Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp11061.pdf Non-Technical SummaryEvery year, secondary school graduates have to choose a university. This is a crucial decision for their future trajectories made under imperfect information. Therefore, quality indicators like university rankings and an excellence competition may provide valuable information for choosing a university.This paper analyzes whether prospective students in fact use quality indicators as a source of information within the application process and whether the influence of the indicators differs with respect to various quality dimensions -e.g. research quality, mentoring, faculty infrastructure, student assessment and excellence status. Therefore, I estimate the effect of different quality indicators from a German university ranking and an excellence initiative run by the German government on the university application decision of high-ability students. As identification relies on the variation in ranking indicators and excellence status over time, I can disentangle the effect of the additional information provided by the rankings from the common knowledge regarding university quality.This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying the influence of ranking indicators with respect to various quality dimensions, while at the same time controlling for overall university attractiveness. I use a very comprehensive, administrative data set provided by the German central agency ('ZVS') administering the application process for medical schools. The data set contains individual information on all applicants at German medical schools for the years 2002-2008.The evaluation of the excellence initiative shows that in the course of the competition the share of applicants increased on average by 19 % at the winning universities, which are today known as "excellence universities". The results regarding the different ranking indicators suggest that the non-research dimensions "student-professor ratio", the number of "clinic beds", and the "students' satisfaction" rather than the research-related indicators influence university choice of high-ability students. This may seem counterintuitive, but is plausible as research quality seems to be common knowledge within the group of high-ability students. In this case, the research related ranking indicators do not provide any additional information. Hence, university rankings are in action if they add new infor...
We estimate the short-term effects of the introduction of the Bachelor degree system in Germany, a change in degree regulations such that students need less time to earn a first degree, on college enrollment and dropout rates. We use variation in the timing of the reform at the university department level to identify the effects of the reform based on longitudinal administrative student data. Results differ between subjects, but for most subjects we find no significant effects on college enrollment or dropout rates.
Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:http://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp11061.pdf Non-Technical SummaryEvery year, secondary school graduates have to choose a university. This is a crucial decision for their future trajectories made under imperfect information. Therefore, quality indicators like university rankings and an excellence competition may provide valuable information for choosing a university.This paper analyzes whether prospective students in fact use quality indicators as a source of information within the application process and whether the influence of the indicators differs with respect to various quality dimensions -e.g. research quality, mentoring, faculty infrastructure, student assessment and excellence status. Therefore, I estimate the effect of different quality indicators from a German university ranking and an excellence initiative run by the German government on the university application decision of high-ability students. As identification relies on the variation in ranking indicators and excellence status over time, I can disentangle the effect of the additional information provided by the rankings from the common knowledge regarding university quality.This paper contributes to the existing literature by studying the influence of ranking indicators with respect to various quality dimensions, while at the same time controlling for overall university attractiveness. I use a very comprehensive, administrative data set provided by the German central agency ('ZVS') administering the application process for medical schools. The data set contains individual information on all applicants at German medical schools for the years 2002-2008.The evaluation of the excellence initiative shows that in the course of the competition the share of applicants increased on average by 19 % at the winning universities, which are today known as "excellence universities". The results regarding the different ranking indicators suggest that the non-research dimensions "student-professor ratio", the number of "clinic beds", and the "students' satisfaction" rather than the research-related indicators influence university choice of high-ability students. This may seem counterintuitive, but is plausible as research quality seems to be common knowledge within the group of high-ability students. In this case, the research related ranking indicators do not provide any additional information. Hence, university rankings are in action if they add new infor...
Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10091.pdf Non-technical summaryBasic income schemes are discussed among all political parties in Germany. A basic income is a specific form of a guaranteed minimum income for every citizen. Distributed unconditionally it could simplify the current German welfare state by replacing the numerous means-tested welfare transfers. The proposed basic income schemes combine several different instruments like a negative income tax, a flat tax system and lump sum payments for health insurance. The concepts discussed differ in crucial design parameters mainly in the level of guaranteed income.We focus our analysis on the prominent proposal by the conservative party (Christian Democratic Union -CDU). By introducing their proposal of an unconditional basic income, all means-tested social transfers would be replaced by a negative income tax scheme that guarantees every citizen a minimum income, regardless of whether he or she is in work or unemployed. Social security payments would be substituted by a payroll tax for employers and a tax-financed basic pension would replace the current pension scheme. The transfer withdrawal rate would be considerably reduced to 50% and a flat tax rate of 25% is suggested.Our paper analyzes the effects of the proposed basic income reform and two budget-neutral alternatives on labor supply and income distribution. A special focus lies on the work incentives for secondary earners in the family context. We use a detailed microsimulation model for the German tax system to simulate the reform and a structural household labor supply model for the estimations. The analyses are based on the micro data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP).Our results show that the originally proposed basic income concept yields a very high deficit. Therefore, we also study two budget neutral alternatives. Introducing the originally proposed reform, our model predicts a large increase of labor supply due to high working incentives caused by the low tax rate. But raising the tax rate in order to meet the criteria of budget neutrality, labor supply adjustments turn negative. By comparing labor supply and distributional effects of the budget neutral alternatives, we observe that positive labor supply reactions coincide with increasing inequality, which indicates the general equity-efficiency trade-off. Furthermore, the unconditional character of the basic income causes especially...
Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW.Download this ZEW Discussion Paper from our ftp server:ftp://ftp.zew.de/pub/zew-docs/dp/dp10018.pdf Non-technical summaryThe Bologna Process was introduced in the member states of the European Union in 1999 with the aim of creating a European Higher Education Area. The main component of the reform was the replacement of the existing national systems of higher education degrees with a homogeneous Bachelor-Master system. The idea was that the comparability of higher education degrees should improve student and labor force mobility, generate competition between universities and thus increase international competitiveness of the European system of higher education.In certain countries, an additional political objective was to increase the number of higher education graduates and thereby address the lack of highskilled personnel. In many countries including Germany, the Bachelor degree can be obtained in a shorter period of time and is therefore less costly than the traditional national university degrees. This could encourage more students to invest in higher education and to finish their degrees. On the contrary, the returns to the new degrees are still uncertain. According to human capital theory, direct and indirect costs of studying are a major determinant of the decision to pursue tertiary education. It is therefore unclear whether the reform has an effect on college enrollment and drop-out rates.Existing evidence on the impact of the Bologna reform on higher education enrollment and drop-out rates is limited. This is due to the fact that the reform has only been implemented very recently and that it was too early so far to measure its effects. In this paper, using administrative data on all German students from 1998 to 2006, we estimate the short-term effects of the implementation of the Bachelor degree on student enrollment and drop-out rates at the department level. We use differences in the timing of the implementation of the Bachelor degrees at the department level to identify the effects of the reform.We find that the introduction of the Bachelor degree has no significant impact on enrollment or drop-out rates for most subjects. The reform therefore does not seem to have changed the incentives to pursue higher education at this stage. We do find significantly negative effects of the Bachelor implementation on enrollment for the subjects of electrical, mechanical and industrial engineering as well as for physics. We interpret this result as a possible sign ...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.