-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
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
-
Interview
Prof. Bernoth, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to implement a large-scale bond purchasing program in January 2015 to avert the risk of deflation in the euro area. To what extent might these bond purchases also affect wealth distribution?
Considerable wealth distribution effects may occur through the impact channels of monetary policy because interest rate changes introduced by the central ...
17.02.2016
-
Press Release
Proportion of tutored students nearly twice as high as 15 years ago – household income becoming a less influential factor – parental migration background no longer determines participation – nevertheless, educational inequalities persist
More and more schoolchildren in Germany are using private tutoring: 47 percent of the 17-year-olds who were interviewed between 2009 and 2013 reported ...
10.02.2016
-
Interview
How much are German schoolchildren being tutored?
The usage of tutoring in Germany is noteworthy. Among secondary school students, 18 percent reported having been tutored in the past 6 months. Among primary school students, it’s clearly much lower, at 6 percent. However, it’s remarkable that even first-graders report that they have received tutoring. [...]
The full interview with C. ...
10.02.2016
-
Report
We happily announce that the doctoral students across all cohorts have elected their new 2016 Student’s Representatives. It was a tight race, with Marie LeMouel and Marica Valente coming out on top!
This is Marcia’s first term and Marie’s second – and we wish them all the best as they bring their keen sense of the issues important to the GC students, as well as continued good ...
10.02.2016
-
Press Release
DIW Berlin experts estimate annual value of inheritances and gifts to be between 200 and 300 billion euros – high levels of inequality due to heavy concentration of wealth and largely tax-free transfers of big businesses – experts recommend reducing tax privileges and imposing limited tax rates for business transfers
In 2009, tax privileges for transfers of businesses were expanded; the ...
01.02.2016
-
Report
by Stefan Bach and Andreas Thiemann
Compared to the rest of Europe, Germany exhibits an especially high concentration of wealth. According to estimates based on a microsimulation model, a German wealth tax could generate an estimated ten to 20 billion euros per year in revenue—even with high tax allowances—and slightly reduce the inequality of income distribution, as well. Collection ...
28.01.2016
-
Interview
Dr. Bach, what is the real net worth of German households and how is this wealth distributed?
German households have a real net worth of 8.6 trillion euros. This massive wealth is very highly concentrated and is equivalent to around two and a half times the country’s GDP. We estimate that the richest one percent of the population own 32 percent of total assets and the wealthiest 0.1 percent ...
28.01.2016
-
Report
by Elke Holst and Anja Kirsch
In 2015, the share of women in the top decision-making bodies of the financial sector increased once again but men remain in the overwhelming majority and thus continue to call the shots. At the end of 2015, women made up just under eight percent of executive board members of the 100 largest banks in Germany. The corresponding figure for the 59 largest insurance companies ...
21.01.2016
-
Press Release
Researchers analyzed more than 500 companies – some are setting a good example, while others are lagging behind – vast majority of companies have yet to meet the 30-percent quota for women on supervisory boards
A balanced representation of women and men in Germany’s corporate leadership roles is still a long way off: At the end of 2015, the proportion of women on the executive boards ...
20.01.2016
-
Interview
Dr. Holst, for ten years now, DIW Berlin has been studying the representation of women on corporate boards in the financial sector and the best-performing companies in Germany. To date, it has only been possible to very gradually achieve a slight increase in the low share of women. Did that change at all in 2015?
Progress is being made but only in small steps. There is still a long and difficult ...
20.01.2016
-
Report
by Charlotte Bartels and Carsten Schröder
What share of total income in Germany is owned by the country’s top income earners and how has this share developed over the past decade? Answers to these questions can be found both in representative survey data such as the longitudinal Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study and in administrative data on income taxation. After the statistics have been ...
14.01.2016
-
Interview
Dr. Bartels, when is someone considered to be a top earner in Germany?
To answer this question, of course we first have to decide who we would like to be included in this group. We mainly define the top one percent as very high earners. This top one percent is made up of those with a gross annual income of 150,000 euros or more. [...]
The full interview with Charlotte Bartels is published ...
14.01.2016
-
Report
On 11th of December 2015, seven junior scientists received their certificates at the 2015 Commencement Ceremony of the Graduate Center at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). On hand to congratulate the students were DIW Berlin President Marcel Fratzscher, GC Dean Helmut Lütkepohl, and the new Chairman of the DIW Berlin Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Axel A. Weber.Prof. Dr. Weber, ...
08.01.2016
-
Personnel news
Roman Mendelevitch, a doctoral student of the Energy, Transportation, Environment department, was awarded the "Conference Presentation Award for Young Researchers" (Vortragsprämie) for his talk based on the paper "Market Power Rents and Climate Change Mitigation: A Rationale for Coal Export Taxes?”" at the EAERE Annual Conference 2015 in Helsinki.
The award is endowed by the German Bundesbank ...
06.01.2016
-
Personnel news
Nils May, a doctoral student of the Climate Policy department, was awarded the "Conference Presentation Award for Young Researchers" (Vortragsprämie) for his talk based on his paper "The Impact of Wind Power Support Schemes on Technology Choices" at the EAERE Annual Conference 2015 in Helsinki.
The award is endowed by the German Bundesbank and was awarded by the Verein für Socialpolitik ...
06.01.2016