CJEL Classifications: 35; I20; J24;

This paper analyzes wage structures in the public and the private sector for Germany. The data contains a rich set of variables on parents' characteristics that we use as instruments. We extend the empirical literature in this field by endogenizing education level and hours worked, and by using...

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of school quality on performance in national exams and the career decision at age 16. We use micro data for the UK, which provides a rich set of variables on parental background, previous achievements, and community variables. We find that,...

We use panel data from the German Socio Economic Panel to estimate the determinants of language fluency of immigrants, and its impact on earnings. Self reported measures of language proficiency contain substantial reporting errors. We specify a panel data model which takes explicitly account of...

Over the past decades there has been an increasing use of panel surveys at the household or individual level, instead of using independent cross-sections. Panel data have important advantages, but there are also two potential drawbacks: attrition bias and panel conditioning effects. Attrition...

Abstract: Analyzing the effect of family planning on child survival remains an important issue but is not straightforward because of several mechanisms linking family planning, birth intervals, total fertility, and child survival. This study uses a dynamic model jointly explaining infant...

We combine data from a risk preference elicitation experiment conducted on a representative sample via the Internet with laboratory data on student subjects for the same experiment in order to investigate effects of implementation mode and of subject pool selection. We find that the frequency of...

We analyze Engel curves for nuclear households in rural China. The sample includes more than 5000 nuclear families covering nineteen out of thirty Chinese provinces. We consider expenditures on food, also subdivided into several food subcategories such as cereals, or meat and fish, and other...

We analyse risk preferences using an experiment with real incentives in a representative sample of 1,422 Dutch respondents. Our econometric model incorporates four structural parameters that vary with observed and unobserved characteristics: Utility curvature, loss aversion, preferences towards...

Attitudes towards risk play a major role in many economic decisions. In empirical studies one quite often assumes that attitudes towards risk do not vary across individuals. This papers questions this assumption and analyses which factors influence an individual's risk attitude. Based on...