German Reform Research Articles

The French and the German Reforms of Contract Law

AbstractFrance and Germany do not only have very prominent private law codifications, but are also countries which have taken the EC Sales Directive 1999 (among other EU developments) as an invitation to engage in an overall reform of their old Codes at the wake of the 21

Relational contracts for household formation, fertility choice and separation

This paper applies the theory of relational contracts to a model in which a couple decides upon fertility and subsequently on continuation of the relationship. We formalize the idea that within-household-cooperation can be supported by selfinterest. Since the costs of raising children—a household public good—are unequally distributed between partners, a conflict between individually optimal and efficient decisions exists. Side-payments can support cooperation but are not legally enforceable and thus have to be part of an equilibrium. This requires stable relationships and credible punishment threats.Within this framework, we analyze the effects of separation costs and post-separation alimony payments on couples’ fertility decisions. We derive the predictions that higher separation costs and higher alimony payments facilitate cooperation and hence increase fertility. We present empirical evidence based on a recent German reform that reduced rights to post-divorce alimony payments. We find that this reform reduced in-wedlock fertility.

Teaching Nature of Scientific Inquiry in Chemistry: How do German chemistry teachers use labwork to teach NOSI?

Learning about scientific inquiry (SI) is an important aspect of scientific literacy and there is a solid international consensus of what should be learned about it. Learning about SI comprises both the doing of science (process) and knowledge about the nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI). German reform documents promote inquiry generally but do not equally address these two sides of inquiry. This study explores how teachers incorporate learning about SI into laboratory work in the Chemistry classroom. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 secondary school Chemistry teachers (8 of them holding a Ph.D. in Chemistry) from Germany. The results indicate that teaching NOSI is not a primary goal for teachers. Still, some aspects of NOSI seem to be more easily incorporated in the Chemistry classroom, for example, critical testing and hypothesis and prediction. Teachers state 2 main criteria to identify suitable chemical laboratory work for teaching NOSI: adaptable parameters and low level of required content knowledge. Surprisingly, differences can be found between Ph.D. and non-Ph.D. teachers’ views on teaching inquiry. The findings of this study can be used to (a) select opportunities for targeted research on teaching NOSI in the Chemistry classroom, (b) inform curriculum material development and (c) give impetus to science teacher education and professional development.

Beyond individualisation: The German ‘activation toolbox’

This article discusses recent debates on ‘activating’ labour market policies in light of German reforms since 2003. Beckian and Giddensian theories of modernity, political economy, and the governmentality school all argue within a common paradigm of individualisation, assuming the ‘responsibilised’ and isolated individual to be the focal point of activation policies. This paradigm is questioned, as the exclusive focus on the individual obscures something else, namely that ‘activation’ policies can also be seen as contributing to a dynamic of dividualisation, i.e. of making the subject of labour power fundamentally divisible. It is demonstrated that in the recent German reforms, dividualisation provides an organising logic pervading the instruments of activating labour market policies and the ways in which they are articulated in a policy programme. It is concluded that dividualisation, particularly evident in the German case, may provide a useful frame for analysing labour market reforms in other advanced capitalist economies.

CHILDREN OF A (POLICY) REVOLUTION: THE INTRODUCTION OF UNIVERSAL CHILD CARE AND ITS EFFECT ON FERTILITY

What role does affordable and widely available public child care play for fertility? We exploit a major German reform generating large temporal and spatial variation in child care coverage for children under the age of three. Our precise and robust estimates on birth register data reveal that increases in public child care have significant positive effects on fertility. The fertility effects are more pronounced at the intensive than at the extensive margin, and are not driven by changes in the timing of births or selective migration. Our findings inform policy makers concerned about low fertility by suggesting that universal early child care holds the promise of being an effective means of increasing birth rates.

Parental leave benefit and differential fertility responses: evidence from a German reform

This paper examines the causal effects of a major change in the German parental leave benefit scheme on fertility. I use the unanticipated reform of 2007 to assess how a move from a means tested to an earnings-related benefit affects higher-order births. By using data from the Mikrozensus, I find that the reform significantly affected the timing of higher-order births in the first 5 years after a last birth. Overall, mothers “just” eligible for the new benefit for the current birth initially reduce subsequent childbearing and extend birth spacing, compared to mothers “just” ineligible. However, by the end of the third year, mothers start to compensate for the earlier losses. The negative effects are largely driven by the low-income mothers, who are now worse-off and do not display any catch-up effects. The differential fertility responses along the income distribution are in line with the heterogeneous structure of the economic incentives.

