Vorträge des DIW Berlin

Monetary Policy and Defaults in the US

This paper studies one possible aggregate implication of the risk-taking channel of monetary policy. Previous work finds that banks respond to a monetary expansion by taking on more risk. One possible implication of this effect is that, by the law of large numbers, aggregate defaults increase. First, I use a simple model of defaults to suggest that, in general equilibrium, risk-taking may not...

Multiple-Item Risk Measures

Social Norms or Income Taxation - What Drives Couple's Labor Supply? Experimental Evidence

On the Incidence of Renewable Energy Subsidies into Land Prices: Evidence from Germany

When Is Foreign Exchange Intervention Effective? Evidence from 33 Countries

Job Matching on Connected Occupational and Regional Labor Markets

The efficiency of job matching on local labor markets is susceptible to the spillovers caused both by regional and occupational mobility. In the present paper, we use novel administrative German data on the number of matches, unemployed and vacancies in the local labor markets that vary by both region and occupational titles. We compare the fixed-effects estimation of the matching function on...

Peer Effects in Labor Supply Decisions of Mothers with Young Children

Introduction to the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) – Practice, Problems and Analytical Potentials of Longitudinal Household Surveys: Policy and Research Workshop

Expansion of Full-Day Child Care and Subjective Wellbeing of Parents: Interdependencies with Culture and Resources

Voting for Direct Democracy: Evidence from a Unique Popular Initiative in Bavaria

We analyze a constitutional change in the German State of Bavaria where citizens, not politicians, granted themselves more say in politics at the local level through a constitutional initiative at the state level. This institutional setting allows us to focus on revealed preferences for direct democracy and to identify factors which explain this preference. Empirical results suggests support for...

The Role of Capital Income for Top Income Shares in Germany

The disappearance of capital income from the income tax base in many countries poses a major challenge to the comparability of top income share series based on income tax statistics both over time and between countries. First, we extend the existing German series including capital gains to 2010. Second, we derive three homogeneous series by simulating legislative definitions of capital income...

Job Search Expectations

Overlapping Political Budget Cycles

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can identify these cycles independently for the two branches, evaluate the effects of random overlaps, and account for general year effects. We find sizable and significant effects in expenditures before elections for the...

Tax Transfer Payments after Natural Disaster: A Diff-in-Diff Analysis of the 2002 Elbe Flood and Its Impact on Municipal Finances in Saxony

This paper explores the financial effectiveness of tax transfer payments after an unforeseeable natural destruction on the regions budget. The example is chosen from the 2002 flood in Saxony and damages in the municipalities. It was debated whether the flood relief fund was sufficient or even over compensating. We analyze what has changed in the debt level of the municipalities and calculate the...

Inequality and Defined Benefit Pensions When Life Expectancy Is Heterogeneous

In this paper, we analyze how income taxes, transfer programs and the pension system affect inequality in lifetime income. Importantly, we consider pre-retirement and post-retirement income and thereby we extend the previous literature on lifetime inequality, which has only considered income received before retirement. We use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to derive trajectories of earnings...

On the Incidence of Renewable Energy Subsidies into Land Prices: Evidence from Germany

The disappearance of capital income from the income tax base in many countries poses a major challenge to the comparability of top income share series based on income tax statistics both over time and between countries. First, we extend the existing German series including capital gains to 2010. Second, we derive three homogeneous series by simulating legislative definitions of capital income...

Looking for Jobs with Good Pay and Good Working Conditions

Sowing the Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind? The Effect of Wind Turbines on Residential Well-Being

We investigate the effect of the physical presence of wind turbines on residential well-being in Germany, using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a unique novel panel data set on more than 20,000 wind turbines for the time period between 2000 and 2012. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS), we calculate the proximity between households and the nearest wind turbine...

Testing for Identification in Structural Vector Autoregressions with GARCH Residuals

Structural Vector Autoregressions with Smooth Transition in Variances: The Interaction between U.S. Monetary Policy and the Stock Market