Many OECD countries are currently undergoing reforms of their statutory pension schemes. In theory, a decrease of pension generosity can have a positive or negative effect on private savings - depending on the corresponding level of employment effects. Thus, it is an empirical question to determine the sign of the effect. A particular reform of the German Statutory Pension Scheme lifted the early...
While cash housing benefits are generally included in household disposable income, the effect of social housing is not accounted for. This may provide a misleading picture of the impact of overall housing policies on inequality and poverty, as countries use different policies to help households meet their housing expenses. In this article, we present the first comprehensive study of the impact of in-kind ...
BAMS is a joint seminar by the DIW Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance, the HU Berlin and the WZB.
Do increased instruction hours improve the performance of all students? Using PISA scores of students in ninth grade, we analyse the effect of a German education reform that increased weekly instruction hours by two hours (6.5 percent) over almost five years. In the additional time, students are taught new learning content. On average, the reform improves student performance. However, treatment effects ...
This paper provides evidence on the question of who bears the burden of social security contributions (SSC) in Germany over a long-term horizon. Following Alvaredo et al. (De Econ, 2017) we exploit kinks in the budget set generated by a drop in the marginal SSC rate at earnings caps for health and long-term care insurance. These concave kinks lead to discontinuities in the distributions of gross earnings, ...
