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Disclosure of Personal Information under Risk of Privacy Shocks

Breaches of the security of personal data collected by firms are reported almost daily. Companies are under an increasing political pressure to notify individuals whose privacy as been breached. At the moment, we know virtually nothing about the behavioral impact of data breach notifications. We present the results of an experimental study designed to investigate how breach notifications change the ...

Policies to finance energy efficiency: An applied welfare assessment

The project “Policies to finance energy efficiency” rigorously evaluates efficiency financing facilities using advanced econometric methods. The aim of the study is to, first, identify market failures that stifle the financing of energy efficiency, and, second, suggest policy interventions that may address these failures. Special attention is given to whether loans or subsidies are better suited...

Can Central Banks Successfully Lean against Global Headwinds?

Despite expansionary central bank action, inflation remains low in the euro area. How much can we expect from the additional stimulus in face of anaemic global growth and declining oil prices? More generally, have central banks lost the ability to steer inflation in a globalised world where external factors have powerful effects on domestic inflation? This roundup summarises the evidence in the literature ...

Local and Spatial Cointegration in the Wage Curve: A Spatial Panel Analysis for German Regions

The wage curve introduced by Blanchflower and Oswald (1990, 1994) postulates a negative correlation between wages and unemployment. Empirical results focus on particular theoretical channels establishing the relationship. Panel models mostly draw on unionized bargaining or the efficiency wage hypothesis. Spatial econometric approaches can be rationalized by monopsonistic competition. However, the approaches ...

Innovation Capabilities and Financing Constraints of Family Firms

Using the 2007 Mannheim innovation survey, we investigate whether family firms are more financially constrained than other firms and how this affects both innovation input as well as innovation outcomes such as market and firm novelties or process innovations. Based on the CDM framework, estimation of the recursive system of equations shows that family businesses are more likely to be constrained and ...

Index Insurance, Risk Preferences, and Deprivation in Low-Income Economies: Dissertation

Nicolas Ziebarth receives the “Regionalisierte Versorgungsforschung” Science Award

DIW GC almunus Nicolas Ziebarth was awarded the 2015 “Regionalisierte Versorgungsforschung” Science Award, together with co-author Peter Eibich. Their paper, “Examining the structure of spatial health effects in Germany using Hierarchical Bayes Models,” received the 5,000€ prize. The investigation of Peter Eibich and Nicolas Ziebarth addresses the modeling and estimation ...

Crowding in Public Transport: Who Cares and Why?

Crowding on public transport (PT) is a major issue for commuters around the world. Nevertheless, economists have rarely investigated the causes of crowding discomfort. Furthermore, most evidence on the costs of PT crowding is based on contingent valuation studies. First, this paper assesses discomfort with PT crowding over different density levels, trip durations and across different individuals using ...

Domestic demand driving German economy

DIW Berlin’s economic forecast: GDP growth will remain stable over the next two years – domestic economy benefiting from favorable labor market situation and expenditure on asylum seekers – public sector has surpluses, but margins are tightening The German economy is expected to continue in its upward growth over the next two years: According to the latest economic forecasts from ...

Domestic Demand Drives German Economy

The German economy is expected to grow by 1.7 percent this year, and to maintain this pace in 2016 as well. The rate of growth should slow down slightly (to 1.5 percent) in 2017, but only because the number of working days will be lower due to the timing of public holidays. The global economy is growing at a slower pace than it has been in recent years, but will pick up speed during the forecast period. ...