Vorträge des DIW Berlin

Einmal Ossi - immer Ossi? Vornamensvergabe im geteilten Deutschland und 20 Jahre danach

Nomes est Omen: Naming Behaviour and Social Change

Ökonomie frühkindlicher Bildung und Betreuung

Impacts of Opportunities, Constraints, Empowerment, and Expectations on Quality of Life Measures

Emissions Trading and the Promotion of Renewable Energy: Energy Security Implication

Shipping Data

Soaking the Rich to Bring Down Public Debt? Revenue and Distributional Effects of a Capital Levy

The idea of higher wealth taxes to finance the mounting public debt in the wake of the financial crises is gaining ground in several OECD countries. We evaluate the revenue and distributional effects of a one-time capital levy on personal net wealth that is currently on the German political agenda. We use survey data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and estimate the net wealth...

Current Account Imbalances in the Euro Area: Catching up or Competitiveness?

In the debate on global imbalances, the euro area countries did not receive much attention so far. While the current account is on balance for the entire area, divergences between individual member states have increased since the introduction of the common currency. In this paper, the imbalances are traced to catching up and competitiveness factors using paneleconometric techniques. In line with...

Fiscal Equalization and the Unwillingness-to-Tax of Sub-national Authorities: Evidence from Germany

Bullet Proof? Program Evaluation in Conflict Areas: Evidence from Rural Colombia

Recently, Conditional Cash Transfer Programs (CCT) became increasingly popular in developing countries due to their positive outcomes on health and education. In this paper, we are particularly interested in testing if children participating in CCT (treated) in conflict affected regions benefit more (or less) than their counterparts in peaceful areas. To test this, we combine longitudinal CCT data...

Personality Characteristics and the Decision to Become and Stay Self-Employed

Tax Losses and Firm Investment: Evidence from Tax Statistics

The elasticity of business capital to changes in its user cost is central to the economic analysis of fiscal policies. As a major component, the user cost of capital includes a firm's marginal tax rate. Due to the asymmetric treatment of tax losses and profits, the marginal tax rate can depart strongly from the statutory tax rate; it thus differs across firms. Previous studies have mis-measured...

Editing und multiple Imputation der Vermögensinformation 2002 und 2007 im SOEP

Can Child Care Policy Encourage Employment and Fertility?: Evidence from a Structural Model

In this paper we develop a structural model of female employment and fertility which accounts for intertemporal feedback effects between the two outcomes. We identify the effect of financial incentives on the employment and fertility decision by exploiting variation in the tax and transfer system which differs by employment state and number of children. To this end we simulate in detail the...

Intergenerational Spillover Effects of Maternal Education on Child's Health and Schooling

This is the first study investigating the causal effect of maternal education on child¿s health and schooling outcomes in Germany. We apply an instrumental variables approach that has not yet been used in the intergenerational context. For that purpose, we draw on a rich German panel data set (SOEP) containing information about three generations. This allows instrumenting maternal education by the...

Spurious Monthly Oscillations and Mixed-Frequency Data

Cost Efficiency and Subsidization in German Local Public Bus Transit

Subsidies are considered important means to facilitate the provision of public transit, yet the empirical evidence implies that they can have harming effects on costs and possibly also on operators' performance. This paper examines the impacts of deficit-balancing subsidies on the cost inefficiency of local public bus companies in Germany, where a complex system allocates ample financial support....

Distributional and Welfare Effects of Germany's Year 2000 Tax Reform

This paper empirically investigates distributional and welfare effects of Germany's year 2000 income tax reform. The reform is simulated in an ex-ante behavioral microsimulation approach. Dead weight loss of changes in capital income taxation is estimated in a structural model for household savings and asset demand applied to German survey data. Significant reductions in tax rates result in income...

Regulated Transmission Expansion in Electricity Networks: The Effects of Fluctuating Demand and Wind Generation

We study the performance of different regulatory approaches for the expansion of electricity transmission networks in the light of realistic demand patterns and fluctuating wind power. In particular, we are interested in the relative performance of a combined merchant-regulatory mechanism compared to a cost-based and a merchant-like approach. In contrast to earlier research, we explicitly include...

Industry-Specific Knowledge Spurs Productivity: An Application of Panel Cointegration