Vorträge des DIW Berlin

20 Years of German Unification: Evidence on Income Convergence and Heterogeneity

We analyse the convergence and heterogeneity of living standards between East and West Germany since unification. Based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we compare total individual income of permanent adult residents, including retirees and the unemployed, of East and West Germany over the fifteen years for which data are available. Using a fixed effects vector decomposition...

Building the Minimum Wage in Germany: Germany¿s First Sectoral Minimum Wage and Its Impact on Wages in the Construction Industry

This study analyzes the impact of the introduction of the first sectoral minimum wage in 1997 in the German construction sector on hourly wages and their distribution. The minimum wage was introduced only in certain sub-sectors of the industry and just blue-collar workers were eligible. In the setting of a natural experiment neighboring 4-digit-industries and white-collar workers are used as...

Risk Attitudes and Investment Decisions across European Countries: Are Women More Conservative Investors Than Men?

This study questions the popular stereotype that women are more risk averse than men in their financial investment decisions. The analysis is based on micro-level data from large-scale surveys of private households in five European countries. In our analysis of investment decisions, we directly account for individuals' self-perceived willingness to take financial risks. The empirical evidence we...

Dateninfrastruktur zur Familienpolitik: Panel

Vereinbarkeit von Familie und Beruf - ein neuer Schwerpunkt der deutschen Familienpolitik?: Keynote Speech

The Strategic Use of Private Quality Standards in Vertical Relations

This paper highlights the strategic role of private quality standards in vertical relations. Considering two symmetric downstream firms that are exclusively supplied by a finite number of upstream firms, we show that there exist asymmetric equilibria in the downstream firms' quality requirements. While one downstream firm has an incentive to exaggerate her quality requirements to weaken her...

Die Ökonomie des wissenschaftlichen Publizierens im Online-Zeitalter: Panel

Can We Trust the Trust Game? A Comprehensive Examination

Erfahrungen aus der sozio-oekonomischen Forschung

Parental Imprinting of Party Identification Reconsidered

Ways Forward in Financial Inclusion and Integrity

Eastern Germany on the Brink of Closing the Productivity Gap?: Firm-Level Evidence from Manufacturing

After 20 years of transition, productivity in Eastern Germany is still considerably below the Western level. We study the development of the East-West productivity gap at the firm level and link it to firms' product policy. Redesigning their product range was a major challenge for Eastern enterprises as they sought their place in the international division of labour. Based on data from...

Cooperative Customer Data Acquisition and Sharing among Rivals

We present a duopoly model of price discrimination with two-dimensional consumer het- erogeneity to analyze two types of cooperation between competitors involving customer data: joint information acquisition and information sharing. We find that incentives for both co-operation types depend on the willingness to switch brands of consumers. Firms are unlikely to jointly acquire customer data when...

Determinants of Internationalization: Differences Between Service and Manufacturing SMEs

Wage-Settings Regimes in International Oligopoly

Gender Relations in Couples and the Risk of Separation in East and West Germany

Emissiontrading and the Promotion of Renewable Energy

Aktuelle Diskussionen in der Energiepolitik

One Last Puff? Public Smoking Bans and Smoking Behavior

This paper investigates the short-term effects of public smoking bans on individual smoking behavior. In 2007 and 2008, state-level smoking bans were gradually introduced in all of Germany's sixteen federal states. We exploit this variation in the timing of state bans to identify the effect that smoke-free policies had on individuals' smoking propensity and smoking intensity. Using rich...

Industrie als Wachstumsmotor der Großstädte