DIW Berlin is celebrating its 90th anniversary today. We talked with SOEP Director Jürgen Schupp about the special role the Socio-Economic Panel plays in one of the leading economic research institutes in Germany and Europe. DIW Berlin was founded 90 years ago as an economic research institute focused primarily on business cycle analysis. Where do you see the institute’s strengths in the ...
Precisely 25 years ago, on July 1, 1990, German monetary union came into force. On the same day, capital controls in Europe were abolished, creating the basis for European monetary union and the euro. These two historical events fundamentally changed Germany and the rest of Europe. Both German and European monetary union were and still are being heavily criticized and debated. Was the design of German ...
Twenty-five years ago, East Germany adopted the deutschmark as its currency. In terms of East German economic development, monetary union proved to be a disaster. With virtually no warning, East Germany’s few productive factories and businesses were exposed to free market competition; industrial production collapsed in a way unparalleled in history. Nevertheless, for political reasons, introducing ...
On July 1, 1990, when capital controls in the European Economic Community were removed, the path was paved for the introduction of the euro. This path was marked by a compromise between two schools of thought—those who assumed that the creation of the European Central Bank would be followed by greater economic convergence and political integration, and those who saw the single currency as the coronation ...
This paper compiles a multidimensional poverty index for Germany. Drawing on the capability approach as conceptual framework, I apply the Alkire-Foster method using German panel data. I suggest a novel operationalization for deprivation in social participation and a new justification for including material deprivation as an additional dimension. Moreover, I also address the role of an additional...
In a simulation-based study with data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP), we analyze the effects of the newly introduced statutory minimum wage of 8.50 Euro per working hour in Germany on the gender wage gap. In our first scenario where we abstain from employment effects, the pay differential is reduced by 2.5 percentage points from 19.6 % to 17.1 %, due to a reduction of the sticky-floor ...
