Abstract: We provide the first evidence on whether assignment generated by school-entry cutoff rules affects educational mismatch later in life. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we exploit temporal and regional variation in school-entry cutoffs across German states and estimate reduced-form intention-to-treat effects of assignment to the later-entry side of the cutoff. Assignment to the later-entry side reduces the probability of undereducation by approximately 4.8 percentage points. This finding is robust to alternative specifications, inference procedures, sample definitions, narrower bandwidths around the cutoff, local-randomization-style estimates, and alternative measures of educational mismatch. By contrast, the estimated effect on overeducation is positive but smaller and less robust. Analyses of potential mechanisms provide limited evidence for occupational sorting, while indicating that cutoff assignment affects educational pathways and accumulated labour-market experience. Overall, the findings show that school-entry rules can have persistent consequences for the allocation of educational qualifications across occupations.

Presented at: LABORatorio R. Revelli Workshop (November 2023), ESPE (June 2024), SOEP User Conference (July 2024), EEA-ESEM (August 2024), AIEL (October 2024), RES (June 2025)

Abstract: Television is a major spare-time activity with the potential to lower economic activity but also to manipulate behavior by changing preferences and social norms through role models. To provide a comprehensive investigation into the impacts of television on the labor market, we study two natural experiments providing variation in access to television broadcasts. First, we leverage a setting in West Germany, where individuals in some regions could watch commercial television via terrestrial frequencies while others could only watch public TV. By analyzing rich panel data, we provide evidence inconsistent with the notion of negative impacts on labor market outcomes. Instead, we find positive effects on the labor supply among females. This employment premium has limited monetary consequences for females, which could be due to gender-specific occupational choices. To better understand the mechanisms and to examine long-run effects, we exploit a setting in East Germany, where for decades, citizens in most areas had access to Western public TV with its emphasis on conservative and family-oriented values, except for those areas where only state-run socialist television with a focus on full employment was available. By analyzing several datasets, we provide evidence on the beliefs of East Germans about the role of women in the labor market, which could explain the persistent effects of TV on the female labor supply and gender equality in labor market participation. It appears that Eastern socialist TV shares a surprising similarity with today’s dominant form of Western free-market TV: they both encourage women to work.

Presented at: ESPE (June 2022), Asian Meeting of the ES (June 2022),  SOEP User Conference (July 2022), Asian Meeting of the ES in East and South-East Asia (August 2022), EALE (September 2022), VfS (September 2022), CESifo Area Conference on the Economics of Digitization (November 2022), ASSA (January 2023), SOLE (May 2023), EEA-ESEM Congress (August 2023)

Abstract: When autocracies tie human capital to political loyalty, schooling functions as a costly signal contingent on regime survival. Exploiting topography-driven variation in East Germans' reception of West German television, we examine how foreign media, by eroding regime legitimacy, reshapes schooling. Exposure reduced schooling by 0.5 years and post-primary attainment by 10.7 percentage points–voluntary withdrawal driven by collapsing legitimacy, not screening, cognition, time use, preferences, or economic anxiety. After reunification, the employment and income gaps closed, the exposed proved less overeducated, and a 1959 reform raising attainment moved neither earnings nor employment–confirming the forgone schooling was political, not productive.

Presented at: ASSA (January 2026), Scottish Economic Society Conference (April 2026), Research Colloquium "Social Science" at the Freie Universität Berlin (May 2026)

Abstract: Can foreign media sustain religious identity under state atheism? We exploit terrain-driven West German television reception in East Germany. Pooled across cohorts, exposure leaves 1990 religious affiliation—measured as the regime fell—unchanged. However, among cohorts confirmed before the late-1950s replacement of confirmation with a career-penalizing secular ceremony, TV exposure raises affiliation by 31 percentage points, more than doubling it from an 18 percent baseline. Among those raised under the secular rite, it moves nothing. Private broadcast worship substituted for penalized practice, preserving identity while observable attendance stayed suppressed, and without shifting expectations or attitudes. Foreign media maintained faith where formed; it did not create it.

Abstract: In Germany, works councils have co-determination rights over the design of pay. They are often associated with higher regular wages. We examine the relationship between workplace co-determination and supplementary compensation, such as bonus payments, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel. Pooled OLS and individual fixed effects estimates show a robust positive association between working in an establishment with a works council and bonus pay, also among employees covered by collective agreements. We find no evidence that bonus payments substitute for regular wages. Moreover, bonus dispersion is lower in co-determined establishments. Finally, our findings suggest that bonus payments represent one channel through which works councils are linked to higher employee well-being.

Presented at: International SOEP User Conference (July 2026), Autumn Workshop of the Scientific Commission Personnel of the German Academic Association for Business Research (September 2026)