This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. It compiles a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. The main insight is that, as in equity markets, the returns on external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to compensate for risk. Real ...
Am 16. Dezember 2021 jährte sich der zehnte Todestag unseres sehr geschätzten Kollegen Joachim R. Frick. Joachim war gut 20 Jahre Mitarbeiter am SOEP. Markus Grabka erinnert sich: Ich habe ihn im Dezember 1992 bei meinem Bewerbungsgespräch als studentische Hilfskraft in Berlin Dahlem zum ersten Mal erlebt. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt bestand die SOEP-Abteilung aus einer Handvoll von Mitarbeitern, ...
December 16, 2021, marked ten years since Joachim R. Frick’s death. Joachim was part of the SOEP for over 20 years and a deeply valued colleague. Markus Grabka remembers: I first met Joachim in December of 1992. I was being interviewed for a student assistant position at the DIW in Dahlem. At that time, the SOEP had just a handful of staff members, so everyone in the department was there ...
We investigate how internal distribution motives can interfere with the economic objectives of capital controls. In order to do this, we provide a model showing that elite capture can affect optimal debt repatriations and the management of official reserves under capital controls. Relying on these theoretical insights and a wealth of quantitative and qualitative historical evidence, we study one of ...
After the economic impact of the COVID-19 crisis, Catalonia is set to be the place of the most ambitious Universal Basic Income (UBI) pilot experiment in Europe to date. Up to 5,000 participants will be selected to receive for two years (2023-2024) an individual cash benefit of 800 EUR (300 EUR for minors), unconditionally. The Catalan pilot project will also test the...
The German Socio-Economic Panel Study is a representative panel study for the German population, collecting data on a broad variety of topics of everyday life, including general wellbeing, household composition, educational aspirations and educational status, income and occupational biographies, leisure time activities, housing, health, political orientation and more. With its long running panel...