Muhafazakârlık Ve Reform Arasında Bir Hareket: Neolog Yahudilik

Neolog Judaism is a moderate reform movement that develeoped in mid-nineteenth century Hungary. With the impact of German Reform Judaism movement on Hungarian Jewry reform tendencies had already appeared in the commity organizations of Hungary from the beginning of the 19th century. Although German Reform provided Hungary Jewry with an ideology and a specific program of religious innovation difference in political and economic conditions in Hungary combined to mold the unique character of Hungarian Neology. Neolog Judaism, whose leading spokesmen there were Aaron Chorin and Leopold Low, pronounced prayer in the vernacular with an uncovered head, approved of the use of an organ on the Sabbath, curtailed the seven-day period of mourning and allowed riding and writing on the Sabbath. Neolog Judaism had separated from Orthodox Judasim at the General Jewish Congress convened in 1868-69, but refrained from introducing drastic reforms and adopted a distinctly moderate orientation.

Parental Leave Benefit and Differential Fertility Responses: Evidence from a German Reform

This paper examines the causal effects of a major change in the German parental leave benefit scheme on fertility. I use the unanticipated reform in 2007 to assess how a move from a means-tested to an earnings-related benefit affects higher-order births. By using the German Mikrozensus 2010, I find that the reform significantly affected the timing of higher-order births in the first three years. Overall, mothers initially reduce childbearing, thereby extending their birth spacing, but eventually fully compensate for the earlier losses. The negative effects are largely driven by lowest-income mothers who also do not display any catch-up effects. I also find a substantial heterogeneity inWest and East Germany. Because the reform aimed at parents with strong labor market attachment, the positive effects in the East suggest that the economic incentives essentially perform well, but their impact may be hampered by unfavorable institutional and cultural conditions in the West.

The directly-elected mayor in the German Länder—introduction, implementation and impact

In the early 1990s, all German Länder (states) introduced direct election of executive mayors, along with the procedures to recall a sitting mayor by local referendum. This paper looks at the context and causes of this major institutional change and its impact on local politics. Although the directly-elected executive mayor has risen to a dominant position, effective institutional and political checks and balances are in place to prevent misuse of power. Finally, the German reforms are compared with other European countries.

Children of a (Policy) Revolution: The Introduction of Universal Child Care and Its Effect on Fertility

What role does affordable and widely available public child care play for fertility? We exploit a major German reform generating large temporal and spatial variation in child care coverage for children under the age of three. Our precise and robust estimates on birth register data reveal that increases in public child care have significant positive effects on fertility. The fertility effects are more pronounced at the intensive than at the extensive margin, and are not driven by tempo effects or selective migration. Our findings inform policy makers concerned about suboptimally low fertility by suggesting that universal early child care holds the promise of being an effective means of increasing birth rates.

Entrustable professional activities - visualization of competencies in postgraduate training. Position paper of the Committee on Postgraduate Medical Training of the German Society for Medical Education (GMA).

Entrustable professional activities - visualization of competencies in postgraduate training. Position paper of the Committee on Postgraduate Medical Training of the German Society for Medical Education (GMA).

Learning That Grows With Child: The Waldorf Approach Early Childhood Education

Waldorf Education started off as a unquely German reform movement in 1919. Waldorf Education has its roots in the spiritual-scientific research of the Austrian scientist and thinker Rudolf Steiner. The Steiner school belives in developing the emotional side of children first and the intellectual aptitudes later. The task of the Waldorf teacher is to help the child to realize his latent capacities in each of the domain that psychomotor, emotional and cognitive.

