This paper analyzes the impact of shortening the duration of secondary schooling on the accumulation of human capital. In 2003, an educational policy reform was enacted in Saxony-Anhalt, a German state, providing a natural experimental setting. The thirteenth year of schooling was eliminated for...

type="main" xml:id="rssa12079-abs-0001" <title type="main">Summary</title> <p>Empirical studies have shown plasticity of personality traits until early adulthood. The extent to which schooling is a crucial determinant in this context has not yet been analysed coherently. Although they have left the curriculum largely...</p>

This paper analyzes the impact of shortening the duration of secondary schooling on the accumulation of human capital. In 2003, an educational policy reform was enacted in Saxony-Anhalt, a German state, providing a natural experimental setting. The thirteenth year of schooling was eliminated for...

Despite the interdependence between cognitive and noncognitive skills, empirical studies have shown a longer period of acquisition in life-time for the latter besides relevance for educational and labor market success. Analyzing returns of investments during different periods of life is...

This study investigates the consequences of revenue-neutral tax reforms on the members of two-person households. The model employed has individual utility functions for household members and allows for household production. General conditions are derived specifying when such tax reforms are...

Due to falling fertility and rising life expectancies, a serious financial crisis is looming over the pay-as-you-go pension systems established in many developed countries. The present study demonstrates that falling fertility can partly be explained by the fiscal externalities arising from the...

Recent R&D growth models without strong scale effects imply that long-run growth rates depend only on parameters that are usually taken to be exogenous. However, integrating human capital accumulation into models of this type, Arnold (2002) demonstrates that subsidizing education accelerates...

Benefit sanctions imposed on non-compliant welfare recipients are a new element in the German welfare system. In practice, the sanction policy and the application of sanctions vary considerably across the 439 welfare agencies. Based on combined administrative and survey data, these differences...

Previous empirical studies of job creation schemes (JCS) in Germany have shown that the average effects for the participating individuals are negative. However, we find that this is not true for all strata of the population. Identifying individual characteristics that are responsible for the...

The undersupply of spots in German daycare facilities for toddlers challenges parents' possibilities to work. To ease the situation, the government has initiated a new law according to which every child between one and three years of age is entitled to daycare supervision for about four to five...