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Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs and the Size of Their Firms

In this study, we examine the relationship between personality traits, captured by risk tolerance and the Big Five traits, and firm size, as measured by the number of employees. We show that the personality of entrepreneurs matters for the size of their firm they operate. We use a novel add-on to the German Socio-Economic Panel that includes a sub-sample of owner-managers running larger firms. High ...

IMF Economist Program - Recruitment Outreach 2027

We are pleased to inform you that representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit the DIW Berlin to present the IMF Economist Program (EP) — an entry program for young economists who wish to pursue an international career in economic policy and research. The IMF Economist Program is designed for talented economists who are close to completing or have recently completed a PhD...

Life After Divorce: Effects of Joint Custody on Parents and Children

Divorce reshapes family life, yet little is known about one of its most consequential features: the allocation of child custody. We study the impact of joint versus sole custody on both parents and children using rich administrative data from Sweden linked to over 25 years of newly-collected court custody rulings. To address selection concerns, we exploit random assignment of custody disputes to judges ...

So schadet der Börsenboom der Demokratie

Von hohen Aktienkursen profitieren Reiche besonders stark. Ärmere hingegen werden durch steigende Preise und Mieten zunehmend abgehängt. Das ist politisch gefährlich. Als Elon Musk Anfang Juni 2026 mit dem geplanten Börsengang von SpaceX offiziell zum ersten Billionär der Menschheitsgeschichte aufstieg, war das Medienecho gewaltig. Kaum Aufmerksamkeit hingegen erhielt die Tatsache, dass dies kein Ausreißer, ...

So schadet der Börsenboom der Demokratie

Transformation des SOEP: Evidenzbasierte Politikberatung für Krisenzeiten

Politische Beratung braucht eine gute und schnell zugängliche Datengrundlage. Beides ist in Krisenzeiten besonders schwer zu bekommen. Was es daher braucht: leistungsfähige, dauerhaft betriebene Dateninfrastrukturen, die im Krisenfall schnell aktiviert und für wissenschaftliche Analysen nutzbar gemacht werden können. Auch die SOEP-Daten-infrastruktur soll besser werden. Ab 2028 beginnt eine Transformation ...

A Co-Creation Approach to Selecting and Adapting Adolescent Tobacco and Air-Pollution Interventions and Strategies for Implementation in Diverse Countries: Insights from FRESHAIR4life

Background : Evidence-based interventions to reduce adolescents’ exposure to tobacco and air pollution are rarely implemented in low- and middle-income countries, often because they lack contextual fit. The ‘FRESHAIR4Life’ project aimed to optimise implementation of contextually adapted, evidence-based interventions in Greece, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Romania, and Uganda. Selecting appropriate interventions ...

Author Correction: Long-duration Electricity Storage Needs for Coping with Dunkelflaute Events in Europe

Navigating Uncertainty: Do Communicable Diseases Influence Risk Preferences?

This paper explores the effect of COVID-19 infection rates on individuals’ risk preferences using the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), a large population-wide ran¬dom sample. Exploiting county-level variation in a difference-in-differences design, we find that risk preferences remain unchanged: the effect is precisely estimated at 2.1% of a standard deviation (95% CI: [−0.4%, +4.6%]), ruling out economically ...

Fundamentally Reforming the DI System: Evidence from Germany

In 2001, Germany abolished public occupational disability insurance (ODI)—the second tier of its public DI system—for cohorts born after 1960. Using administrative data, we first document that, in the long run, overall DI inflows declined by roughly one-third. Second, using representative survey data, we document at best modest ODI insurance take-up responses in the private individual, risk-rated market, ...