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DIW Discussion Papers 1837 / 2019
We compare prominent global energy scenarios of organisations and companies. We supplement the analysis with four own scenarios, which were derived from structured analytic techniques in combination with a numerical global energy and resource market model (Multimod). Our study provides three central contributions: (i) a compact survey of selected outlooks with meta characteristics (conceptual nature, ...
2019| Dawud Ansari, Franziska Holz, Hashem al-Kuhlani
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DIW Discussion Papers 1836 / 2019
This paper presents a broad retrospective evaluation of mergers and merger decisions in the digital sector. We first discuss the most crucial features of digital markets such as network effects, multi-sidedness, big data, and rapid innovation that create important challenges for competition policy. We show that these features have been key determinants of the theories of harm in major merger cases ...
2019| Elena Argentesi, Paolo Buccirossi, Emilio Calvano, Tomaso Duso, Alessia Marrazzo, Salvatore Nava
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DIW Discussion Papers 1835 / 2019
Cartels can severely harm social welfare. Competition authorities introduced leniency rules to destabilize existing cartels and hinder the formation of new ones. Empirically, it is difficult to judge the success of these measures because functioning cartels are unobservable. Existing experimental studies confirm that a leniency rule indeed reduces cartelization. We extend these studies by having a ...
2019| Maximilian Andres, Lisa Bruttel, Jana Friedrichsen
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DIW Discussion Papers 1834 / 2019
This paper explores whether governments can ban carbon-intensive materials through product carbon requirements. By setting near-zero emission limits for the production of materials to be sold within a jurisdiction, governments would accelerate the phase out of carbon-intensive production processes. Their announcement could alert basic materials producers, financing institutions, and other relevant ...
2019| Timo Gerres, Manuel Haussner, Karsten Neuhoff, Alice Pirlot
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DIW Discussion Papers 1833 / 2019
This paper analyzes nuclear power plant investments using Monte Carlo simulations of economic indicators such as net present value (NPV) and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). In times of liberalized electricity markets, largescale decarbonization and climate change considerations, this topic is gaining momentum and requires fundamental analysis of cost drivers. We adopt the private investors’ perspective ...
2019| Ben Wealer, Simon Bauer, Leonard Göke, Christian von Hirschhausen, Claudia Kemfert
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DIW Discussion Papers 1832 / 2019
This paper studies market segmentation that arises from the introduction of a price ceiling in the market for rental housing. When part of the market faces rent control, theory predicts an increase of free-market rents, a consequence of misallocation of households to housing units. We study a large-scale policy intervention in the German housing market in 2015 to document this mechanism empirically. ...
2019| Andreas Mense, Claus Michelsen, Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 1831 / 2019
Structural VAR models require two ingredients: (i) Informational sufficiency, and (ii) a valid identification strategy. These conditions are unlikely to be met by small-scale recursively identified VAR models. I propose a Bayesian Proxy Factor-Augmented VAR (BP-FAVAR) to combine a large information set with an identification scheme based on an external instrument. In an application to monetary policy ...
2019| Martin Bruns
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DIW Discussion Papers 1830 / 2019
In this paper, we use 2008-2013 American Community Survey data to update and further probe evidence on son preference in the United States. In light of the substantial increase in immigration, we examine this question separately for natives and immigrants. Dahl and Moretti (2008) found earlier evidence consistent with son preference in that having a female first child raised fertility and increased ...
2019| Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn, Peter Brummund, Jason Cook, Miriam Larson-Koester
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DIW Discussion Papers 1829 / 2019
As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP), we analyze what role individual characteristics of entrepreneurs play in sustainable job creation. ...
2019| Marco Caliendo, Frank M. Fossen, Alexander S. Kritikos
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DIW Discussion Papers 1828 / 2019
Devising appropriate policy measures for the integration of refugees is high on the agenda of many governments. This paper focuses on the social integration of families seeking asylum in Germany between 2013 and 2016. Exploiting differences in services availability across counties as an exogenous source of variation, we evaluate the effect of early education attendance by refugee children on their ...
2019| Ludovica Gambaro, Guido Neidhöfer, C. Katharina Spieß
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DIW Discussion Papers 1827 / 2019
This paper shows that labor demand plays an important role in the labor market reactions of older women affected by pension deductions for early retirement. Based on a large representative sample of the German workforce (SIAB), we calculate the consequences of individual financial incentive changes caused by a pension reform in Germany on employment, unemployment, and partial retirement. The reform ...
