Kerstin Bruckmeier

Who misreports welfare receipt in surveys

We match survey and administrative data and determine the extent of misreporting on welfare receipt. In our data, 10.5% of German welfare recipients under-report and 1% over-report benefit receipt. The analysis shows that particularly households who are close to the labour market, without children, and with relatively high household incomes and savings are prone to under-report their welfare receipt. This information is important for the study of transfer programmes based on survey data.

A new targeting - a new take-up? Non-take-up of social assistance in Germany after social policy reforms

We present first estimates of rates of non-take-up for social assistance in Germany after the implementation of major social policy reforms in 2005. The analysis is based on a microsimulation model, which includes a detailed description of the German social assistance programme. Our findings suggest a moderate decrease in non-takeup compared to estimates before the reform. In order to identify the determinants of claiming social assistance, we estimate a model of take-up behaviour which considers potential endogeneity of the benefit level. The estimations reveal that the degree of needs, measured as the social assistance benefit level a household is eligible for, and the expected duration of eligibility are the key determinants of the take-up decision, while costs of claiming seem to play a minor role.

Differences in welfare take-up between immigrants and natives – a microsimulation study

Research on welfare participation often shows significant differences between immigrants and natives that are often attributed to immigrants’ higher risk of welfare dependence. We study whether immigrants in Germany also differ from their German counterparts in their take-up behavior conditional on being eligible for welfare benefits. The empirical approach intends (i) to determine eligibility for welfare benefits for a representative sample of the whole population of Germany using a microsimulation model (IAB-STSM) based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) and then (ii) to estimate probit models of observed welfare benefit take-up for the sample of eligible households. Our simulation results show that non take-up rates do not differ significantly between several groups of immigrants and natives. Additionally, the probit estimations do not reveal a significant effect of being a migrant on the probability to take up entitlements. Hence, our findings suggest that after controlling for observed and unobserved household characteristics immigrants are not more prone to take up welfare benefits.

Tuition fees and the time to graduation: evidence from a natural experiment

We used the recent introduction of general tuition fees at public universities in several of the German federal states as a natural experiment to identify whether tuition fees reduce the time to graduation and the extent to which they do so. We employed a difference-in-differences approach with the states that introduced fees as the treatment group and the states that remained fee-free as the control group. Our results indicate that the introduction of tuition fees led to a significant decrease in the time to graduation.

The willingness to pay for higher education: does the type of fee matter?

University level data are used to determine whether different types of fees affect university enrolment of first-year students differently at public universities in Germany. We find a significantly negative effect of the recently introduced tuition fees on enrolment. In contrast, the effect of administrative fees is insignificant. This is striking as both types of fees serve similar purposes.