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The Long-Term Implications of Destruction During the Second World War on Private Wealth in Germany

By the end of the Second World War, an estimated 20 percent of the West German housing stock had been destroyed. Building on a theoretical lifecycle model of wealth accumulation, this paper examines the extent to which regional differences in destruction can explain differences in wealth today” – at the beginning of the 21st century. As our empirical basis, we link a unique historical dataset on the ...

To Diversify or Not? The Link between Global Sourcing of ICT Goods And Firm Performance

We analyse variation in firm performance as a function of the international diversification of ICT imports by firms. Drawing on administrative data from 2010 and 2014 on nearly 4000 German manufacturing firms, we find that firms with ICT sourcing that is diversified across multiple countries perform better than similar, less-diversified firms. This finding holds true for two performance metrics (value ...

Nationwide population-based infection- and vaccine-induced SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in Germany at the end of 2021

Background The first wave of the Corona Monitoring Nationwide (RKI-SOEP) Study drawn from the German Socio-Economic Panel proved a low pre-vaccine SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence in the German adult population of 2.1%.Methods In this second wave of the study (RKI-SOEP-2, November 2021-March 2022), we used combined serological and self-reported data on infection and vaccination to estimate the prevalence ...

Inequality of Opportunity in Wealth: Levels, Trends, and Drivers

While inequality of opportunity (IOp) in earnings is well studied, the literature on IOp in individual net wealth is scarce to non-existent. This is problematic because both theoretical and empirical evidence show that the position in the wealth and income distribution can significantly diverge. We measure ex-ante IOp in net wealth for Germany using data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Ex-ante ...

Obituary for Gert G. Wagner

* The 5th of January 1953 in Kelsterbach – † The 28th of January 2024 in Berlin Prof. Dr. Gert G. Wagner, the long-time director of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), passed away unexpectedly on January 28, 2024. Alongside the founding father of the SOEP, Hans-Jürgen Krupp, Gert G. Wagner was the face and intellectual stimulus for the development of the SOEP for decades, which is celebrating ...

Obituary for Gert G. Wagner

* The 5th of January 1953 in Kelsterbach – † The 28th of January 2024 in Berlin Prof. Dr. Gert G. Wagner, the long-time director of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), passed away unexpectedly on January 28, 2024. Alongside the founding father of the SOEP, Hans-Jürgen Krupp, Gert G. Wagner was the face and intellectual stimulus for the development of the SOEP for decades, which is celebrating ...

DIW Women Executives Barometer: Method Report and Codebook for the Waves 2015-2024

Extended Restrictions to Health Care Entitlements for Refugees: Negative Health Consequences without the Anticipated Savings

Refugees have limited health care entitlements during the asylum process. In February 2024, the maximum length of this exclusion period was increased from 18 to 36 months. This increase may double the actual waiting time, which is currently already more than one year, as data from the Socio-Economic Panel show. This particularly affects refugees with a low level of education and little knowledge of ...

Financial Repression in General Equilibrium: The Case of the United States, 1948–1974

Financial repression lowers the return on government debt and contributes, all else equal, towards its liquidation. However, its full effect on the debt-to-GDP ratio hinges on how repression impacts the economy at large because it alters investment and saving decisions. We develop and estimate a New Keynesian model with financial repression. Based on U.S. data for the period 1948–1974, we find, consistent ...

Call for the 1st German-Polish Ph.D. Summer School in Economics

The Graduate Center of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the Faculty of Economic Sciences of the University of Warsaw (FES UW) are organizing a German-Polish Summer School for Ph.D. students in economics in Warsaw September 9-14, 2024. The distinguished, internationally renowned lecturers will be Prof. Jeffrey Wooldridge (Michigan State University) and Prof. Monica Costa-Dias ...