This paper studies the long-run macroeconomic, distributional and welfare effects of tuition policy and student loans. We therefore form a rich model of risky human capital investment based on the seminal work of Heckman, Lochner and Taber (1998). We extend their original model by variable labor supply, borrowing constraints, idiosyncratic wage risk, uncertain life-span, and multiple schooling decisions. ...
Several German states recently introduced tuition fees for university education. We investigate whether these tuition fees influence the mobility of university applicants. Based on administrative data of applicants for medical schools in Germany, we estimate the effect of tuition fees on the probability of applying for a university in the home state. We find a small but significant reaction: The probability ...
Empirical analyses on the determinants of life satisfaction often include the impact of the number of children variable among controls without fully discriminating between its two (socio-relational and pecuniary) components. In our empirical analysis on the German Socioeconomic Panel we show that, when introducing household income without correction for the number of members, the pecuniary effect prevails ...
It is well known, that the presences of children lower parental happiness. That is based on psychological and economical reasons. The effect holds on for micro data of the GSOEP. The number of children affects an inverse u-shaped curve on happiness. Even an enlargement of the dataset with macroeconomic variables offers the same results. The effect disappears only after generating terms of interaction ...
This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly account for individuals' self-perceived willingness to take financial risks. The empirical evidence we provide ...
It has previously been shown that civil conflict influences many economic factors, including education, which play an important role in development and economic growth. Previous authors working on the influence of conflict on education have, however, always focused strongly on the supply-side effects, whereas this paper examines the influence of conflict on the demand for education. It is theoretically ...
In this paper we develop a structural model of female employment and fertility which accounts for intertemporal feedback effects between the two outcomes. We identify the effect of financial incentives on the employment and fertility decision by exploiting variation in the tax and transfer system which differs by employment state and number of children. To this end we simulate in detail the effects ...
