DIW Weekly Report

Global Economy: Slow Recovery Following Deep Recession: DIW Economic Outlook

The coronavirus pandemic caused a global market crash in the first half of 2020. Following a massive slump of around four percent in the first quarter, global GDP decreased in the second by five percent. Lower rates of new infections, together with far-reaching monetary and fiscal policy measures to dampen the economic impact of the pandemic, ensure that production and the trust of consumers and firms ...

Ganzes Heft

LGBTQI* People on the Labor Market: Highly Educated, Frequently Discriminated Against

Societal acceptance of the LGBTQI* people has greatly improved over the past decades in Germany and legal equal treatment on the labor market has been improved by the General Equal Treatment Act (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz, AGG). However, about 30 percent of those who identify as LGBTQI* report experiencing discrimination in their work life, according to the results of a survey conducted by ...

Ganzes Heft

Bank Levies Can Make Bank Balance Sheets More Resilient, but High Corporate Tax Rates Dampen the Effect

Following the global financial crisis of 2008/2009, many European countries introduced bank levies to enable financial institutions to share in the costs of future banking crises via resolution and restructuring funds. Simultaneously, bank levies can set an incentive for banks to reduce their leverage, thereby achieving a more stable capital structure. Using information from banks’ balance sheets, ...

Ganzes Heft

Social Integration of Refugees Is Improving

Five years ago, almost a million people came to Germany seeking refuge. Chancellor Angela Merkel responded to public concern over such a large influx of refugees with her well-known saying, “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this!). Much has happened since then. As this report shows, the German population’s concerns over immigration have been decreasing since 2016. Nevertheless, refugees are increasingly ...

Integration of Refugee Children and Adolescents in and out of School: Evidence of Success but Still Room for Improvement

Germany has seen the arrival of a large number of displaced children and adolescents in recent years. Integration is vital for their lives today and in the future. Key indicators of successful integration are a sense of belonging to school, participation in extracurricular activities, both within school and outside it, and social contacts. The present report examines these indicators based on data ...

Refugees’ High Employment Expectations: Partially Met

This report compares employment expectations among refugees in Germany in 2016 with their actual employment situation in 2018, using the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany. In 2016, the majority of refugees reported that the probability they would find employment within two years was high. Employment expectations were met by 54 percent of all refugees; yet 35 percent of refugees who articulated ...

Ganzes Heft

European Bank Deposit Insurance Could Cushion Impact of Corona-Induced Corporate Insolvencies

The European banking union has so far lacked its third pillar: a joint insurance fund for bank savings deposits. As the present study shows, this could be a major disadvantage in dealing with the economic impact of the corona pandemic. A scenario in which a wave of corporate insolvencies leads to loan and deposit losses reaching six percent over a year would over- whelm Germany’s national deposit insurance ...

Ganzes Heft

Millionaires under the Microscope: Data Gap on Top Wealth Holders Closed: Wealth Concentration Higher than Presumed

Individuals with assets in the millions of euros have been underrepresented in population surveys and accordingly little has been known about them. As a result, the full extent of wealth concentration in Germany was unknown. To close the existing data gap, the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) integrated a special sample in which individuals with high assets are overrepresented. New calculations using this ...

Ganzes Heft

European Green Deal: Using Ambitious Climate Targets and Renewable Energy to Climb out of the Economic Crisis

The European Green Deal, initiated by the EU Commission, is a package of measures aimed at decarbonization and sustainable economic development with the goal of making the European Union climate neutral by 2050. To achieve this goal, the emission reductions target must be increased from 40 percent to 65 percent compared to 1990 levels, as the model calculations in this Weekly Report show. Fossil and ...

Ganzes Heft

EU ETS Cap Must and Can Be Reduced More Quickly

Currently, the European Commission intends to increase the EU’s 2030 climate target. Instead of a 40 percent target, greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by 50 to 55 percent compared to 1990 levels; the European Parliament is even considering a 65-percent reduction. The European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) sectors should make an appropriate contribution to this reduction. However, decisive ...

Ganzes Heft

German Economy Slowly Recovering Following a Deep Slump: DIW Economic Outlook

The coronavirus recession has left deep marks on the German economy and despite economic policy action, it is likely to heal only slowly. The partial easing of the lockdown and a gradual revival of global value chains are generating positive stimuli, but massive income losses will curb demand for some time to come. The German Federal Government was able to avoid the worst by implementing measures to ...

Coronavirus Pandemic Plunging Global Economy into a Serious Recession: DIW Economic Outlook

The consequences of the ongoing 2020 coronavirus pandemic are leaving deep marks on the global economy. In the first quarter of 2020, global production sank by 15.5 percent over the course of the worldwide lockdown. Since containment measures in many countries were mainly implemented during the second quarter of 2020, the slump in the first half of 2020 is likely to be even more severe overall. Due ...