Negative interest rates remain a controversial policy for central banks. We study a novel signalling channel and ask under what conditions negative rates should exist in an optimal policymaker’s toolkit. We prove two necessary conditions for the optimality of negative rates: a time-consistent policy setting and a preference for policy smoothing. These conditions allow negative rates to signal policy ...
Dieser Beitrag erschien in der WirtschaftsWoche. Die vierte Welle, gerissene Lieferketten, weltpolitische Spannungen: Selten zuvor war ein Jahreswechsel mit so viel Unsicherheit behaftet. Die Lösung liegt nicht in falsch verstandener Unabhängigkeit. Sondern mehr Widerstandskraft. Ein Gastbeitrag. Viele Unternehmen schauen mit Sorge auf das neue Jahr. Selten war der Ausblick für die Wirtschaft von ...
We examine the relationship between parenting activities and center-based care using time diary and survey data for mothers in Germany. While mothers using center-based care spend significantly less time in the presence of their child, we find that differences in the time spent on specific activities such as reading, talking, and playing with the child are relatively small or zero. The pattern of results ...
Several studies have suggested that the rank-order stability of personality increases until midlife and declines later in old age. However, this inverted U-shaped pattern has not consistently emerged in previous research; in particular, a recent investigation implementing several methodological advances failed to support it. To resolve the matter, we analyzed data from two representative panel studies ...
Equivalence Scales are a tool for removing the heterogeneity of household sizes in the measurement of inequality, and affect poverty assessments and poverty lines. We address the disadvantage that poor households may suffer due to their reduced ability to share goods within the household. This disadvantage is important to estimate and embed in standard analysis, as it seems to have a substantial quantitative ...
Rent control is a highly debated social policy that has been omnipresent since World War I. Since 2010s, it has been experiencing a true renaissance, for many cities and countries facing housing shortage are desperately looking for solutions of the chronic housing shortage and direct their attention to controlling housing rents and to other restrictive policies. Is rent control useful or does it create ...
Rent control is a highly debated social policy that has been omnipresent since World War I. Since 2010s, it has been experiencing a true renaissance, for many cities and countries facing housing shortage are desperately looking for solutions of the chronic housing shortage and direct their attention to controlling housing rents and to other restrictive policies. Is rent control useful or does it...
Credit decisions play an important role for the economic wellbeing of households. However, the complexity of products and varying price information display makes it hard for consumers to navigate this field. Empirical evidence has important implications for consumer protection policies, as many people fail to make optimal choices for themselves and struggle to understand credit cost information....
Das Auftreten des Sars-CoV-2-Virus (inzwischen unter der Bezeichnung „Coronavirus“ bekannt) hat die globale Wirtschaft empfindlich in Unordnung gebracht. Es stellt einen geradezu lehrbuchmäßigen exogenen Schock dar, den die ökonomischen Akteure nunmehr als bis dato unbekannte Nebenbedingung in ihren individuellen Plänen berücksichtigen sollten. Folgerichtig ...
