Search

Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales and Choice Theory: Implications for Poverty Measurement

Income-Dependent Equivalence Scales and Choice Theory: Implications for Poverty MeasurementEquivalence Scales are a tool for removing the heterogeneity of household sizes in the measurement of inequality, and affect poverty assessments and poverty lines. We address the disadvantage that poor households may suffer due to their reduced ability to share goods within the household. This disadvantage is ...

Physical and Mental Health Changes in the Five Years before and Five Years after Childbirth: A Population-Based Panel Study in First-Time Mothers and Fathers from Germany

Background: The transition to parenthood is characterized by far-reaching changes in life. However, little prospective-longitudinal evidence from general population samples exists on changes of general physical and mental health in the years around the birth of a child among mothers and fathers. Methods: Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), this study examined continuous and ...

House Price Expectations

This study examines short-, medium-, and long-run price expectations in housing markets. We derive and test six hypothesis about the incidence, formation, and relevance of price expectations. To do so, we use data from a tailored household survey, past sale and rental offerings, satellites, and from an information RCT. As novel findings, we show that price expectations exhibit mean reversion in the ...

Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. It compiles a new database of 266,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering up to 91 countries. The main insight is that, as in equity markets, the returns on external sovereign bonds have been sufficiently high to compensate for risk. Real ...

Remembering Joachim R. Frick on the tenth anniversary of his death

December 16, 2021, marked ten years since Joachim R. Frick’s death. Joachim was part of the SOEP for over 20 years and a deeply valued colleague. Markus Grabka remembers: I first met Joachim in December of 1992. I was being interviewed for a student assistant position at the DIW in Dahlem. At that time, the SOEP had just a handful of staff members, so everyone in the department was there ...

Recovery as a springboard for change: Germany and the EU

As the German economy and the EU are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus is shifting to questions of long-term transformation. How can we transform our economies while also limiting climate change and preparing for its impact? The pandemic has accelerated digitalization of German firms and many have already invested to deal with climate change. At the same time, concerns about the...

The Productivity Puzzle in Business Services

In Germany, the productivity of professional services, a sector dominated by micro and small firms, declined by 40 percent between 1995 and 2014. This productivity decline also holds true for professional services in other European countries. Using a German firm-level dataset of 700,000 observations between 2003 and 2017, we analyze this largely uncovered phenomenon among professional services, the ...

Evaluierung der Wohnungsbauprämie: Endbericht – Executive Summary ; Forschungsvorhaben: fe 6/17 ; Studie im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen (BMF)

Drivers of Participation Elasticities across Europe: Gender or Earner Role within the Household?

We compute participation tax rates across the EU and find that work disincentives inherent in tax–benefit systems largely depend on household composition and the individual’s earner role within the household. We then estimate participation elasticities using an IV group estimator that enables us to investigate the responsiveness of individuals to work incentives. We contribute to the literature on ...

Construction Industry: High Price Momentum Continues, Industry Performing Well Despite COVID-19

Sales in the construction industry will continue to increase strongly in 2022 and 2023. Overall, DIW Berlin estimates a nominal increase in construction volume of almost 13 percent in 2022 and six percent in 2023 to 585 billion euros. In 2021, construction volume increased by ten percent to 488 billion euros, which is around 15 percent of GDP. This shows that construction demand remains at a high level ...