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German Economy Defying a Turbulent and Uncertain Environment: DIW Economic Outlook

After a turbulent summer, marked by a weak second and a likely stronger third quarter, the German economy should return to an average pace of growth and end up with a growth rate of 0.9 percent in 2019. Despite the more subdued pace, capacity utilization remains high; employment growth is continuing, albeit more slowly; and the trend of foreign demand is weakening but remains buoyant overall. In this ...

Do Expert Panelists Herd? Evidence from FDA Committees

We develop a structural model to address the question whether, and to what extent, expert panelists engage in herd behavior when voting on important policy questions. Our data comes from FDA advisory committees voting on questions concerning the approval of new drug applications. We utilize a change in the voting procedure from sequential to simultaneous voting to identify herding. Estimates suggest ...

Coping with Life-Event Shocks: Psychological Determinants of Resilience

In this research we investigate the psychological determinants of resilience. Specifically, we observe whether the adaptation process to negative life events is different across the distribution of personality traits (the so-called big five) and of different life attitudes (such as locus of control and risk aversion). We take into consideration two different areas of shocking events: the job...

Non-probability Internet Surveys

This joint project aims to compare the scientific advantages and disadvantages of “traditional” survey methods used by the SOEP and the innovative web-based sampling methods used by Civey and to identify potential research synergies resulting from combinations of the two approaches. On the one hand, Civey’s web-based approach is likely to offer access to population groups that SOEP is currently...

Social Status Concerns and the Political Economy of Publicly Provided Private Goods

We analyze the political economy of the public provision of private goods when individuals care about their social status. Status concerns motivate richer individuals to vote for the public provision of goods they themselves buy in markets: a higher provision level attracts more individuals to the public sector, enhancing the social exclusivity of market purchases. Majority voting may lead to a public ...

The Economics of Financing and Integrating Renewable Energies: Dissertation

Notes about Comparing Long-Term Care Expenditures across Countries: Comment on "Financing Long-Term Care: Lessons from Japan"

The comparison of long-term care (LTC) expenditures is a difficult task. National LTC systems differ widely in terms of eligibility criteria, level of benefits, institutional variety and regional heterogeneity. In this commentary I will first give some general remarks on cross country comparisons. Then I discuss the role of the informal sector which is the most important pillar of all LTC systems. ...

DIW Berlin as an employer

We’re excited that you’re interested in working at DIW Berlin and would like to become a part of our team. As a non-university affiliated research institute, DIW Berlin e.V. receives grants from the Federal Government and Länder based on an agreement on joint promotion of research pursuant to Article 91b of the Basic Law. The Collective Agreement for the Public Service (TVöD) governs the working ...

Gender Pension Gaps in Europe Are More Explicitly Associated with Labor Markets than with Pension Systems

In many European countries, there is a substantial gender pension gap. Yet, these gaps vary strongly across countries. This cross-national study examines to what extent institutional and labor market-specific factors correlate with gender pension gaps. The findings show that the gender pension gap tends to be larger in countries with larger gender-specific differences in the employment or part-time ...

Which preferences cause horizontral sex segregation in fields of studies? Some experimental evidence

Occupational gender segregation is one of the most persistent gender inequalities in the labor market and one contributing factor is the lack of women in STEM fields. Possible explanations for this pattern are the characteristics of the fields of study (creative-associative versus analytical-systematic thinking style required, the number of mathematics courses, competitive atmosphere), and...