DIW Economic Bulletin

Reform of Income Splitting for Married Couples: Only Individual Taxation Significantly Increases Working Incentives

The joint taxation of married couples in Germany with full income splitting is still a major hindrance to the participation of married women in the labor market. In their current financial proposals, the SPD (Social Democratic Party) is calling for income splitting for married couples to be replaced by individual taxation with maintenance deductions, in accordance with existing schemes for divorced ...

At Least in Germany People Get a Second Chance: Five Questions to Ingrid Tucci

Success Despite Starting out at a Disadvantage: What Helps Second-Generation Migrants in France and Germany?

The educational and employment trajectories of migrant children in France and Germany are extremely diverse. The few successful ones dominate the public eye. Yet successful biographies of young adults with a migration background are in no way a negligible exception. However, the picture is different in the two countries: while in France more migrants' descendants manage to reach their (secondary?) ...

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Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa: Strong Economic Growth - Major Challenges

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - the so-called BRICS countries - all show high economic growth rates. They suffered only shortly under the turbulences of the international financial crisis in 2008/2009 and were able to recover quickly - in contrast to most industrialized nations. In recent times of economic fragility in industrialized countries, the BRICS are playing a decisive role ...

The Future of the International Monetary System

The financial crisis of 2007/2008 and the current "Euro crisis" challenge the current global monetary system. They drastically reveal the actual system's weaknesses und show the eminent importance of the international monetary system for the stability of markets and national economies. DIW Berlin was commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Finance to research possible alternatives to the existing exchange ...

A New Early Warning System Can Forecast Housing Bubbles: Six Questions to Konstantin Kholodilin

Speculative Bubble on Housing Markets: Elements of an Early Warning System

Excessive speculation on asset markets can cause significant macroeconomic losses in terms of production and employment. Such developments should be detected as early and as reliably as possible in order to enable corrective action through adequate economic policy measures. This is the goal of the early warning system, which was developed by DIW Berlin on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Finance for ...

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Alliance '90/The Greens at the Crossroads: On Their Way to Becoming a Mainstream Party?

The Greens have been riding high in the polls for months now. In Baden-Württemberg, a stronghold of the Christian-Democratic Party (CDU), Winfried Kretschmann became the first Green party candidate to be elected Minister-President of any German state. This article looks beyond the current political climate to analyze longer-term trends in Green party support. The data used come from the Socio- Economic ...

Labor Mobility in Central and Eastern Europe: The Migration of Workers to Germany Has Been Limited in Scope

The enlargement of the EU in 2004 has had numerous effects- and the German labor market has not been left untouched. Among migrant laborers coming to Germany, self-employment has been the most frequent form of labor market participation to date. Despite barriers to immigration and the need to acquire work permits, dependent employment among migrants from 2004 accession countries has also increased. ...

Germans Are Less Worried about Immigration: Six Questions to Ingrid Tucci

Who Can Become German? Xenophobia and Attitudes Towards Naturalization

Germans are opening up to the topic of immigration: According to the representative data of this report, less and less Germans without a migration background feel threatened by immigration. Also, their attitude towards naturalization has changed. The question "What is the decisive factor for granting German nationality?" is now answered differently than in the 1990s. A significant part of the population ...

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Japan at the Crossroads: State Budget Remains the Achilles' Heel

The natural and nuclear disaster on the 11th of March 2011 pulled Japan into a renewed recession. Projected on the annual basis, the gross domestic product nosedived by 3.5% in the first quarter of 2011. Indeed the consequences of the earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster will be very noticeable for the remainder of the year with regard to economic development. However, initial signs ...

Exports: Orientation Towards Emerging Markets

Nearly 60 percent of globally traded industrial goods are R&D-intensive. Two fifths are goods with very high research intensity (cutting-edge technology), while the remaining three fifths are goods with high research intensity (high-level technology).1 Up until the 1990s, the USA was the global market leader. However, since then, the situation has changed in favor of Germany and remained so despite ...

German R&D-Intensive Industries: Value Added and Productivity Have Recovered Considerably after the Crisis

No large industrialized nation is as strongly specialized in the production of R&D-intensive goods as Germany. In the crisis year 2009 these export-oriented industries had to pass a crucial test. The slump in sales endangered both specialized jobs and the financing of high R&D expenditures, and thus the ability of these industries to compete technologically in the future. The Commission of Experts ...

Leading Position Maintained: Six Questions for Alexander Schiersch

After the Crisis: German R&D-Intensive Industries in a Good Position

The strong reliance of the German economy on the industry sector has been a point of criticism for years now. Germany is too strongly focused on export, making it susceptible to crises and fluctuations in demand and exchange rates, the critics allege. A non-critical look at the numbers during the recent economic crisis seems to reaffirm these old concerns: Industrial productivity shrank significantly ...

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