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Economic Bulletin
Towards the very end of this legislative period, a cross-caucus parliamentary majority gave same-sex marriage the green light – progress for the legal equality of homosexuals in Germany. This report focuses on the life situations of homosexual and bisexual people in Germany. The careers they pursue, for example, differ from those of heterosexuals. Hourly wages are an area of significant disparity: ...
04.09.2017
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Personnel news
Christian Zankiewicz, who previously worked at the department of Competition and Consumers, has successfully defended his dissertation at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.The dissertation with the title "Essays in Behavioral Economics and Econometrics" was supervised by Prof. Georg Weizsäcker, Ph.D. (DIW Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin) and Prof. Dr. Yves Breitmoser (Humboldt University ...
30.08.2017
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Personnel news
Anna Lu, who worked at the Firms and Markets department, has successfully defended her dissertation at the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.
The dissertation with the title "Three Essays on Empirical Industrial Organization in Grocery Retailing" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Tomaso Duso (DIW Berlin, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf) and Prof. Dr. Justus Haucap (Heinrich Heine ...
28.08.2017
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In the media
The op-ed by Marcel Fratzscher was first published on FT.com on August 9, 2017.
The gains would outweigh the costs and help chart a path for the continent’s future
As Germany heads towards its general election one of the debates in Berlin and elsewhere is what course the next government will pursue on Europe. In particular there is much speculation about a possible “grand bargain” ...
15.08.2017
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Statement
Marcel Fratzscher, president of the German institute for economic research, on today's decision of the German constitutional court concerning the ECB:
15.08.2017| Marcel Fratzscher
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Economic Bulletin
If the desire is to provide tax relief to households with lower and middle incomes in Germany, it is necessary to target the valueadded tax rather than the personal income tax. Lowering the standard value-added tax rate by one percentage point (from 19 to 18 percent) would mean relief worth 11 billion euro for consumers. The reduced value-added tax rate of seven percent should only be cut for food ...
02.08.2017
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Interview
Mr. Bach, to what extent could cutting the value-added tax rate relieve low- and middle-income earners?
If you want to provide significant fiscal relief to lower and middle income groups, you should focus more on the valueadded tax and less on the income tax. The value-added tax puts the burden on consumption, and consumer spending accounts for a much higher proportion of lower incomes than higher ...
02.08.2017| Stefan Bach
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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
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Report
We are happy to present our recent SOEPnewsletter 116, July 2017.
We like to inform about
the possibility to add questions to the refugee samples (sorry, first deadline tomorrow!),
the possibility to add survey modules (questions and experiments) to the SOEP Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS)
the fieldwork of the Bremen Initiative to Foster Early Childhood Development (BRISE)
the participation of the ...
31.07.2017
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Economic Bulletin
Ownership of publicly listed German companies has undergone significant changes in recent years. The aim of this report is to document these trends since 2007 and analyze the extent to which firms that compete in the same product market are owned by the same investors, which is known as common ownership. We show that some large foreign institutional investors have overtaken domestic investors and now ...
26.07.2017| Melissa Newham, Jo Seldeslachts
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Interview
Mr Seldeslachts, could you please explain the term "common ownership"?
Common ownership means that one investor has shares in several companies at the same time. If you want to be even more precise it would be the same owner or investor having shares in several companies that compete in the same market. [...]
26.07.2017| Jo Seldeslachts
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Publication
Our new brochure “Living in Germany” offers a compact source of information about the kinds of research currently being done with SOEP data and key findings from these studies. In it, we present a selection of research results with significant implications for society and policy making from the more than 7,000 papers published to date using SOEP data. And we introduce some of the researchers ...
25.07.2017
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Personnel news
Friederike Lenel, who worked at the Development and Security department, has successfully defended her dissertation at the Humboldt University Berlin.
The dissertation with the title "Informal Support and Insurance - The interplay between inter-household support arrangements and access to alternative risk management resources" was supervised by Prof. Georg Weizsäcker, Ph.D. (DIW Berlin, ...
24.07.2017
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Personnel news
Kathleen Ngangoue, who works at the Competition and Consumers department, has successfully defended her dissertation at the Humboldt University Berlin.
The dissertation with the title "Decision-Making in Markets" was supervised by Prof. Georg Weizsäcker, Ph.D. (DIW Berlin, Humboldt University Berlin) and Prof. Antonio Guarino, Ph.D. (University College London).
We congratulate Kathleen ...
21.07.2017
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Statement
Statement from 20 July 2017
20.07.2017| Marcel Fratzscher
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Economic Bulletin
This report examines how income groups and forms of employment in Germany have changed in the past two decades. Since the mid-1990s, inequality in disposable household income in Germany has generally increased. This trend was in effect until 2005. While fewer people had disposable incomes in the median range, the proportion of the population at both tails of the income distribution increased. At the ...
14.07.2017| Christian Franz, Marcel Fratzscher, Peter Krause
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Interview
Mr. Krause, you took a close look at income groups in Germany. What did you hope to accomplish?
Peter Krause: We wanted to bring together two discussion threads in our study. One thread has to do with the long-term trend in inequality of household income distribution and the other, with changes in labor force participation. Until the mid-2000s, inequality in disposable household income increased and ...
14.07.2017| Christian Franz, Peter Krause
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Economic Bulletin
Although banks are required to document their equity capital for loans, corporate bonds, and other receivables, they are currently exempted from the procedure when investing in government bonds: they enjoy an “equity capital privilege.” As part of the Basel III regulatory framework redraft, the privilege may be eliminated in order to disentangle the default risks between sovereigns and ...
12.07.2017| Dorothea Schäfer
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Interview
Mrs. Schäfer, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has been negotiating the Basel III reform package since 2013. Banks have long been able to finance EU government bonds with 100% third-party debt capital. Is there agreement with regard to increasing the capital requirement for them?
The committee members agree that capital requirements for EU government bonds must be implemented in the ...
12.07.2017| Dorothea Schäfer
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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