We analyse the determinants of non-response to questions on financial items such as income and asset holdings in household surveys. Our data come from a controlled field experiment. As part of the SAVE study - a representative survey conducted in Germany in 2001 - questions on household income...

We investigate the relationship between inflation and price variation using highly disaggregated, weekly price data for consumption goods recorded in Germany during 1995, a low-inflation period. We find a significant positive correlation between the rates of price change and price dispersion,...

Height is positively associated with educational attainment. We investigate the mechanisms behind this relationship using data on German pre-teen students. We show that taller children are more likely to enroll in Gymnasium, the most academic secondary school track, and that primary school...

We present new evidence for the importance of taxation in households’ investment decisions. A difference-in-difference analysis shows that a tax reform in Germany which revoked the tax exemption of life insurance returns triggered a significant increase in demand prior to the reform.

An important aspect of household surveys is the design of consumption questions. A controlled experiment shows that a single question on total monthly nondurables expenditure and a design with 35 disaggregated categories produce different results. These differences vary with household...

The responses given in opinion polls on future policy reforms reflect both subjective expectations and preferences. We disentangle these factors using data from a controlled survey experiment conducted in Germany. At the time of the experiment, an increased retirement age had been proposed as...

Experimental studies of search behavior suggest that individuals stop searching earlier than the optimal, risk-neutral stopping rule predicts. Two different classes of decision rules could generate this behavior: rules that are optimal conditional on utility functions departing from risk...

We analyze survey evidence on individuals’ willingness to sanction law violations - such as evading taxes, drunk driving and fare dodging - by disapproval or social exclusion. Our data show that people condition their willingness to sanction a norm violation on their belief about its...

We analyse life-cycle saving decisions when households use simple heuristics, or rules of thumb, rather than solve the underlying intertemporal optimisation problem. We simulate life-cycle saving decisions using three simple rules and compute utility losses relative to the solution of the...