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CORRECTION | Decline of middle class in Germany comparable to that of the US

Correction to the press release from May 6, 2016 Please note: The original version of Wochenbericht 18, which compares the decline of the middle class in Germany and with that of the United States, contained a calculation error that came about while adjusting standard German reference values to the basis used by the reference study for the US. We apologize for the oversight.   We have ...

"Despite the strong labour market, the share of the middle income group has not risen in Germany": Seven Questions to Markus M. Grabka

Dr. Grabka, you conducted a study of the share of middle-income group in the US and Germany. Why did you choose these two countries for your comparison? In December 2015, the Pew Research Center in the US published findings on the development of the middle-income tier which triggered a broad public debate beyond the borders of the US. This prompted us to conduct similar analyses using comparative ...

Shrinking Share of Middle-Income Group in Germany and the US

According to calculations based on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) study, the proportion of middle-income group in Germany fell by more than five percentage points from 1991 to 2013, taking it to 61 percent. Germany is not the only country to have experienced such a downturn, however. Analyses of the situation in the US indicate a similar decline. To the middle-income group belong individuals in households ...

Despite the Strong Labour Market, the Share of the Middle Income Group Has Not Risen in Germany: Seven Questions to Markus M. Grabka

Genetic Variants Associated with Subjective Well-Being, Depressive Symptoms, and Neuroticism Identified through Genome-Wide Analyses

Very few genetic variants have been associated with depression and neuroticism, likely because of limitations on sample size in previous studies. Subjective well-being, a phenotype that is genetically correlated with both of these traits, has not yet been studied with genome-wide data. We conducted genome-wide association studies of three phenotypes: subjective well-being (n = 298,420), depressive ...

Natural Capital. Valuing the Planet, by Dieter Helm. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015) 296 pages....

Risks in Global Natural Gas Markets: Investment, Hedging and Trade

Recent supply security concerns in Europe have revived interest into the natural gas market. We investigate infrastructure investment and trade in an imperfect market structure for various possible risks for both supply and demand. We focus on three possible scenarios in a stochastic global gas market model: (i) transit of Russian gas via Ukraine that may be disrupted from 2020 on; (ii) natural gas ...

EU Competition Policy Enforcement Supports Investment in the Energy Sectors

Energy sectors—primarily power generation and gas production, but also energy transmission and distribution—require significant capital investment in infrastructure. Market structures as well as the degree of competition and regulation are key factors that determine firms’ incentive to invest. Yet the empirical research on the link between these factors and private investment is still quite scarce, ...

Semi-Parametric Measures of Scale Characteristics of German Natural Gas-Fired Electricity Generation

Scale characteristics are key properties of production functions that determine optimal firm sizes, and have considerable policy implications for sectors undergoing restructuring. However, estimates of scale characteristics typically vary with the assumptions of the underlying empirical model. This paper derives estimators of scale efficiency and scale elasticity for semi-parametric stochastic non-smooth ...

Increased Integration of the Nordic and German Electricity Systems: Modelling and Assessment of Economic and Climate Effects of Enhanced Electrical Interconnection and the Additional Deployment of renewable Energies (Full Version)

Increased integration of power systems is one of the prerequisites for the completion of the EU internal energy market – and with it the achievement of higher cross-border transmission capacities between European countries. The Nordic countries have vast potentials in renewable energy, such as wind energy, together with already existing hydropower reservoirs. As part of the Energiewende, the German ...