Image as investigation: sciences of the otherworldly at the Bauhaus

While modern architecture and design have often been seen as harsh and impersonal, this essay reassesses this association through a closer look at the influence of mysticism and the occult on the Bauhaus, an interwar German reform movement and school for art, craft, design, and architecture. Even as they developed their famous streamlined designs, members of the school also produced images based on alternative religions, spiritism, and other experimental and occult practices. Such images participated in a broader context of research into the otherworldly and a rediscovery of nature and the environment. Reintegrating this other history into what we know of the Bauhaus allows us to understand modernism anew, not as cold and soulless but as part of larger attempts to perceive and shape a new world that was quickly unfolding around its subjects.

'He Did Bestride Our Narrow World Like a Colossus'

The Liberal movement that John Rayner joined in the mid-1950s and speedily came to dominate was small, inward-looking, aimlessly treading water and intellectually undistinguished. But my conviction is that whether in its sister movement in the U.S.A., the two million strong Union of American Hebrew Congregations or in the glory days of nineteenth- century German Reform Judaism, John's powerful intellect, wide Jewish knowledge, conviction of principle, clarity of thought and concision of expression would have brought him to the forefront. When the history of Progressive Judaism comes to be written in a hundred years time, his name will be mentioned in the same breath as luminaries like Abraham Geiger, Kaufmann Kohler, Isaac Mayer Wise, Leo Baeck and Solomon Freehof. He was one of the great ones for his and future generations.

PR3 Industry Preparedness against German reforms

PR3 Industry Preparedness against German reforms

Upper House Reform in Germany: the Commission for the Modernization of the Federal System

As the debate on a possible new second leg- islative chamber proceeds both in the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Canada, it is useful to note recent amendments to the German Con- stitution (Basic Law) affecting the federal up- per house of Parliament (Bundesrat). Despite all the differences among the House of Lords, the Canadian Senate,1 and the Bundesrat, there are some points on which a comparison is use- ful. Moreover, some of the impetus behind the German reforms — a conviction that there had been too much emphasis on cooperative feder- alism and too little on healthy competition — is reminiscent of debates about such matters in other federations in general, and Canada in particular.

The Rodewisch (1963) and Brandenburg (1974) propositions

The Classic Text presents two documents of the development of modern social psychiatry. Both show the early beginnings of the reform movement in the GDR — in contrast to the FRG where the reform did not take place until the late 1970s. Adopted in 1963, the Rodewisch propositions formulate for the first time the central issues of the German reform debate in psychiatry. The Brandenburg propositions (1974) document how the reform movement was shifting from a political to a more individual perspective in the GDR.

Die Evaluation von Verwaltungsleistungen

Abstract The evaluation of administrative services has become an increasingly relevant element of decision making in the public sector. This is mainly a result of the implementation of NPM ideas. In this article, five areas of reference are analysed that show the legal problems such evaluations bring about: Civil Service law is the area with the longest tradition of performance evaluation. A more recent development is the systematic use of performance indicators in relation to the steering of universities. In the context of the second round of the German reform of federalism, Art. 91d was included in the constitution, thereby demonstrating the political will to use benchmarking systems as an instrument to improve administration on all levels. For many decades, the civil courts have dealt with reviews of goods and services by an organisation founded and financed by the state, but new challenges are online reviews on web 2.0 based platforms. Finally, local government reforms in England give an impression of...

<strong>“The Ghetto at Florence”</strong>: Reading Jewish Identity in Amy Levy's Early Poetry, 1880–86

"The Ghetto at Florence" has frequently been labeled a watershed in fin-de-siecle Anglo-Jewish writer Amy Levy's career and symbolic of conscious reengagement with her Jewish heritage. The extant historiography regards this article as a reawakening of Levy's ancestral legacy that had previously been suppressed by her assimilation of secular and Christian perspectives. In this alternative reading of Levy's corpus, we will see how even prior to publishing "The Ghetto of Florence" in 1886, Levy had already developed and experimented with classically Jewish themes including Midrash and that her work was profoundly inflected by early German Reform Judaism, its morally selective approach to the tradition, and its commit- ment to subjective theology, to a degree as yet unacknowledged by the current historiography. Moreover, we will see that Levy's groundbreaking midrashic poetry constitutes a proto-feminist, eisegetical biblical and theological genre that prefigures Second-Wave Jewish feminism's earliest hermeneutical efforts by nearly one hundred years.

German Reform of Insurance Contract Law

German Reform of Insurance Contract Law