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Biased beliefs in dynamic decisions

In many dynamic decision problems, the relevant market prices and budget constraints are random variables whose realizations lie in the future. This makes optimal decision-making difficult as optimality requires an accurate quantification and interpretation of the dynamic processes operating in the market. The studies in this project model and test the agents’ expectations about relevant...

The effect of the demographic change on inequality and the role of the pension system: Evidence from social security data and a dynamic structural life-cycle model

The demographic change poses numerous challenges to societies in developed countries. In particular, the increasing longevity and the related ageing of societies affect the organization and the financing of the welfare state. Therefore, most governments have introduced or are about to design reforms of the welfare state, most important of the pension system. At the same time the increasing...

Legal Harmonization, Institutional Quality, and Countries’ External Positions: A Sectoral Analysis

Motivated by the action plan for a European capital markets union (CMU), this paper analyzes the potential for legal harmonization and convergence in institutional quality to affect capital market integration. Based on hand-collected data on the implementation of EU-directives, our analysis yields three key insights. First, legal harmonization promotes portfolio equity holdings. Second, discrepancies ...

Interactions between Bank Levies and Corporate Taxes: How Is Bank Leverage Affected?

Regulatory bank levies set incentives for banks to reduce leverage. At the same time, corporate income taxation makes funding through debt more attractive. In this paper, we explore how regulatory levies affect bank capital structure, depending on corporate income taxation. Based on bank balance sheet data from 2006 to 2014 for a panel of EU-banks, our analysis yields three main results: The introduction ...

Make Sure the Kids are OK: Indirect Effects of Ground-Level Ozone on Well-Being

This paper uses a panel of German individuals and highly granular pollution data to test if air pollution affects adults’ well-being indirectly through the health of their children. Results show that ozone decreases the well-being of individuals with children while not affecting persons without kids. We confirm the same effect for fine particulate matter and sulfur dioxide. Concerning the mechanism, ...

Heteroskedastic Proxy Vector Autoregressions

In proxy vector autoregressive models, the structural shocks of interest are identified by an instrument. Although heteroskedasticity is occasionally allowed for, it is typically taken for granted that the impact effects of the structural shocks are time-invariant despite the change in their variances. We develop a test for this implicit assumption and present evidence that the assumption of time-invariant ...

Effects of flexible digitized working opportunities on informal care and housework

Working from home can benefit work–family balance, but, due to the gendered meaning of flexibility, risks increasing the unequal allocation of unpaid care work in couples. Does working from home increase the within-couple gender care gap? To address this question, we use linear panel data models based on German Socio-Economic Panel data from 1997 to 2014. The results indicate that working...

Make the European Green Deal Real – Combining Climate Neutrality and Economic Recovery

Health Effects of Prenatal and Infancy Home Visiting Programs by Nurses: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial

Home visiting programmes are increasingly being implemented across the globe to help vulnerable families with young children, however longer-term experimental evidence on their health impacts on both parents and children is scarce. In this paper we study the medium-term health impacts of a randomized control trial to evaluate the Nurse Family Partnership (NFP), one of the oldest home visitation...

An Auction Story: How Simple Bids Struggle with Uncertainty

Short-term electricity markets are key to an efficient production by generation units. We develop a two-period model to assess different bidding formats to determine for each bidding format the optimal bidding strategy of competitive generators facing price-uncertainty. We compare the results for simple bidding, block bidding and multi-part bidding. We find that even under optimal simple and block ...