The international surveys of pupil achievement - PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS - have been widely used to compare socioeconomic gradients in children's cognitive abilities across countries. Socioeconomic status is typically measured drawing on children's reports of family or home characteristics rather...

We investigated the role of spillover effects among hospitals in the diffusion of drug‐eluting stents (DES) in Germany and Italy during a period in which the relevant medical guideline clearly recommended their use over bare‐metal stents. We used administrative data of hospitalized patients...

This paper compares living and working conditions in the U.S. and Germany for the year 2022 with a focus on economic, social and environmental standards. Twelve dimensions of comparison are used, split into 15 themes, which are examined with 80 indicators. Subjective indicators based on polls or...

A key figure which can be applied to measuring inter-generational imbalances involved in existing public pension schemes is given by the implicit tax that is levied on each generation's life-time income through participation in these systems. The implicit tax arises from the fact that, quite...

In 1975, 50 year-old Americans could expect to live slightly longer than their European counterparts. By 2005, American life expectancy at that age has diverged substantially compared to Europe. We find that this growing longevity gap is primarily the symptom of real declines in the health of...

Im Zentrum dieses Artikels steht die Frage, wie sich die Art der regionalen Wirtschaftsstruktur auf die Beschäftigungsentwicklung in einer Region auswirkt und welchen zeitlichen Einflüssen diese Zusammenhänge unterliegen. Aufbauend auf einer Studie für Frankreich von Combes/Magnac/Robin...

We use longitudinal individual wage and employment data in France and the United States to investigate the effect of changes in the real minimum wage rate on an individual?s employment status. We focus on workers employed at wages close enough to the minimum in a reference year as to be illegal...

There has been much discussion in the British general and specialised media over the last year on the adverse consequences of the economic and financial crisis on the British pension system. It should come as no surprise that the crisis has also adversely affected pension systems in most other...

This paper is about public sector pensions, an issue that has become increasingly contentious in a number of countries in recent years, including in the United Kingdom. In the UK the public debate has focussed on the perceived generosity of these pensions, which, it is often claimed, contrasts...

Existing estimates of the labor-market returns to human capital give a distorted picture of the role of skills across different economies. International comparisons of earnings analyses rely almost exclusively on school attainment measures of human capital, and evidence incorporating direct...