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To Own or Not to Own? Household Portfolios, Demographics and Institutions in a Cross-National Perspective

Using harmonized wealth data and a novel decomposition approach, we show that cohort effects exist in the income profiles of asset and debt portfolios for a sample of European countries, the U.S. and Canada. We find that younger households' participation decisions in assets are more responsive to income than older households. Family structure plays a significant role in explaining cross-country differences ...

Co-national and Cross-National Pulls in International Migration to Spain

A large literature documents that migrants are attracted to destinations that already host migrants of their same nationality (co-national pull). Drawing on aggregate migration data from Spain, detailed by country of origin and province of destination for the period 1996-2006, we find that migrants are also attracted to destinations that already host migrants from nationalities that are adjacent to ...

Granularity in Banking and Growth: Does Financial Openness Matter?

We explore the impact of large banks and of financial openness for aggregate growth. Large banks matter because of granular effects: if markets are very concentrated in terms of the size distribution of banks, idiosyncratic shocks at the bank-level do not cancel out in the aggregate but can affect macroeconomic outcomes. Financial openness may affect GDP growth in and of itself, and it may also influence ...

Big Banks and Macroeconomic Outcomes: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence of Granularity

Does the mere presence of big banks affect macroeconomic outcomes? In this paper, we develop a theory of granularity (Gabaix, 2011) for the banking sector, introducing Bertrand competition and heterogeneous banks charging variable markups. Using this framework, we show conditions under which idiosyncratic shocks to bank lending can generate aggregate fluctuations in the credit supply when the banking ...

Maximilian Podstawski granted FES Scholarship

Maximilian Podstawski has been granted a scholarship from the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) from December 2013 on. The Dean of the GC, Prof. Lütkepohl, congratulates him on his success!

Societal Divisions Regarding Attitudes towards Digitized Security Measures? British versus German Perspectives

European Energy Infrastructure Integration Quo Vadis? Sectoral Analyses and Policy Implications

Generating Skilled Self-Employment in Developing Countries: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

We study a government program in Uganda designed to help the poor and unemployed become self-employed artisans, increase incomes, and thus promote social stability. Young adults in Uganda's conflict-affected north were invited to form groups and submit grant proposals for vocational training and business start-up. Funding was randomly assigned among screened and eligible groups. Treatment groups received ...

Institutional Rearing Is Associated with Lower General Life Satisfaction in Adulthood: Brief Report

We analyzed whether individuals reared in institutions differ in their general life satisfaction from people raised in their families. The data comprised of 19,210 German adults (51.5% female) aged from 17 to 101 years and were provided by the SOEP, an ongoing, nationally representative longitudinal study in Germany. Compared to people raised in families, individuals reared in institutions reported ...

How Do Insured Deposits Affect Bank Risk? Evidence from the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act

This paper tests whether an increase in insured deposits causes banks to become more risky. We use variation introduced by the U.S. Emergency Economic Stabilization Act in October 2008, which increased the deposit insurance coverage from $100,000 to $250,000 per depositor and bank. For some banks, the amount of insured deposits increased significantly; for others, it was a minor change. Our analysis ...