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SOEP Special Brown Bag Seminar: Middle Class Fortunes in Western Europe and the U.S.

Welcome and Introduction: Jürgen Schupp (Director SOEP)Comments: Markus M. Grabka (SOEP) Abstract:This study examines the state of the middle classes in the U.S. and 11 countries in Western Europe and how their economic wellbeing has changed since 1991. Among Western Europe’s largest economies, the report finds that the shares of adults living in middle-income households increased in...

The impact of environmental shocks on migration drivers: The case of rural-urban migration in India

A Retrospective Study of State Aid Control in the German Broadband Market

The Hukou Impact on the Chinese Wage Structure

Faster urbanization plays a key role in the Chinese economic transformation. However, at the Lewis turning point, the hukou institution constitutes a serious risk to the process, as it restricts the access of migrants to public services offered by cities. To attract further migration, firms started to accept a premium on top of the wage. Thus, the social discrimination introduced by the hukou system ...

Wind Providing Balancing Reserves: An Application to the German Electricity System of 2025

This paper analyzes the influence of wind turbines as new participants on prices and allocation within balancing markets. We introduce the cost-minimizing electricity sector model ELMOD-MIP, that includes detailed unit-commitment constraints, complex combined heat and power constraints, and minimum bid sizes for balancing capacity reservation. The model also features a novel approach of modeling balancing ...

Balancing Reserves within a Decarbonized European Electricity System in 2050: From Market Developments to Model Insights

Abstract This paper expands the discussion about future balancing reserve provision to the long-term perspective of 2050. Most pathways for a transformation towards a decarbonized electricity sector rely on very high shares of fluctuating renewables. This can be a challenge for the provision of balancing reserves, although their influence on the balancing cost is unclear. Apart from the transformation ...

Fathers, Parental Leave and Gender Norms

Social norms and attitudes towards gender roles have been shown to have a large effect on economic outcomes of men and women. Many countries have introduced policies that aim at changing gender stereotypes, for example fathers’ quota in parental leave schemes. In this paper, we analyze whether the introduction of the fathers’ quota in Germany in 2007, that caused a sharp increase in the take-up of ...

Chinese investment strategy in Europe differs according to region

Technology transfer primary motive behind Chinese OFDI in Western Europe; access to EU internal market motivates OFDI in Central and Eastern Europe; factors influencing investment decisions differ based on type of investment China’s investment strategy in the EU differs depending on the target country. With investment in Western Europe, the main motivation is gaining access to advanced technologies. ...

Chinese Foreign Direct Investment in Europe Follows Conventional Models

This report examines China’s strategy for investing in Europe. While investing in Western Europe is primarily about obtaining access to advanced technologies, investing in Central and Eastern Europe is more about establishing a presence in the EU common market and expanding infrastructure—which also fits into the framework of the New Silk Road Initiative. An econometric analysis reveals that the investments ...

China's Investment Strategy Is Different for Western and Eastern Europe: Five Questions for Christian Dreger

This report examines China’s strategy for investing in Europe. While investing in Western Europe is primarily about obtaining access to advanced technologies, investing in Central and Eastern Europe is more about establishing a presence in the EU common market and expanding infrastructure—which also fits into the framework of the New Silk Road Initiative. An econometric analysis reveals that the investments ...