degree on subsequent earnings. While a rich body of literature has focused on estimating returns to human capital, few studies have analyzed returns at the very top of the education distribution. We highlight the...

Dieser Aufsatz ist der Frage der Weiterentwicklung des SOEP insgesamt gewidmet. Daher nehmen wir in einem ersten Teil eine Bestandsaufnahme der Entscheidungsstrukturen zum Erhebungsprogramm ("Governance") vor. Im zweiten Abschnitt beschäftigen wir uns mit den Inhalten der SOEP-Erhebung - also...

Im Januar des Jahres 2008 begann die Feldarbeit der 25. Welle des SOEP. Im Jahr 2009 werden damit etwa 2 500 anonymisierte Datensätze von Personen zur Auswertung zur Verfügung stehen, die seit 1984 ununterbrochen an 25 Befragungen in den westdeutschen SOEP-Teilstichproben A und B teilgenommen...

Everyone is talking about public debt. Europe's economic and financial crisis is, not least, a crisis of sovereign and local government debt. In Germany, along with national and regional government debt, local authorities' obligations are also coming under the spotlight again. Using...

The financial relationship between central government and the federal states is about to undergo major reforms. In addition to reorganizing financial equalization, policy-makers are now discussing providing financial aid for structurally weak regions once the Solidarity Pact expires, bolstering...

We analyze a constitutional change in the German State of Bavaria where citizens, not politicians, granted themselves more say in politics at the local level through a constitutional initiative at the state level. This institutional setting allows us to focus on revealed preferences for direct...

Signature requirements are often used as hurdles to prevent overuse of direct democratic instruments such as citizen initiatives. We evaluate the causal effect of lowering signature requirements on the number of observed citizen initiative petitions. Based on municipal-level data for Germany, we...