This study examines the effect of a soft commitment device in the form of a savings goal calendar on savings for small business owners in Kampala, Uganda. We run a randomized controlled trial (RCT) under which the treatment group receives a calendar designed to set savings goals and to make a plan to reach this goal. The control group is given a plain calendar. We find no average effect on savings, ...
We investigate patterns in common ownership networks between firms that are active in the US pharmaceutical industry for the period 2004-2014. Our main findings are that “brand firms” — i.e. firms that have R&D capabilities and launch new drugs — exhibit relatively dense common ownership networks with each other that further increase significantly in density over time, whereas the network of “generic ...
With the Green Deal, the EU aims not only at climate neutrality by 2050, but also to stimulate economic recovery in light of the pandemic. The European Commission is currently revisiting its climate policy instruments in order to strengthen the economics of climate friendly activities and investments. A central part of the debate is the European Emission Trading System and a proposed Carbon Border...
Until the Russian war in Ukraine and its strong effects on the re-organisation of energy flows in Europe, it seemed a consensus that fossil assets will become stranded within the coming decades due to ever more stringent climate policy. Therefore, investments in such assets should be avoided as early as possible. With the newly awakened focus on energy security, the insurance aspect of redundant...
We investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic, and of the government-mandated measures to contain its spread, affected the self-employed relative to employed individuals in Germany and, secondly, to what extent the female self-employed were more strongly hit than their male counterparts. For our analysis, we use representative real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about ...
