In: Economics letters, 2013, vol. 120, no. 3, p. 389-391
This paper proposes a simple method for testing whether non-compliance in experiments is ignorable, i.e., not jointly related to the treatment and the outcome. The approach consists of (i) regressing the outcome variable on a constant, the treatment, the assignment indicator, and the treatment/assignment interaction and (ii) testing whether the coefficients on the latter two variables are...
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In: German economic review, 2013, vol. 16, no. 1, p. 13-42
The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt for a decentralized organization. We evaluate the relative success of both types in terms of...
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In: German economic review, 2011, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 182-204
During the last decade, many Western economies reformed their welfare systems with the aim of activating welfare recipients by increasing welfare-to-work programmes (WTWP) and job-search enforcement. We evaluate the short-term effects of three important German WTWP implemented after a major reform in January 2005 (‘Hartz IV’), namely short training, further training with a planned...
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In: Health economics, 2011, vol. 20, no. 4, p. 484-504
Using exceptionally rich linked administrative and survey information on German welfare recipients we investigate the health effects of transitions from welfare to employment and of assignments to welfare-to-work programmes. Applying semi- parametric propensity score matching estimators we find that employment substantially increases (mental) health. The positive effects are mainly driven by...
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In: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 2016, vol. 180, no. 2, p. 475-502
Does universal preschool constitute an effective policy tool to promote the development and integration of children from minority groups? We address this question for the children of the Roma –the largest and most disadvantaged minority group in Europe. To tackle the issue of non-random selection into preschool, we exploit variation in the individual distance to the nearest preschool...
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In: European Journal of Higher Education, 2016, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 128-143
Based on empirical data from selected public universities in Khabarovsk, Russia, this paper compares first and fifth year students regarding their attitudes towards corruption in general and university corruption in particular. Even after making both groups of students comparable with respect to a range of socio-economic characteristics by a matching approach, the results suggest that fifth...
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In: Journal of Applied Econometrics, 2017, vol. 32, no. 1, p. 56-79
In the presence of an endogenous binary treatment and a valid binary instru- ment, causal effects are point identified only for the subpopulation of compliers, given that the treatment is monotone in the instrument. With the exception of the entire population, causal inference for further subpopulations has been widely ignored in econometrics. We invoke treatment monotonicity and/or dominance...
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In: Review of economics and statistics, 2015, vol. 97, no. 2, p. 398-411
We derive testable implications of instrument validity in just identified treat- ment effect models with endogeneity and consider several tests. The identifying assump- tions of the local average treatment effect allow us to both point identify and bound the mean potential outcomes (i) of the always takers under treatment and (ii) of the never takers under non-treatment. The point identified...
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In: Labour, 2015, vol. 29, no. 1, p. 1-14
We test the validity of the sibling sex ratio instrument in Angrist and Evans (1998) using the methods proposed by Kitagawa (2008) and Huber and Mellace (2014). The sex ratio of the first two siblings is arguably randomly assigned and influences the probability of having a third child, which makes it a candidate instrument for fertility when estimating the effect of fertility on female labor...
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In: ILR review, 2016, vol. 69, no. 5, p. 1216-1248
In this article, the authors assess the impact of firms’ offering a special form of phased retirement on their male employees’ labor market outcomes. The program aims at smoothing the transition from work to retirement and at decreasing costs in the public pension and unemployment insurance schemes through an increase in employment of elderly workers who otherwise would have exited...
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