-
Press Release
In important areas such as tax policy, education, and energy, the future grand coalition must be considerably more ambitious – The need for reform in Germany is not being addressed sufficiently
Germany’s next government will most likely once again be a grand coalition. However, the results of the preliminary coalition talks between the Union parties and the SPD, which serve as a basis ...
31.01.2018
-
Economic Bulletin
In this study, we report on the current state of the international market for crude oil. The market data we analyzed indicate that competition has intensified as a result of the now firmly-established shale oil extraction industry in the U.S. Model-based simulations also show that supply-side shifts should only have moderate price effects. This applies to both an expansion in U.S. shale oil production ...
20.12.2017| Dawud Ansari, Claudia Kemfert, Aleksandar Zaklan
-
Economic Bulletin
The world needs to continue working to protect the climate – this is generally undisputed. However, there is no agreement on which technologies should be used to decarbonize the energy sector. Many international scenarios still assume a relevant role for nuclear power in the future. However, a study by the German Institute for Economic Research shows that the Paris climate protection target – ...
29.11.2017| Claudia Kemfert, Pao-Yu Oei
-
Press Release
Baden-Württemberg, Mecklenburg Western Pomerania, and Bavaria are the leading federal states in the field of renewable energy. That is the result from a comparison of the federal states which was compiled by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (Zentrum für Sonnenenergie- und Wasserstoff-Forschung ...
16.11.2017
-
Report
DIW on the 4th and 5th of October, 2017 invited representatives from 14 research institutes across Europe to convene in Berlin. The SET-Nav project under the direction of Vienna University of Technology focuses on establishment of a clean, safe, and efficient energy pathways for the European SET Project.
The project partners, including the NTNU Trondheim (Norway), Universidad Comillas Madrid and Fraunhofer ...
11.10.2017| Franziska Holz
-
Economic Bulletin
This year and next, global GDP will grow more strongly than expected. The growth rate should be just under four percent. In developed economies, the continuing improvement in the job market situation will drive consumption. Corporate investment activity will also gain momentum. Over the forecast horizon, a slowly rising inflation rate and somewhat tighter monetary policy will gradually slow private ...
08.09.2017
-
Report
On 5 July 2017, Isabel Teichmann (Department of Energy, Transportation, Environment; until 30 June 2017: Department of Competition and Consumers) was awarded the Albrecht-Daniel-Thaer-Förderpreis for her doctoral thesis “Three Topics in Agriculture: Private Quality Standards, Marketing Channels, and Biochar.” The prize is endowed annually by the Förderverein für Agrar- und ...
02.08.2017| Isabel Teichmann
-
Economic Bulletin
One focus of the G20 Summit in Hamburg in July 2017 was the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, including those set for the water sector. Despite progress, around 800 million people worldwide do not have adequate access to drinking water. Increasing block tariffs are an instrument widely used to support access to drinking water for poorer segments of the population. With this system, ...
12.07.2017
-
Personnel news
Stefan Seifert and Marica Valente have been granted a research scholarship from the American Association of Economists (AAWE), as well as receiving a prize for their paper "An offer that you can’t refuse? Agrimafias and Migrant Labor on Vineyards in Southern Italy." Both were presented at the annual AAWE conference in Pedua, Italy.
The dean of the GC, Prof. Weizsäcker, congratulates them ...
11.07.2017
-
Report
Researchers of DIW Berlin and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) have published a joint article on start-up costs of thermal power plants in the journal Nature Energy. Before power plants fueled by coal, natural gas or oil are able to generate electricity, they have to be started up to a minimum load level. This incurs costs related to additional fuel consumption as well as wear ...
04.04.2017| Wolf-Peter Schill
-
Economic Bulletin
Starting from a low level, in recent years the battery-supported self-consumption of solar electricity (solar prosumage) has grown significantly in Germany. Its growth is primarily due to the opposing trends in household electricity prices and feed-in tariffs in conjunction with government incentives for battery storage. Various benefits of solar prosumage speak to its positive potential in the German ...
29.03.2017| Claudia Kemfert, Wolf-Peter Schill, Alexander Zerrahn
-
Interview
Mr. Schill, what role does decentralized prosumage with solar power and battery storage currently play in Germany?
The battery-supported self-generation and consumption of electricity from solar sources is still a niche in the German market. Around 50,000 storage batteries have been installed here to date. On the whole that’s not a lot. Their total storage capacity is significantly lower than ...
29.03.2017| Wolf-Peter Schill
-
Economic Bulletin
According to the German federal government’s climate protection targets, there will be a continuous reduction of lignite-based electricity well before 2030. Simulations show that the currently authorized lignite mines in eastern Germany would not be fully depleted if the climate protection targets for 2030 were complied with. This makes planning for new mines or the expansion of existing ones ...
13.02.2017| Claudia Kemfert, Pao-Yu Oei, Dorothea Schäfer
-
Interview
Mrs. Kemfert, what role will lignite play in the future of Germany’s energy supply?
In the future, lignite will have less of a role in supplying energy in Germany because we want to fulfill the international climate targets in this country. We aspire to an energy transition that has the goal of boosting renewable energy’s share of production to at least 80 percent by 2050. This is ...
13.02.2017| Claudia Kemfert
-
Economic Bulletin
The nuclear power industry is faced with profound challenges— not only in Germany, but throughout Europe as well. New nuclear power plants are very expensive to build and even at high carbon prices, nuclear power is not competitive. Nevertheless, the EU reference scenario assumes that within the next three decades, new nuclear power plants will be built with a total capacity of at least 50 gigawatts ...
02.11.2016| Claudia Kemfert, Pao-Yu Oei
-
Interview
Mr. Oei, Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy. What do the plans for nuclear power in other European countries look like?
Countries have very different plans when it comes to nuclear power. Some countries, such as Germany, Italy, Austria and recently, Switzerland, have decided to phase out their nuclear power programs. Others—for example, Great Britain— have decided to implement ...
02.11.2016
-
Report
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the cornerstone of the European Union’s climate policy and covers just under half of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. More than ten years since the EU ETS was first introduced, there continues to be substantial research interest regarding its functioning and the behavior of participating companies. DIW Berlin conducted three econometric studies ...
10.03.2016
-
Interview
Dr. Zaklan, you have studied company behavior in the EU Emissions Trading System. What differences can be seen in how companies handle emissions allowances?
Large companies participate more actively in emissions trading than smaller enterprises. We established this on the basis of older data. In a second study, we were able to show that for small installations, the way in which allowances are allocated ...
10.03.2016
-
Report
by Franziska Holz, Hanna Brauers and Thorsten Roobeek
Two years ago, DIW Berlin introduced “Familienarbeitszeit”, which offers wage replacement for families in which both partners decide to take on reduced full-time employment (working hours amount¬ing to roughly 80 percent of a full-time job, henceforth referred to as “three-quarters employment”). This study investigates ...
25.11.2015
-
Interview
Dr. Holz, what’s the link between the earthquakes that have occurred in the Netherlands and natural gas production?
In the past two or three years, the Netherlands has experienced a very high number of increasingly powerful earthquakes which have also had an impact on property. People are concerned that these earthquakes are triggered by Dutch natural gas extraction destabilizing geological ...
25.11.2015