Motivated by contradictory evidence on intergenerational mobility in Germany, I present a cross-country comparison of Germany and the US, reassessing the question of whether intergenerational mobility is higher in Germany than the US. I can reproduce the standard result from the literature, which states that the German intergenerational elasticity estimates are lower than those for the US. However, ...
In 2004, the German Social Health Insurance introduced a co-payment for the first doctor visit in a calendar quarter. I combine a structural model of health care demand and a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the effect of that reform on the number of visits. In the model, the implied incentive to delay a first visit also affects subsequent visits, as the expected remaining time to the ...
Consistency and change in personality were analyzed by examining personality types across adulthood and old age using data from two nationally representative panel studies from Germany (N = 14,718; 16 – 82 years) and Australia (N = 8,315; 15 – 79 years). In both samples, the Big Five personality traits were measured twice across a period of 4 years. Latent profile analyses and latent profile transition ...
This paper estimates the effect of involuntary job loss on smoking behaviour and body weight using German SOEP data. Baseline non-smokers are more likely to start smoking due to job loss, while smokers do not intensify smoking. In particular, single individuals and those with lower health or socioeconomic status prior to job loss exhibit high rates of smoking initiation. Job loss increases body weight ...
The restructuring of the allocation of governmental competencies in France has increased the importance of subnational governments by transferring additional tasks. We analyse the efficiency of public spending on the intermediate government level for the 96 départements in metropolitan France in 2008. Spending efficiency is measured using Data Envelopment Analysis. Results indicate significant room ...
Using a sample of Europeans aged 50+ from 12 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- to five-year period. We find that poverty defined with respect to relative income has no effect on changes in health. However, broader measures of poor material conditions, such as ...
Economically, Greece is still at rock bottom. Following massive cuts to its unit labor costs, the country no longer has any cost problems but its economy has not yet been reanimated. This makes it quite evident that by focusing solely on cost reductions and institutional reforms, the troika program did not go far enough. Without further reforms, certain sectors of the Greek economy such as tourism, ...
