1. Discussion and Working Paper // 2023

    What Are the Priorities of Bureaucrats? Evidence from Conjoint Experiments with Procurement Officials

    While effective bureaucracy is crucial for state capacity, its decision-making remains a black box. We elicit preferences of 900+ real-world public procurement officials in Finland and Germany. This is an…

  2. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Extending the procedure of Engelberg et al. (2009) to surveys with varying interval-widths

    The approach by Engelberg, Manski, and Williams (2009) to convert probabilistic survey responses into continuous probability distributions implicitly assumes that the question intervals are equally wide. Almost…

  3. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Fundamentally Reforming the DI System: Evidence from German Notch Cohorts

    We study a fundamental reform of the public Disability Insurance (DI) system in Germany. Effective 2001, cohorts born after 1960 are no longer eligible for “occupational DI.” Occupational DI (ODI) implies…

  4. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    The Impact of COVID-19 on Education in Latin America : Long-Run Implications for Poverty and Inequality

    The shock of the COVID-19 pandemic affected the human capital formation of children and youths. As a consequence of this disruption, the pandemic is likely to imply permanent lower levels of human capital. This…

  5. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Procuring Survival

    We investigate the impact of public procurement spending on business survival. Using Italy as a laboratory, we construct a large-scale dataset on firms---covering balance-sheet, income-statement, and…

  6. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Elites and Health Infrastructure Improvements in Industrializing Regimes

    We collect information about more than 5,000 Prussian politicians, digitize administrative data on the provision of health-promoting public goods, and gather local-level information on workers’ movements to…

  7. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Favoritism and Firms: Micro Evidence and Macro Implications

    We study the economic implications of regional favoritism, a form of distributive politics that redistributes resources geographically within countries. Using enterprise surveys from low- and middle-income…

  8. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Favoritism and Firms: Micro Evidence and Macro Implications

    We study the economic implications of regional favoritism, a form of distributive politics that redistributes resources geographically within countries. Using enterprise surveys from low- and middle-income…

  9. Discussion and Working Paper // 2022

    Collective minimum contributions to counteract the ratchet effect in the voluntary provision of public goods

    We experimentally test a theoretically promising amendment to the ratchet-up mechanism of the Paris Agreement. The ratchet-up mechanism prescribes that parties’ commitments to the global response to climate…