The German opening hours act under revision

Author: Kurt Vogler-Ludwig, Sonja Munz, Uwe Christian Täger

Client: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft

Publisher: Schriftreihe des Ifo-Instituts Nr. 139, 1996 [Duncker & Humbold, Berlin ISBN 3-428-08537-X]

Year: 1996

Language: German

The principal problem in evaluating political measures involves trying to make comparisons with a situation untouched by policy making which never existed. This problem can only be overcome by modelling alternative paths of economic development or by comparisons with control groups. We applied macro-economic and partial models measuring the impact of political programs.

This approach was used e.g. to identify the feedback of development aid on the German economy, to measure the impact of German minimum wage regulation on the labour market and last but not least to quantify the effects of the deregulation of opening hours in German retail trade.

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