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The Effect of Retirement on Health - Evidence from Administrative Data

We combine unique data that include all practitioner health diagnoses based on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) collected from all publicly insured individuals in Germany with a sizable cohort specific pension reform to study the causal effect of an increase in the retirement age on health. For the analysis, we use a cohort specific regression discontinuity design. The...

The Effect of Air Quality Alerts on School Absenteeism - Evidence from New York City

This study examines the relationship between air quality alerts and school absenteeism in New York City. Examining the effects of the alerts in school attendance is relevant because it helps us understand parents' avoidance behavior in situations of exacerbated exposure to air contaminants. Causality arises by exploiting the deterministic nature of the alerts with regression discontinuity...

2D:4D Does Not Predict Economic Preferences: Evidence from a Large, Representative Sample

The digit ratio (2D:4D) is considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero, and there has been a recent surge of studies testing whether 2D:4D is associated with economic preferences. Although the results are not conclusive, previous studies have reported statistically significant correlations between 2D:4D and risk taking, altruism, positive reciprocity, negative reciprocity and trust. Many “researcher ...

2D:4D and Self-Employment Using SOEP Data: A Replication Study

The 2D:4D digit ratio, the ratio of the length of the 2nd digit to the length of the 4th digit, is often considered a proxy for testosterone exposure in utero. A recent study by Nicolaou et al. (2018) reported an association between the left-hand 2D:4D and self-employment (in a sample of about 1,000 adults). In this pre-registered study we replicate these results on a new and larger sample of about ...

Identifying Effective Combinations of Economic Policy Measures for the Coronavirus Recession in Europe

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the globe in early 2020, the European Central Bank as well as national governments in the euro area enacted or announced numerous economic policy measures to counteract the severe economic consequences of the resulting lockdowns. In this paper, the immediate effect of the announcements on government bond and stock markets are estimated in a panel study. The ...

Information Provision and Postgraduate Studies

This is the first paper to experimentally examine effects of information provision on beliefs about pecuniary and non-pecuniary returns of postgraduate education, enrollment intentions and realized enrollment. We find that our treatment causally affects beliefs measured six month after treatment. The effects on beliefs differ by gender and academic background, and we find that stated enrollment intentions ...

Tomaso Duso appointed to EU Commission’s advisory group

European Commission’s Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager has approved Tomaso Duso’s appointment as member of the Economic Advisory Group on Competition Policy (EAGCP) at the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition. The three years mandate starts on June 2020. The EAGCP creates a discussion forum on competition policy matters between academics who have a ...

Mobile Money is Driving Financial Development in Africa

Mobile money is an innovation that allows financial transactions to be performed via a cell phone. Even in poor regions of Africa, almost everyone has a cell phone; therefore, mobile money could both contribute to the continent’s economic growth and ensure that no Africans are excluded from access to financial services. However, DIW Berlin data from Uganda show that mobile money is actually used less ...

SOEP-IS 2018 – Survey Report on the 2018 SOEP Innovation Sample

Difference-in-Differences to Identify Causal Effects of COVID-19 Policies

Policymakers have implemented a wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions to fight the spread of COVID-19. Variation in policies across jurisdictions and over time strongly suggests a difference-in-differences (DD) research design to estimate causal effects of counter-COVID measures. We discuss threats to the validity of these DD designs and make recommendations about how researchers can avoid ...