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Measuring Renewable Energy Externalities: Evidence from Subjective Well-Being Data

Electricity from renewable sources avoids disadvantages of conventional power generation but often meets with local resistance due to visual, acoustic, and odor nuisance. We use representative panel data on the subjective well-being of 46,678 individuals in Germany, 1994-2012, for identifying and valuing the local externalities from solar, wind and biomass plants in respondents’ postcode area and adjacent ...

Getting Poor to Work: Three Welfare Increasing Reforms for a Busy Germany

We study three budget-neutral reforms of the German tax and transfer system designed to improve work incentives for people with low incomes: a feasible flat tax reform that provides a basic income which is equal to the current level of the means tested unemployment benefit, and two alternative reforms that involve employment subsidies to stimulate participation and full-time work, respectively. We ...

Atypical Forms of Employment in the Public Sector - Are There Any?

The paper deals with various forms of atypical employment in the public sector that are widely neglected in existing research; its specific focus is on their development, scope, distribution and structural features. In the first part we break down the purely statistical category and differentiate between the disparate forms (part-time, marginal employment or minijobs, midijobs, fixed-term, agency work). ...

Power System Impacts of Electric Vehicles in Germany: Charging with Coal or Renewables

We analyze the impacts of future scenarios of electric vehicles (EVs) on the German power system, drawing on different assumptions on the charging mode. We find that the impact on the load duration curve strongly differs between charging modes. In a fully user-driven mode, charging largely occurs during daytime and in the evening, when power demand is already high. User-driven charging may thus have ...

Global Food Security

According to the current report on the Millennium Development Goals, the share of undernourished people living in the developing world has fallen from 23.3% in 1990-1992 to 12.9% in 2014-2016 (projection). Despite this progress towards global food security, about 795 million people worldwide (or 780 million people in developing regions) will remain undernourished in 2014-2016. Put differently, more ...

Beating around the Euro

School, Parents, and Financial Literacy Shape Future Financial Behavior

Why do some people make better financial decisions than others do? The level of financial literacy plays an important role: Quality schooling that also deals with financial issues likewise leads to better financial decisions. However, many studies neglect how parenting also influences financial behavior. This report shows that parents also have an indirect effect on the financial literacy of their ...

Many People Have Inadequate Understanding of Basic Financial Concepts: Seven Questions to Antonia Grohmann

Research and Development in Manufacturing: Companies Performing Better Than Ever

In 2008 and 2009, during the economic crisis, Germany’s industrial enterprises invested considerably less in research and development (R&D). From 2010 to 2013, investments increased markedly again by an annual growth rate of 6.8 percent. This increase can be partly traced back to the process of catching-up after the crisis. Considering the period 2008 to 2013 research expenditures increased by annually ...

Childhood experiences shape financial behavior in adulthood

Parents exert indirect influence on the way in which their children will deal with money and financial products in the future – schools can promote competent financial behaviors "Waste not, want not“: Children whose parents teach them this concept—and offer similarly wise directives when it comes to money and finances—will often make better financial decisions as adults. This ...