This study investigates the effects of maternal education on child's health and health behavior. We draw on a rich German panel data set containing information about three generations. This allows instrumenting maternal education by the number of her siblings while conditioning on grandparental characteristics. The instrumental variables approach has not yet been used in the intergenerational context ...
This paper empirically investigates the effects of changes in the interest rate as well as in the current and expected future consumer price levels on households' consumption-savings decision. In a structural demand model applied to German consumption data, we use cross-sectional and longitudinal variation in prices and tax rates to construct individual after-tax interest rates and cluster-specific ...
The dissertation fits into this empirical literature on the economic effects of a federal minimum wage in Germany. The research questions are related to the arguments and issues that have been brought forward in the policy debate and that have been addressed in the economic literature on minimum wages: How would a federal minimum wage affect the distribution of gross wages? Which individuals would ...
A popular argument for a federal minimum wage is that it will prevent in-work poverty and reduce income inequality. We examine this assertion for Germany, a welfare state with a relative generous means-tested social minimum and high marginal tax rates. Our analysis is based on a microsimulation model that accounts for the interactions between wages, the tax-benefit system and net incomes at the household ...
Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from twelve countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) we analyse the role of poor material conditions as a determinant of changes in health over a four-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative incomes has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions such as subjective ...