2019| Johannes Geyer, Peter Haan, Svenja Lorenz, Mona Pfister, Thomas Zwick
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DIW Discussion Papers 1826 / 2019
This study tests the prediction that a corrupt government reduces ethical behavior among its citizens. We integrate a standard "cheating" experiment into a broad household survey and find clear support for this prediction: respondents who perceive corruption in state affairs are more likely to cheat. Interestingly, there is a small group of non-conformers. The main relation is robust to consideration ...
2019| Olaf Hübler, Melanie Koch, Lukas Menkhoff, Ulrich Schmidt
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DIW Discussion Papers 1825 / 2019
We develop a structural model to address the question whether, and to what extent, expert panelists engage in herd behavior when voting on important policy questions. Our data comes from FDA advisory committees voting on questions concerning the approval of new drug applications. We utilize a change in the voting procedure from sequential to simultaneous voting to identify herding. Estimates suggest ...
2019| Melissa Newham, Rune Midjord
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DIW Discussion Papers 1824 / 2019
We analyze the political economy of the public provision of private goods when individuals care about their social status. Status concerns motivate richer individuals to vote for the public provision of goods they themselves buy in markets: a higher provision level attracts more individuals to the public sector, enhancing the social exclusivity of market purchases. Majority voting may lead to a public ...
2019| Jana Friedrichsen, Tobias König, Tobias Lausen
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DIW Discussion Papers 1823 / 2019
This RCT examines the effect of a new style finance training during which participants are given personalized feedback on their financial business outcomes in addition to a “rules-of-thumb” training approach. We compare this to the effects of a “rules-of-thumb” training by itself and to a control group. Targeting about 500 small and micro entrepreneurs in Kampala, Uganda, we find that the personalized ...
2019| Antonia Grohmann, Lukas Menkhoff, Helke Seitz
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DIW Discussion Papers 1822 / 2019
Since the global financial crisis and the related restructuring of banking systems, bank concentration is on the rise in many countries. Consequently, bank size and its role for macroeconomic volatility (or: stability) is the subject of intense debate. This paper analyzes the effects of financial regulations on the link between bank size, as measured by the volume of the loan portfolio, and volatility. ...
2019| Franziska Bremus, Melina Ludolph
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DIW Discussion Papers 1821 / 2019
We present evidence on the open economy consequences of US fiscal policy shocks identified through proxy-instrumental variables. Tax shocks and government spending shocks that raise the government budget deficit lead to persistent current account deficits. In particular, the negative response of the current account to exogenous tax reductions through a surge in the demand for imports is among the strongest ...
2019| Mathias Klein, Ludger Linnemann
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DIW Discussion Papers 1820 / 2019
This paper provides first empirical insights on the relationship between green public procurement (GPP) and firms' innovation activities. Considering that the public sector is a large buyer in the economy, public procurement is able to work as demand-pull factor for new products and thus innovations - given that the procurement is aimed at such objectives. GPP is specifically implemented to contribute ...
2019| Vera Zipperer
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DIW Discussion Papers 1819 / 2019
CO2-Abgaben bergen die Gefahr, einkommensschwächere Haushalte überdurchschnittlich zu belasten. Zur Abwehr solcher regressiven Verteilungswirkungen wird erwogen, einen Teil der Einnahmen durch einen Pro-Kopf-Bonus an die Bürger*innen zurückzugeben. Der vorliegende Beitrag entwickelt einen Vorschlag für einen in das deutsche Krankenversicherungssystem integrierten Bonus. Dazu werden zunächst die Ziele ...
2019| Roland Ismer, Manuel Haußner, Klaus Meßerschmidt, Karsten Neuhoff
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DIW Discussion Papers 1818 / 2019
Gegenwärtig sind die verschiedenen Energieträger in Deutschland unterschiedlich stark mit Abgaben und Umlagen belastet. Um die energie- und klimapolitischen Ziele der Bundesregierung zu erreichen, müssen fossile Heiz- und Kraftstoffe stärker bepreist werden (Kemfert et al. 2019; Dertinger und Schill 2019, SRU 2019). Zugleich herrscht in der energiepolitischen Debatte Uneinigkeit über die die Ausgestaltung ...
2019| Claudia Kemfert, Sophie Schmalz, Nicole Wägner