The long-run U-shaped patterns of economic inequality are standardly explained by basic economic trends (Piketty’s r>g), taxation policies, or “great levelers,” like catastrophes. This paper argues that housing policy, in particular rent control, is a neglected explanatory factor in understanding overall inequality. We hypothesize that rent control could decrease overall housing wealth, lower incomes ...
The proportion of women on the boards of large companies in Germany continued to increase during 2020. In the fourth quarter of 2020, there were 101 female executive board members in the 200 largest companies, seven more than in 2019. However, growth was slow, as it was in some of the other groups of companies as well: The proportion of women on the executive boards of the top 200 companies (around ...
Over the past years, the proportion of women on the supervisory boards of major companies in Germany has increased. As this second report in the DIW Women Executives Barometer 2021 shows, this has a meaningful, positive impact on the supervisory boards of many companies, and affects interactions between members, discussions, and decision-making. These findings are based on qualitative interviews with ...
This dissertation consists of four essays that investigate the economic consequences of frictions in credit markets and the implications for macroprudential and monetary policies. The first essay addresses the following question: How do excessive debt holdings on borrower balance sheets impede economic activity? To address this question, we estimate a non-linear panel threshold model on a large-scale ...
Der Beginn der globalen Finanzkrise und die Implementierung einer außerordentlich expansiven Geldpolitik in vielen Volkswirtschaften lösten ein erneutes Interesse an den Auswirkungen globaler und ausländischer Schocks in einzelnen Ländern aus. Zugleich hat die länderübergreifende Heterogenität der makroökonomischen und finanziellen Auswirkungen von Schocks die Notwendigkeit unterstrichen, jene Faktoren, ...
We employ a psychometrically validated performance test to study economic competence among representative sample of 1,687 early secondary school students in Southwest Germany. The rich dataset allows us to study variation in economic competence across school types and observable student characteristics. Our results show that economic competence is significantly lower among female students, migrants, ...