Publikationssuche

Removing Cross-Border Capacity Bottlenecks in the European Natural Gas Market: A Proposed Merchant-Regulatory Mechanism

We propose a merchant-regulatory framework to promote investment in the European natural gas network infrastructure based on a price cap over two-part tariffs. As suggested by Vogelsang (J Regul Econ 20:141–165, 2001) and Hogan et al. (J Regul Econ38:113–143, 2010), a profit maximizing network operator facing this regulatory constraint will intertemporally rebalance the variable and fixed part of its ...

The Mayor's Advantage: Causal Evidence on Incumbency Effects in German Mayoral Elections

National-Strategic Investment in European Power Transmission Capacity

The transformation of the European electricity system requires substantial investment in transmission capacity to facilitate cross-border trade and to efficiently integrate renewable energy sources. However, network planning in the EU is still mainly a national prerogative. In contrast to other studies aiming to identify the pan-European (continental) welfare-optimal transmission expansion, we investigate ...

Sectors under Scrutiny: Evaluation of Indicators to Assess the Risk of Carbon Leakage in the UK and Germany

One of the central debates surrounding the design of the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme is the approach to address carbon leakage concerns. Correctly identifying the economic activities exposed to the risk of carbon leakage represents the first step in mitigating the risk effectively. This paper assesses the robustness of the quantitative assessment criteria used by the European Commission ...

The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not Just a Matter of Personality

Why do entrepreneurship rates differ so markedly by gender? Using data from a large representative German household panel, we investigate to what extent personality traits, human capital, and the employment history influence the start-up decision and can explain the gender gap in entrepreneurship. Applying a decomposition analysis, we observe that the higher risk aversion among women explains a large ...

The Cyclicality of Automatic and Discretionary Fiscal Policy: What Can Real-Time Data Tell Us?

This paper develops a new methodology for estimating both the automatic and discretionary components of fiscal policy in one reaction function using the differences between real-time and ex post data. Discretionary policy should respond to information available to the policy maker at the time (real-time data), whereas automatic fiscal policy should respond to the true state of the economy at the time ...

Capital-Flow Management Measures: What Are They Good for?

Are capital controls and macroprudential measures related to international exposures successful in achieving their objectives? Assessing their effectiveness is complicated by selection bias; countries which change their capital-flow management measures (CFMs) often share specific characteristics and are responding to changes in variables that the CFMs are intended to influence. This paper addresses ...

The Role of Paternal Risk Attitudes in Long-Run Education Outcomes and Intergenerational Mobility

This paper studies the role of paternal risk attitudes in sons’ long-run education outcomes and in the intergenerational transmission of incomes and education. Based on 1984–2012 German Socio-Economic Panel Study data of sons and fathers, I show that fathers’ risk aversion is inversely related to sons’ long-run levels of education. A quasi-experimental setting provides no evidence for reverse causality. ...

Small Might Be Beautiful, but Bigger Performs Better: Scale Economies in "Green" Refurbishments of Apartment Housing

The energy efficiency of the residential housing stock plays a key role in strategies to mitigate climate change and global warming. In this context, it is frequently argued that private investment and the quality of thermal upgrades are too low in the light of the challenges faced and the potential energy cost savings. While many authors address the potential barriers for investors to increase energy ...

Flight to Liquidity and the Great Recession

This paper argues that counter-cyclical liquidity hoarding by financial intermediaries may strongly amplify business cycles. It develops a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model in which banks operate subject to agency problems and funding liquidity risk in their intermediation activity. Importantly, the amount of liquidity reserves held in the financial sector is determined endogenously: Balance ...