The previous literature has shown that children who enter school at a more advanced age outperform their younger classmates on competency tests taken between kindergarten and Grade 10. This study analyzes whether these effects of school starting age continue into adulthood. Based on data on math and language test scores for adults in Germany, the identification of the long-term causal effects exploits ...
This paper illustrates how many partial equilibrium problems with oligopolistic supply can be cast as convex optimization problems rather than mixed complementarity problems as is the current method of choice in the literature. The convex objective can be constructed by adding an appropriate term to a social welfare maximization objective. Adding this Market Power Adjustment (MPA) term creates a convex ...
This study examines the causal link between individuals' occupational knowledge and educational choices as well as labor market entry. We proxy occupational knowledge with mandatory visits to job information centers (JICs) in Germany while still attending school. Exogenous variation in the establishment of JICs makes it possible to estimate intention-to-treat effects in a difference-in-differences ...
This paper analyzes the effect of agglomeration economies on firms’ total factor productivity. We propose the use of a control function approach to overcome the econometric issue inherent to the two-stage approach commonly used in the literature. Estimations are conducted separately for four industry groups, defined by technological intensity, to allow for non-uniform effects of agglomeration economies ...
Whether workers feel they are paid fairly is an important determinant of their job satisfaction and productivity. Minimum wage laws aim for fairer wages for low-income workers. But, what are the impacts of minimum wage laws on workers’ fairness perceptions? Using survey data from German Socio-Economic Panel, we show that the introduction of minimum wage law in Germany increased the...
Using a reform induced increase in the ERA for German women this paper uncovers causal effects of retirement on informal care provision. Studies so far focus on the causality of labor supply on informal care activity in the middle part of an individual’s working career, mostly neglecting effects of retirement. This paper uses the 1999 reform that abolished the ERA at age 60 for women...
