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Personnel news
Sarah Dahmann, a doctoral student of the German Socio-Economic Panel department, was awarded the "Sir Alec Cairncross Award" for her paper "How Does Education Improve Cognitive Skills? Instructional Time versus Timing of Instruction" at the 2016 Annual Conference of the Scottish Economic Society.
The prize was handed over to Sarah by nobel lauterate Sir Christopher Pissarides.
19.04.2016
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Press Release
DIW Berlin claims that the US Federal Reserve’s decision to end its zero interest-rate policy has not caused turbulence in financial markets
According to a recent analysis conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the interest rate lift-off introduced by the US Federal Reserve at the end of last year has not led to distortions in the financial markets. Financing costs ...
15.04.2016
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Report
Energy sectors—primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution—require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms’ incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors and private investment is still ...
15.04.2016
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Interview
Mr. Fratzscher, there are concerns about an overall lack of investment in Germany. Is the problem more urgent in the public sector or in the private sector?
The investment gap exists in both the public and private sector. Three years ago, we calculated that Germany’s investment gap amounts to roughly 75 billion euros per year. The investment gap has also been confirmed by ...
15.04.2016
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Interview
Dr. Grosse Steffen, since the end of 2008, the US policy interest rate was at the level it has only just reached in Europe, that is, at the zero lower bound. In December, the Federal Reserve decided to raise the interest rate in the US. What was the motivation for the ‘lift-off’?
The reason to increase the federal funds rate is that the US economy has been experiencing strong growth for ...
07.04.2016
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Report
Update :
The documentation documents for the generated variables of the updated data distribution SOEP-Core v31.1 (data for the years 1984-2014) are available online, including the documentation of the biographical data sets.
Please download the zip file with this link.
We have also published the documents as separated files on our website Generated Variables.
06.04.2016
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Report
We are happy to presen our recent SOEPnewsletter 111, April2016.
The relevant topics:
An update of the current wave 31 of the SOEP data (SOEP v31.1, data of the years 1984-2014) has been released, we inform about the changes in the data set.
A new release of the SOEP Innovation Sample (soep.is.2014) is on its way. You will find an overview about the innovative modules that will be available.
The ...
06.04.2016
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Personnel news
Isabel Teichmann has sucessfully defended her dissertation on January 13th at Humboldt University of Berlin.Prof. Dr. Gerd G. Wagner and Prof. Dr. Helmut Lütkepohl congratulate her on her success!
31.03.2016
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Press Release
Greater transparency of the national banks of the euro area would strengthen Eurosystem credibility. The allegation that the European Central Bank (ECB) is engaging in illegal monetary financing under the guise of ANFA (Agreement on Net Financial Assets) seems to be unfounded—there is simply no evidence for it, claims the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) based on their ...
29.03.2016
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Interview
Dr. König, the Agreement on Net Financial Assets (ANFA) was drawn up to prevent conflict between the NCBs and the European Central Bank (ECB) over monetary policy. What exactly is the background to this agreement?
ANFA limits the national central banks’ purchases of financial assets and securities in order to ensure effective implementation of the single monetary policy in the euro area. [...]
The ...
29.03.2016
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Press Release
DIW Berlin’s forecast: GDP to rise by 1.6 percent in 2016 – robust labor market, wage increases, and refugee expenditure fueling consumption – investment and global economy inhibiting growth
According to the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), the German economy is expected to grow by 1.6 percent this year, despite a gloomy global economy. This prognosis is similar ...
16.03.2016
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Interview
Mr. Junker, what kind of growth should we expect for the German economy?
The German economy is expected to grow by 1.6 percent this year, which is a bit weaker than we had forecasted this past winter. This slight downward revision is primarily due to the fact that industry experienced a weak phase over the past six months, especially in the final quarter of 2015. The major reason for this was ...
16.03.2016
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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
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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
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Press Release
SOEP special analysis for International Women's Day (March 8) reveals that the gender-based division of household labor persists – DIW Research Director Elke Holst calls for stronger, fairer division of unpaid work in the household among couples – a family working-time benefits model (Familienarbeitszeit) and daycare expansion would also support this development
On average, women in dual-income ...
07.03.2016
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Personnel news
Felix Arnold has sucessfully defended his dissertation on January 22th at the Free University of Berlin.
Prof. Dr. Gerd G. Wagner and Prof. Dr. Helmut Lütkepohl congratulate him on his success!
02.03.2016
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Press Release
One out of every three workers would prefer to work from home, but only one out of every eight actually does – Germany’s proportion of home workers lags behind that of other European countries – home workers are more satisfied with their jobs – reconciling career and family is not the primary motive
In Germany, only twelve percent of all employees work primarily or even partially ...
29.02.2016
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Report
The majority of OECD member states promote companies’ research and development (R&D) activities by providing project funding. Recently, in many countries, tax incentives have also begun to play an increasingly important role. The present study examines the level of R&D support in 18 OECD countries and explores how efficient the system of funding actually is. The main findings show that ...
29.02.2016
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Interview
Mr. Brenke, you’ve been conducting research on working from home in Germany. DIW Berlin produced a similar study two years ago. What distinguishes the recent study from the previous one?
The main difference is that we now have data on how many people would actually be able to work from home, given their employment conditions. We didn’t have this information last time. Of course, someone ...
29.02.2016
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Press Release
European Central Bank (ECB) supports prices, economic activity, and inflation expectations through unconventional measures both in the euro area as a whole and in Germany - but the measures are likely to raise wealth inequality in the short termThe ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy aimed at easing the financial and debt crisis is making an impact. Prices and GDP have been shored up and inflation ...
17.02.2016