Externe referierte Aufsätze

A Welfare Analysis of Electricity Transmission Planning in Germany

We analyze the electricity transmission planning process in Germany (Netzentwicklungsplan), which separates transmission expansion decisions from generation dispatch. We employ an economic modeling approach to analyze two different network planning settings. In the first setting, there is no trade-off between transmission network development and generation dispatch, as is currently the case in Germany. ...

Open Access, Innovation, and Research Infrastructure

In this article we argue that the current endeavors to achieve open access in scientific literature require a discussion about innovation in scholarly publishing and research infrastructure. Drawing on path dependence theory and addressing different open access (OA) models and recent political endeavors, we argue that academia is once again running the risk of outsourcing the organization of its c ...

Short- and Long-Term Participation Tax Rates and Their Impact on Labor Supply

Generous income support programs as provided by European welfare states have often been blamed to hamper employment. This paper investigates the importance of incentives inherent in the tax-benefit system for the individual decision to take up work. Using German microdata over the period 1993–2010, we find that recent reforms in Germany increased work incentives at the extensive margin measured by ...

The SOEP Innovation Sample (SOEP IS)

Das Potential von Mikrodaten sozial- und wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Erhebungen und amtlicher Statistiken für die zeithistorische Forschung

The source-critical analysis and use of statistical micro data from official statistical sources and surveys continues to present methodological and conceptual challenges for contemporary historical research as well as for the social, economic, and behavioral sciences themselves. Up to now, historical studies have cited statistical findings essentially as objective facts, with almost no critical examination ...

Using Person-Fit Measures to Assess the Impact of Panel Conditioning on Reliability

Panel conditioning has posed one of the main challenges to panel studies since their inception in the social sciences. Aside from the risk of reactivity to previous interviews, there is reason to expect that cumulative survey experience increases the reliability of data emanating from panel studies relative to cross-sectional surveys. This positive aspect of recurrent interviewing for data quality ...

Bereitstellung von Regelleistung durch Elektrofahrzeuge: Modellrechnungen für Deutschland im Jahr 2035

Sowohl beim Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien als auch im Bereich der Elektromobilität hat sich die Bundesregierung ambitionierte Ziele gesetzt. Im Kontext der Energiewende soll der Anteil fluktuierender erneuerbarer Energien an der Stromerzeugung weiter deutlich steigen. Dies erfordert tendenziell eine erhöhte Vorhaltung von Regelleistung. Gleichzeitig sinkt die Stromerzeugung aus thermischen Kraftwerken, ...

How to Counter Union Power? Equilibrium Mergers in International Oligopoly

We re-examine the common wisdom that cross-border mergers are the most effective merger strategy for firms facing powerful unions. In contrast, we obtain a domestic merger outcome whenever firms are sufficiently heterogeneous (in terms of productive efficiency and product differentiation). A domestic merger unfolds a “wage-unifying” effect which limits the union's ability to extract rents. When products ...

Family Instability and Locus of Control in Adolescence

Investigating the impact of family instability is important as more and more children experience different family changes in many industrialized countries. In this paper we examine the dynamics of family structure, looking at the potential effect of yearly maternal partnership transitions on adolescents’ locus of control. We aim at combining research on family instability with research on non-cognitive ...

Credit Rating Agency Downgrades and the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crises

This paper studies the reaction of the Euro's value against major currencies to sovereign rating announcements from Moody's, S&P and Fitch CRAs during the Eurozone debt crisis in 2010–2012 based on event study methodology combined with GARCH models. We also analyze how the yields of French, Italian, German and Spanish government long-term bonds were affected by CRA announcements. Our results reveal ...

The Self-Medication Hypothesis: Evidence from Terrorism and Cigarette Accessibility

We use single equation and system instrumental variable models to explore if individuals smoke during times of stress (the motivation effect) and if they are successful in self-medicating short-term stress (the self-medication effect). Short-term stress is a powerful motivator of smoking, and the decision to smoke could trigger biological feedback that immediately reduces short-term stress. We use ...

Extreme Weather Events and Child Height: Evidence from Mongolia

We provide new evidence on the impact of one severe weather event on child height in Mongolia. While previous studies mostly focus on rainfall shocks in tropical or dry climate areas, our focus is on the extremely harsh winter that hit Mongolia in 2009–10. The severe winter—locally referred to as a dzud—caused catastrophic damage and resulted in the death of 10.3 million livestock. Our analysis identifies ...

Bubble Thy Neighbour: Portfolio Effects and Externalities from Capital Controls

We use changes in Brazil's tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2013 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. We find that an increase in Brazil's tax on foreign investment in bonds causes fund managers to significantly decrease their portfolio allocations to Brazil in both bonds and equities. Fund managers simultaneously increase allocations ...

Effective Reminders

We study the effects of reminders on people’s behavior in investment activities characterized by up-front costs and delayed benefits, such as getting an education and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. We conduct a field experiment and show that simple weekly reminders induce users of a gym to substantially increase their gym attendance over an extensive period. Users’ response to reminders is immediate ...

Power Markets with Renewables: New Perspectives for the European Target Model

We discuss at the European example how power market design evolves with increasing shares of intermittent renewables. Short-term markets and system operation have to accommodate for the different needs of renewable and conventional generation assets and flexibility options. This can be achieved by pooling resources over larger geographic areas through common auction platforms, realizing the full flexibility ...

War, Housing Rents, and Free Market: A Case of Berlin's Rental Housing Market during World War I

New archival evidence on housing rents in Berlin over 1909–1917 is presented. The data are extracted from newspaper announcements and georeferenced. Using hedonic regressions, quality-adjusted rent indices are constructed and employed to analyze the rental dynamics during World War I, when housing market experienced several shocks. The outbreak of the war led to an outflow of men from cities. Toward ...

Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies 74 Loci Associated with Educational Attainment

Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals1. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample1, 2 of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study ...

The Link between R&D, Innovation and Productivity: Are Micro Firms Different?

Genetic Variants Associated with Subjective Well-Being, Depressive Symptoms, and Neuroticism Identified through Genome-Wide Analyses

Very few genetic variants have been associated with depression and neuroticism, likely because of limitations on sample size in previous studies. Subjective well-being, a phenotype that is genetically correlated with both of these traits, has not yet been studied with genome-wide data. We conducted genome-wide association studies of three phenotypes: subjective well-being (n = 298,420), depressive ...

When Bad Moods May Not Be So Bad: Valuing Negative Affect Is Associated with Weakened Affect-Health Links

Bad moods are considered “bad” not only because they may be aversive experiences in and of themselves, but also because they are associated with poorer psychosocial functioning and health. We propose that people differ in their negative affect valuation (NAV; the extent to which negative affective states are valued as pleasant, useful/helpful, appropriate, and meaningful experiences) and that affect–health ...