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The first goal was to obtain a data set frame that contains all funds that existed at some point between 1996 and 2002. The membership data are collected for the January 1st of each year, thus 1996 was the last year before the 1994 reform impacted fund membership. The year 2002 was the chosen as the last year, because the main part of the data collection took place in 2002 and early 2003. Subsequent attempts to collect data for 2003 and beyond yielded unsatisfying results and therefore 2002 remains the end year for this analysis. The data collection ended in early 2005.

Initial information sources to compile the data set frame were on-line surveys and lists obtained from the web pages of the national associations of the different types of funds.104 Unfortunately, public (governmental) sources could not provide comprehensive lists of funds. Many funds did not exist at both the initial and final date. For these funds it was required to find the founding date and/or the merge date and destination. Several web sources delivered most of the necessary information.105

In the next step, every individual fund for which an email address existed was contacted by sending a questionnaire106 to the public relations or the controlling department of the bigger funds and the CEOs of smaller BKKs. If no individual email addresses were available, the “info@” (or comparable) address was used. The questionnaire asked for January 1st enrollment numbers107 and a complete history of contribution rates and markets of operation from 1996 to 2002. Initially an attempt was made to gather data on all three types of contribution rates for the entire time period with all dates of change. It became clear that historical data for the increased and reduced rate were not as readily available and consequently the focus shifted towards the “normal” rate only. For the markets of operation the funds were asked to identify the operational status for each of the 17 markets in all years. Furthermore each fund was asked whether other funds had merged with that fund, and if so, about the same data for all the former funds.

Since funds could set different contribution rates in the new and the old states until January 1st 2001, the data were collected separately for these two parts of Germany. If the contribution rate differed, only fund data that were reported separately for both the eastern

104

See Appendix A

105 _{The web sources were fund’s web pages, newsletters, newspaper articles, commercial registries, and surveys}

that listed mergers.

and the western states of Germany were used by entering the data as two observations. If the contribution rate was the same and data were only available for both parts of Germany combined, the data were entered as one observation.

Funds that did not respond to the initial email received several follow up emails over the next year, which were usually sent to alternating recipients within the fund to increase the likelihood of a positive response. The final response rate was about 15% to 20%. The majority of funds that did not provide any data simply didn’t reply. Those that did reply but did not provide data cited heavy workload, no interest, no availability, or confidentiality reasons108 for their negative response.

At the same time, all the statewide and federal organizations of the different types of funds were contacted as well, asking for the data for all of their member funds. The BKK state association of one western state (Lower Saxony) and the association that heads four of the five eastern states provided the contribution rates and enrollment data for all funds headquartered in their respective states. The IKK national association provided the same data, as well as information on the markets of operation for all of the IKKs. The BKK state association for North Rhine-Westphalia provided the contribution rate data for all BKKs from its state.109

Other major sources were contribution rate surveys that various sources published on the Internet or in print110, some of which included further information such as the regions that the funds operated in and occasionally membership numbers. These web sources enabled the

108 _{Some funds provided data after receiving a confidentially statement that their data would not be shared with}

third parties.

109 _{Their data proved to be only almost complete.} 110

creation of a reasonably comprehensive data set for contribution rates, particularly for the open funds.

After the initial follow-up period, the open funds were contacted again and asked for at least contribution rate and regions of operation data, because these variables are needed to construct the market environment for the funds for which membership data are available. A number of funds that would not provide membership data answered to this request.

The last step of the data collection was to contact those funds for which some data were available, but some crucial information was missing (e.g. for some funds from Lower Saxony the head association provided enrollment and contribution rate data, but not the regions of operation). About 50-60 funds were contacted by phone, with a success rate of about 60%.

The second part of the data set contains information on the non-mandated coverage and other service related data like accessibility, which were obtained from various consumer reports111 and one Internet source.112 These surveys compared the non-contribution rate attributes of between 81 and 188 of the open funds. Contacting individual funds that were left out of the surveys to obtain additional data did not seem feasible, because the likely reason for their omission in those surveys was their refusal to reply to the surveys’ requests for information.