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Interview
Professor Fratzscher, German monetary union came into force 25 years ago on July 1, 1990. On the same day, capital controls in Europe were removed, laying the foundations for a European monetary union and the euro. What lessons can Europe learn from the German monetary union?In 1990, there was considerable criticism because German monetary union was implemented so rapidly. In hindsight, I think that ...
01.07.2015
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Report
DIW Berlin is celebrating its 90th anniversary today. We talked with SOEP Director Jürgen Schupp about the special role the Socio-Economic Panel plays in one of the leading economic research institutes in Germany and Europe.
DIW Berlin was founded 90 years ago as an economic research institute focused primarily on business cycle analysis. Where do you see the institute’s strengths in the ...
01.07.2015
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Press Release
GDP is set to grow by 1.8 percent this year and 1.9 percent next year – the global economy is slowly picking up steam, and the euro area is showing solid growth performance – possible risks such as Greece leaving the euro area are creating a strain on the economy
The German economy is continuing on an upward trend but, due to unexpectedly weak growth at the beginning of the year, will ...
25.06.2015
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Interview
Dr. Fichtner, will the German economy perform as well in the second half of 2015 as it did in the first half of the year?
We assume that the German economy will lose some of its momentum. One-off effects such as plummeting oil prices played a major role in the strong gains made during the winter months. These effects are now petering out but, nevertheless, economic growth in Germany is expected to ...
25.06.2015
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Report
The SOEP’s 2014 Wave Report has just been published. It provides an overview of the SOEP’s activities in 2014.
The Wave Report covers TNS Infratest’s report on fieldwork for the thirtyfirst wave of SOEP-Core, the integration of the Family in Germany sample into SOEP-Core and the fourth boost sample of SOEP-IS.
Short research papers by members of the SOEP group in this year’s ...
23.06.2015
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Press Release
DIW Berlin’s researchers warn: employment does not necessarily prevent poverty—11.5 million people in Germany are at risk of poverty—one in five in eastern Germany is living below the poverty risk threshold
Real disposable household incomes in Germany rose by an average of five percent from 2000 to 2012. At the same time, according to a study by the German Institute for Economic ...
19.06.2015
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Interview
Dr. Grabka, you have analyzed income inequality in Germany. Does your research show that the gap between rich and poor has widened even further?If we look at the development of income inequality since 2000, it is clear that the gap between the richer and the poorer income groups has widened further. During this period, real income gains of more than 15 percent were recorded among the top ten percent ...
19.06.2015
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Report
Unfortunately we have a little delay in the documentation of the current data distribution, SOEP v30, in our respective documentation systems, SOEPinfo and SOEPinfo v2.
We would like to draw your attention to the following documents that will allow for an easier workflow with this data distribution:
Documentation of generated variables (including biography and life history data)
Item correspondence ...
12.06.2015
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Report
by Nils May, Karsten Neuhoff, Frieder Borggrefe
Up until now, wind turbines have been designed to generate electricity at the lowest possible total cost, independent of this electricity’s market value. With an increasing penetration of wind power in the system, the market value of electricity generated by wind turbines is declining, since wind turbines tend to produce electricity at the same ...
10.06.2015
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Interview
Mr. May, you discuss here wind turbine design and its impact on the electricity system. What was your jumping-off point?A large share of wind power production takes place in high wind. Because this amount is so large, its market value decreases. It is therefore important to start building system-friendly wind turbines that produce a greater proportion of their electricity at medium and weaker wind ...
10.06.2015
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Press Release
DIW Berlin’s energy experts argue for a public-law nuclear fund – nuclear power plant operators’ provisions for dismantling and atomic waste disposal are not enough
Even by the end of 2022, after the very last German nuclear power plant has been removed from the grid, the lights in this country will not go out: The electricity supply remains secure, as DIW Berlin’s calculations ...
05.06.2015
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Interview
Ms. Kemfert, the commercial use of nuclear power in Germany is scheduled to be eliminated by 2022. Will the power supply still be reliable after the shutdown of the nuclear power plants?Yes, the power supply will still be reliable after shutdown of the nuclear power plants. In fact we currently have an electricity supply surplus, and even after the impending shutdown of Grafenrheinfeld’s nuclear ...
05.06.2015
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Press Release
Plant operators must sell their electricity themselves – costs of forecast deviations and site-specific changes in revenue make wind power unnecessarily expensive
The 2014 reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, or EEG) mandates that operators of new large power plants market their electricity directly in order to create incentives for good wind forecasts and ...
20.05.2015
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Interview
The interview with Prof. Karsten Neuhoff, Ph.D. is published in DIW Economic Bulletin 21/2015. It is available for download as pdf document.
More issues of DIW Economic Bulletin
20.05.2015
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Press Release
A tightening of capital requirements for banks that invest in EU government bonds would primarily create a significant additional demand for capital for Greek banks. This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), which calculated the additional capital requirements such a reform would create for German, French, Swedish, and Greek banks. As of ...
13.05.2015
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Interview
The interview with Prof. Dr. Dorothea Schäfer is published in DIW Economic Bulletin 20/2015. It is available for download as pdf document.
More issues of DIW Economic Bulletin
13.05.2015
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Personnel news
On May 7, 2015, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) Stefan Müller handed over the prize Mathias Bug and Johannes Rieckmann during the Fachdialog Sicherheitsforschung (scientific dialogue on security research) conference, which was attended by more than 200 civil security researchers. Details about the presented project and its publications can ...
13.05.2015
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Report
doi:10.5684/soep.v30
Last December we released an initial version of the 1984 to 2013 waves of the SOEP data (doi:10.5684/soep.v30beta). The new sample M, comprising around 2,700 migrant households, was added to the SOEP in 2013. This addition focuses on immigration to Germany since 1995, and it not only more than doubles the number of immigrants in the SOEP but also closes a gap in the population ...
11.05.2015
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Report
SOEP-IS-2013 (Release 2015-04-29)
We are happy to announce that the release of the SOEP-IS data 1998 to 2013 has been sent out and can be ordered (please tick SOEP-IS 2012, we will send the 2013 release).
For more information about this release please refer to SOEP-IS, Release 2013.
There are some minor open issues that will be processed over the ...
08.05.2015
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Press Release
To increase the rate at which residential building undergo refurbishments for energy efficiency, innovative financial solutions also need to be considered. For example, some property owners who are currently hesitant to implement thermal retrofit might be encouraged if the investment is funded by a third party (fund) and refinanced based on the energy costs saved with the efficiency measure. Such financing ...
06.05.2015