Media Center

Investing in Europe’s green and digital future

The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) – the financial pillar of the Investment Plan for Europe – has been one of the good news stories to emerge in a decade of economic uncertainty. Launched by the Juncker Commission and the EIB Group in 2014, it has gone well beyond its target of €500 billion in mobilised investments. In the meantime, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to the biggest...

Video review: BCCP Virtual Mini-Conference 2020: Regulatory Challenges in Digital Markets: the Future of Artificial Intelligence for Policy Making

The tremendous growth of digital transactions has profoundly affected the way we interact, opening vast opportunities to improve our lives. Consumers have benefited from an unprecedented proliferation of new services and products that previously were simply too costly to be developed and marketed to customers. These digital interactions create vast amounts of data. While firms are already using...

DIW Lecture on Money and Finance: Monetary Policy in the Modern Era

Making a nation-wide randomized field experiment:: Lessons from the Finnish basic income trial

The original goal of the Finnish experiment of 2017 and 2018 was to try to get some evidence on how a new social policy instrument mimicking a basic income would work and what kind of behavioral consequences it would have. The realized experiment was restricted to people aged 25–58 already receiving a labor market subsidy or unemployment allowance and a total of 2,000 participants were...

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2019: Policy Roundtable: Consumer and Competition Policy in Times of Rising Corporate Power

In the closing policy roundtable about Consumer and Competition Policy in Times of Rising Corporate Power, panelists Amelia Fletcher (University of East Anglia and Centre for Competition Policy), Marit Hansen (State of Schleswig-Holstein), Stefan Hunt (UK Competition and Markets Authority), Paul Nemitz (European Commission), and moderator Hans Friederiszick (E.CA Economics) engaged in a lively...

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2019: Panel 2: Political Consequences of Corporate Power in Digital Markets

In the first afternoon session, Matthew Gentzkow (Stanford University) and Helen Margetts (University of Oxford) presented their research on the political consequences of corporate power in digital markets.

BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2019: Panel 1: The Rise of Market Power

In the opening session of the BCCP Conference and Policy Forum 2019, Jan Eeckhout (Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona), Jonathan Baker (American University), and Fiona Scott Morton (Yale University) discussed the global rise of concentration, profits, mark-ups and market power across many markets and industries, the possible explanations for rising mark-ups and concentration and the role of...

SOEPtutorials - Basic Introduction to the SOEP

This introductory video describes what the Socio-economic Panel (SOEP) study is about, how it has evolved, what kinds of data it offers for scientific research, and under what conditions the data can be accessed. This video may also be of interest to parts of the non-scientific community as a very basic overview of the study.

SOEPtutorials - Topics

This video presents the various topics covered in the SOEP and introduces some exemplary items for each of the topics.

SOEPtutorials - Panel Composition and Sample Development

This tutorial explains who we survey each year. It illustrates the household-centered survey design and the methodologies used to follow respondents throughout the life course. It also briefly describes the sample’s evolution since 1984 and introduces the various subsamples that have been added over the years.

SOEPtutorials - Questionnaires

This tutorial introduces the different questionnaires currently used in the SOEP survey. It illustrates how we design the questionnaires to cover the entire life course, including important events, transitions, and moves into and out of the study.

SOEPtutorials - Data Structure and Naming Conventions

This tutorial introduces the general structure of the Socio-Economic Panel Study and explains the naming conventions for datasets and variables in the study.

SOEPtutorials - Identifiers and Pointers

This tutorial introduces the different identifiers used for individuals, households, and interviewers, and explains how you can use pointers to merge information on different units of analysis.

SOEP People: A Conversation with Bruce Headey

Australian Political Scientist Bruce Headey was not only one of the first SOEP data users—he was one of the first researchers in the world to discover the value of the SOEP for research on happiness. Headey is a Principal Fellow at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research in the University of Melbourne. He is a specialist in welfare and distributional issues and at the...

Monetary policy in the euro area will remain expansionary for a long time to come: Audio statement about the ECB council meeting on December 13, 2018

How Europe can cooperate to compete: 5th DIW Europe Lecture

DIW Europe Lecture with Christine Lagarde: Strengthening the Euro Area Architecture: 4th DIW Europe Lecture

What about the U.S. interest rate: with Max Hanisch

To accompany the economic upturn in the U.S., the Federal Reserve Bank has been raising its benchmark interest rate incrementally. In an increasingly globalized world in which the American economy plays a key role, an action like this has spillover effects on the international level. Max Hanisch's study shows that the member states of the euro area—Germany in particular—can temporarily...

Living in Germany

Every year, more than 30,000 people are interviewed for the SOEP study. Without their commitment and the professionalism of the interviewers working for Kantar Public, the survey institute, the SOEP would not be as successful as it is today. Interviewer Andrea Schüle has been working for “Living in Germany”, as the survey is known to respondents, for over 10 years. We introduce...

Integration of Migrants in the EU: Why Such Differences Between Member States?

Since the early 1990s, immigration has been a more important source of population increase in the EU than the natural change due to births and deaths, while in recent years Europe is facing a large inflow of refugees. At the same time, Eurobarometer opinion surveys reveal that immigration tops the list of challenges that EU citizens are most concerned about and therefore effective policies toward...