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Interview
Mrs. Wrohlich, at the beginning of next year the parental leave benefit is turning ten. To what extent has it been able to strengthen the financial situation of young families?
The parental leave benefit has actually been able to increase the net income of families significantly in the year after their child was born. But the reform also left some people behind – in particular, families ...
09.12.2016
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Report
On Wednesday, December 14, after a short introduction by Marcel Fratzscher, World Bank Group economists Mario Negre and Christoph Lakner will present the latest report from the Poverty and Shared Prosperity series, “Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2016: Taking on Inequality,” with a focus on its key findings.
The presentation will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Kati ...
09.12.2016
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Economic Bulletin
A new representative survey of a total of 4,500 recently arrived refugees to Germany conducted by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), the Research Centre of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF-FZ), and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) has generated an entirely new database for analyzing forced migration and the ...
07.12.2016| Jürgen Schupp
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Interview
Mr. Schupp, more than 2300 refugees above the age of 18 have been interviewed in a representative survey. Which countries do these refugees come from?
For the first time, we have drawn a representative picture of the influx of refugees to Germany between January 2013 and January 2016. The large majority of refugees in our sample—about 60 percent—came from Syria, but we also have ...
07.12.2016
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Economic Bulletin
Today’s teenagers spend their free time very differently than they did 15 years ago: engagement with IT and communications technologies is now their most significant leisure activity. Representative statistics based on data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) longitudinal study indicate that Internet and computer-based recreation plays a major role for more than 95 percent of all 17-yearolds ...
07.12.2016| Sandra Bohmann, Jürgen Schupp
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Report
On Tuesday, December 13, the 3rd DIW Europe Lecture will be held on “The Populist Turn in American Politics: Implications for Europe”. In this lecture Professor Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley, will trace the populist turn in American politics from the late 19th century to the present day.
The DIW Europe Lecture ...
06.12.2016
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Report
Editors: Hans-Helmut Kotz and Dorothea Schäfer
On September 30, 2015, the European Commission (EU COM) adopted an action plan to create a European Capital Markets Union. To reduce the alleged gap to the U.S.A. as the frontier financial system in financing Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) as well as infrastructures, the EU COM aims at creating a more market-based and unified financing ...
05.12.2016
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Report
Tomaso Duso's paper "Ex post Merger Evaluation in the U.K. Retail Market for Books" (joint with Luca Aguzzoni, Elena Argentesi, Lorenzo Ciari, and Massimo Tognoni), published in the Journal of Industrial Economics, 2016, 64, 1, 170-200, has been short-listed for the Antitrust Writing Awards in the category “Best Articles - economics”. This category prizes the best articles published ...
02.12.2016| Tomaso Duso
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Report
Only if we have precise knowledge about the needs of the users of the SOEP data we are able to provide the best service. Therefore, in regular intervals we conduct user surveys.
Your experiences will help us to improve our infrastructure and services and facilitate use of the SOEP data.
This year we will be focusing on the diversity of studies provided in the Research Data Center of the SOEP to find ...
24.11.2016
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Report
Since end of September the fieldwork institute conducting the SOEP surveys since more than 30 years has changed its name to Kantar Public. As Kantar Public Germany it remains an independent institute focusing on social and political research.
Jürgen Schupp, Director of the SOEP, expects Kantar Public to produce data on a wide range of political and social research topics that meet highe scientific ...
23.11.2016
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Press Release
DIW Berlin examined the causes for the gender gap in financial literacy in several countries – Cultural factors play a key role in addition to income, education, and experience – Better financial literacy would mean more financial security for women in retirement
In most countries of the world, women know less about financial matters than men. Socio-demographic factors such as income, ...
21.11.2016
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Economic Bulletin
In most countries, women have a lower level of financial literacy than men on average. This report demonstrates that differences in income and education and less experience in financial matters only provide a partial explanation for the gender gap. Data from various countries show that cultural differences may also play a role. In order to close the gender gap in financial literacy, schools should ...
18.11.2016| Antonia Grohmann
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Interview
Ms. Grohmann, you have examined the gender gap in financial literacy. In general, do women know more or less about financial matters than men do?
On average, women know less about financial matters than men in most countries. There are exceptions – Thailand and Russia, for example – but in 135 out of 144 countries, women know less about finances than men. [...]
The ...
18.11.2016
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Press Release
Germany’s research and development concentrated in urban areas – public research undergoing dynamic development
According to a new study conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), spatial proximity to industrial production plays a greater role for Germany’s private research and development (R&D) than does proximity to publicly funded research institutions ...
15.11.2016
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Interview
How large is Germany’s research and development (R&D) workforce, and which regions have the highest concentration of R&D activity?
In 2013, the German R&D workforce amounted to 589,000 people. We find a strong concentration in the two regions (so-called Raumordnungsregionen) of Stuttgart and Munich, with 19 percent of the workforce based there. Germany’s most densely ...
15.11.2016
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Report
Our database SOEPlit had to be stored on different servers several times in the last months. This is why SOEPlit in the moment cannot be accessed by klicking the quicklink provided on most of our websites.
We apologize for the trouble caused. Until we can fix the problem, please use the short URL http://www.diw.de/soeplit.
This URL will forward to SOEPlit even if we have to change the web address ...
03.11.2016
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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
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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
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Personnel news
On November 1, Johanna Möllerström took over as the new Head of the Department of Competition and Consumers. Möllerström is also a Professor of Microeconomics at Humboldt-Universität Berlin. Previously, she worked at the Interdisciplinary Center of Economic Science (ICES) at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia. In 2013 she received a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her ...
01.11.2016
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Report
On Tuesday, October 25, the 2nd DIW Europe Lecture was held on “Stability, Equity and Monetary Policy”. The President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, looked at Europe’s economic and financial future: which challenges will Europe and the European Central Bank have to face in the months and years ahead? The speech held by the ECB president as well as a video of the event ...
27.10.2016