Externe referierte Aufsätze

Do Laws Shape Attitudes? Evidence from Same-Sex Relationship Recognition Policies in Europe

Understanding whether laws shape or simply reflect citizens’ attitudes is important but empirically difficult. We provide new evidence on this question by studying the relation between legal same-sex relationship recognition policies (SSRRPs) and attitudes toward sexual minorities in Europe. Using data from the European Social Surveys covering 2002–2016 and exploiting variation in the timing of SSRRPs ...

Diversification, Common Ownership, and Strategic Incentives

We argue that within-industry investor diversification is directly related to common ownership incentives (profit loads on rival firms by the manager of a firm) in product markets. Because of their respective investment strategies, passive investors are naturally more diversified than active investors. If more money flows from active toward passive investors, then common ownership incentives increase. ...

Energy Outlooks Compared: Global and Regional Insights

We compare prominent global energy scenarios of organizations and companies. We supplement the analysis with four own scenarios, which were derived from structured analytic techniques in combination with a numerical global energy and resource market model (Multimod). Our paper provides three central contributions: (i) a compact survey of selected outlooks with meta characteristics (conceptual nature, ...

Lessons from Modeling 100% Renewable Scenarios Using GENeSYS-MOD

The main aim of models has never been to provide numbers, but insights. Still, challenges prevail for modelers to use the best configuration of their models to provide helpful insights. In the case of energy system modelling, this becomes even more complicated due to increasing complexity of the energy system transition through the potential and need for sector coupling. This paper therefore showcases ...

Energy Transition Pathways to a Low-carbon Europe in 2050: the Degree of Cooperation and the Level of Decentralization

In the framework of the Paris Agreement, the European Union (EU) will have to firmly set decarbonization targets to 2050. However, the viability on these targets is an ongoing discussion. The European Commission has made several propositions for energy and climate “roadmaps”. In this regard, this paper contributes by analyzing alternative pathways derived in a unique modelling process. As part of the ...

Was die Wirtschaftspolitik vom Wirtschaftsnobelpreis des Jahres 2019 lernen kann

Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo und Michael Kremer sind 2019 mit dem Wirtschaftsnobelpreis geehrt worden. Dies vor allem für ihren experimentellen Ansatz zur Linderung der weltweiten Armut. Die Laureaten nutzen randomisierte Experimente, um entwicklungspolitische Maßnahmen zu evaluieren. So haben sie die Grenzen der in Indien genutzten Mikrofinanzierung aufgezeigt. Zwar gibt es durchaus Kritik an dieser ...

Über die Ursachen und das mögliche Ende der niedrigen Zinsen in Deutschland

Gestaltende Technologiepolitik als Kern moderner Industriepolitik

Job Displacement, Family Dynamics and Spousal Labor Supply

We study the effectiveness of intrahousehold insurance among married couples when the husband loses his job due to a mass layoff or plant closure. Empirical results based on Austrian administrative data show that husbands suffer persistent employment and earnings losses, while wives' labor supply increases moderately due to extensive margin responses. Wives' earnings gains recover only a tiny fraction ...

Grundrentenplan der großen Koalition: Welche Risiken soll die gesetzliche Rentenversicherung versichern?

Unabhängig davon, ob der Grundrenten-Beschluss der Koalitionsparteien tatsächlich umgesetzt wird, ist er von Interesse, da die Diskussion über die noch offene Finanzierung der geplanten Grundrente auf die grundsätzliche Frage verweist, welche Risiken die Gesetzliche Rentenversicherung eigentlich versichert. Es gibt Argumente dafür, dass die konventionelle Sichtweise auf die versicherten Risiken abgelöst ...

The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Working Hours

The present paper analyzes how the statutory minimum wage introduced on January 1, 2015, has affected working hours in Germany up to 2016. The data used come from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which provides not only contractual working hours but also actual hours worked. Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach, we find a significant and robust reduction in contractual working hours ...

Identifying Robust Correlates of Risk Preference: A Systematic Approach Using Specification Curve Analysis

People’s risk preferences are thought to be central to many consequential real-life decisions, making it important to identify robust correlates of this construct. Various psychological theories have put forth a series of candidate correlates, yet the strength and robustness of their associations remain unclear because of disparate operationalizations of risk preference and analytic limitations in ...

Take Your Time to Grow: A Field Experiment on the Hiring of Youths

We investigate the effect of spells of no formal employment of young Germans on their chances of entering the labor market through an apprenticeship. We also study whether the potential negative effects of such spells can be mitigated by publicly provided training measures. In a field experiment, the fictitious applications of three young women were sent to firms advertising apprenticeships for the ...

The Impact of ECB Policy on Structural Reforms

We estimate the impact of monetary policy on structural reform adoption in the euro area. We identify exogenous ECB policy changes through an event study that extracts the unexpected variation in euro area interest rates on policy announcement days. We find that surprise monetary expansions increase the number of reforms significantly and that the effect is stronger for countries with weaker macroeconomic ...

Tax Evasion in New Disguise? Examining Tax Havens' International Bank Deposits

Recent efforts to reduce international tax evasion focus on information exchange with tax havens. Using bilateral bank data for 1397 countrypairs in a balanced quarterly panel from 2003:I to 2017:IV, we first show that information-on-request treaties with tax havens reduce bank deposits in tax havens by 27.5%. Second, also deposits from tax havens in high tax countries decline after such treaties are ...

The Effect of Unemployment on the Smoking Behavior of Couples

Although unemployment likely entails various externalities, research examining its spillover effects on spouses is scarce. This is the first paper to estimate effects of unemployment on the smoking behavior of both spouses. Using German Socio‐Economic Panel data, we combine matching and difference‐in‐differences estimation, employing the post‐double‐selection method for control variable selection via ...

Comparing Self-Reported and Partnership-Inferred Sexual Orientation in Household Surveys

Research comparing heterosexuals with bisexuals and homosexuals in economics and the social sciences typically relies on two strategies to identify sexual orientation in existing survey data of general populations. Probing respondents to self-report their sexual orientation is generally considered the preferred option. Since self-reports are unavailable in most large multidisciplinary surveys, often ...

Modeling the Low-Carbon Transition of the European Energy System - a Quantitative Assessment of the Stranded Assets Problem

In this paper, multiple pathways for the European energy system until 2050 are computed, focusing on one of the major challenges of the low-carbon transition: the issue of unused capacities and stranded assets. Three different scenarios are analyzed, utilizing the Global Energy System Model (GENeSYS-MOD) for calculations. A major feature is the introduction of limited foresight and imperfect planning ...

Same, but Different? Testing Monetary Policy Shock Measures

In this study, we determine the reliability and exogeneity of four popular monetary policy shock measures, namely the narrative series of Romer and Romer (2004), the high-frequency series of Barakchian and Crowe (2013), the high-frequency series of Gertler and Karadi (2015), and the hybrid series of Miranda-Agrippino and Ricco (2018b). To this end, we employ the Proxy-SVAR model and different empirical ...

No Evidence for a Protective Effect of Education on Mental Health

This paper analyzes whether education has a protective effect on mental health. To estimate causal effects, we employ an instrumental variable (IV) technique that exploits a reform extending compulsory schooling by one year implemented between 1949 and 1969 in West Germany. We complement analyses on the Mental Component Summary (MCS) score as a generic measure of overall mental health with an MCS-based ...