By lifting lockdown measures as coronavirus case numbers are rising and the vaccine rollout is proceeding slowly, the German economy is being sent on a stop-go course. Re-opening measures will probably be followed by renewed closures, at least regionally, in order to keep the spread of COVID-19 under control. Nevertheless, industry is robust overall, primarily due to good foreign business. In the service ...
2021| Claus Michelsen, Paul Berenberg-Gossler, Marius Clemens, Max Hanisch, Simon Junker, Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Laura Pagenhardt
The resurgence of the pandemic and renewed lockdowns have slowed the recovery of the global economy, but the overall losses will be less severe than after the first coronavirus wave in spring 2020. Industry in particular continues to develop well. In contrast, retail trade and personal services have been heavily affected, especially in hard-hit regions such as Europe. However, the fiscal stimulus cushions ...
2021| Claus Michelsen, Guido Baldi, Paul Berenberg-Gossler, Marius Clemens, Geraldine Dany-Knedlik, Hella Engerer, Marcel Fratzscher, Max Hanisch, Simon Junker, Konstantin A. Kholodilin, Laura Pagenhardt
The European Commission is facing the challenge and opportunity of implementing the Green Deal while simultaneously initiating the recovery of the economy following the coronavirus crisis. Investments in the basic materials industry’s transition to climate neutrality play a central role in this, as the sector is responsible for 16 percent of the EU’s CO2 emissions and is key to downstream value chains. ...
2021| Karsten Neuhoff, Olga Chiappinelli, Mats Kröger, Frederik Lettow, Jörn Richstein, Franziska Schütze, Jan Stede, Xi Sun
Public interest in the gender pay gap has risen significantly over the past years in Germany, but the size of the gender pay gap has barely changed. A comparison across European countries shows that a lower female labor force participation rate is associated with a smaller gender pay gap. The gender differences in the characteristics of the labor force, which vary across countries, are one explanation ...
The catastrophic accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant on March 11, 2011, revealed unexpected safety risks of nuclear energy once again. It also accelerated the decline of nuclear energy in the international energy sector: Nuclear energy’s share of global electricity generation fell from 17 percent in 1996 to 13 percent in 2011 to approximately ten percent in 2019, with a share of primary ...
2021| Ben Wealer, Christian von Hirschhausen, Claudia Kemfert, Fabian Präger, Björn Steigerwald
Discrimination and rejection experienced by LGBTQI* people affect their mental health and, in the long term, their physical health as well. Survey data from the Socio-Economic Panel and Bielefeld University show that LGBTQI* people in Germany are affected by negative mental health outcomes three to four times more often than the rest of the population. Poor physical health that may be stress-related, ...
2021| David Kasprowski, Mirjam Fischer, Xiao Chen, Lisa de Vries, Martin Kroh, Simon Kühne, David Richter, Zaza Zindel
Over the past years, the proportion of women on the supervisory boards of major companies in Germany has increased. As this second report in the DIW Women Executives Barometer 2021 shows, this has a meaningful, positive impact on the supervisory boards of many companies, and affects interactions between members, discussions, and decision-making. These findings are based on qualitative interviews with ...
The proportion of women on the boards of large companies in Germany continued to increase during 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 101 female executive board members in the 200 largest companies, seven more than in 2019. However, growth was slow, as it was in some of the other groups of companies as well: The proportion of women on the executive boards of the top 200 companies (around ...
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a deep worldwide economic crisis. In many countries, the construction industry has been impacted. In Germany, however, construction activity is one of the economic sectors that has remained largely stable: In 2020, the total construction volume in Germany is expected to have increased by around four percent to 444 billion euros after increasing by around eight percent ...
2021| Martin Gornig, Claus Michelsen, Laura Pagenhardt
91 countries around the world have established fiscal rules to limit national debt and/or budget deficits. Using data from previous natural disasters, this report investigates how these fiscal rules affect overall economic development following a crisis. The results show countries with fiscal rules fare better after such shocks than those without. GDP, private consumption, and investments develop markedly ...
2020| Alexander Kriwoluzky, Laura Pagenhardt, Malte Rieth