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DIW Discussion Papers 2143 / 2025
We study how rent control and housing rationing shape housing investment and market tightness in Geneva using a VAR on annual data (1994–2022) with generalized impulse responses and Granger causality. We find that housing rationing functions as a binding quantity restriction as it precedes a contraction in new institutional construction and Granger-causes lower vacancy rates. This increased scarcity ...
2025| Kristyna Ters, Konstantin A. Kholodilin
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DIW Discussion Papers 2141 / 2025
I study the transmission mechanism of Quantitative Easing (QE) in the form of large-scale asset purchases in the mortgage market to aggregate consumption. To this end, I develop a New Keynesian model that features heterogeneous households, a microfounded housing market, and frictional intermediation. This model helps explain the empirical evidence suggesting that QE increases aggregate consumption ...
2025| Hannah Magdalena Seidl
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DIW Discussion Papers 2140 / 2025
We study the effects of movements in aggregate lending standards on macroeconomic aggregates and inequality. We show in a New Keynesian model with heterogeneous households and housing that a looser loan-to-value (LTV) ratio stimulates housing demand, nondurable consumption, and output. Our model implies that the LTV shock transmits to macroeconomic aggregates through higher household liquidity and ...
2025| Vanessa Schmidt, Hannah Magdalena Seidl
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DIW Discussion Papers 2138 / 2025
Stock market participation among working household heads jumped upwards in 2020 – in Germany by about 25%. A major cause is the required use of work from home (WfH). We show this by adding WfH to a large set of explanatory variables. Moreover, we implement an instrumental variables estimation based on industry-specific levels of WfH-capacity. The transmission channels seem to work via increased available ...
2025| Lorenz Meister, Lukas Menkhoff, Carsten Schröder
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DIW Discussion Papers 2137 / 2025
This paper investigates the effectiveness of the European Central Bank’s (ECB) communication in shaping market expectations and real economic outcomes. Using a transformer-based large language model (LLM) fine-tuned to ECB communication, the tone of monetary policy statements from 2003 to 2025 is classified, constructing a novel ECB Communication Stance Indicator. This indicator contains forward-looking ...
2025| Kerstin Bernoth
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DIW Discussion Papers 2132 / 2025
Attitudes toward fiscal policy differ: fiscal conservatism and fiscal liberalism vary in their willingness to tolerate budget deficits. We challenge the view that such attitudes reflect national preferences. Instead, we offer an economic explanation based on a two-country Heterogeneous Agent New Keynesian model, bringing its implicit political economy dimension to the forefront. We compute the welfare ...
2025| Christian Bayer, Alexander Kriwoluzky, Gernot J. Müller, Fabian Seyrich
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DIW Discussion Papers 2120 / 2025
This paper provides causal evidence on the effect of credit crunches on political polarisation. Combining data on bank-firm connections and electoral outcomes at the city-level during the 2008-2014 Spanish financial crisis, I construct an instrument for unemployment based on the city-level exposure to (foreign) weak banks. I find that a 10% increase in (instrumented) local unemployment rates leads ...
2025| Pia Hüttl
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DIW Discussion Papers 2117 / 2025
This paper documents the rise of corporate tax-base narrowing measures in the EU using a novel dataset covering both tax rate and tax base reforms implemented between 2014 and 2022. Our findings indicate a shift away from the ’cut rate – broaden base’ approach, as governments increasingly align corporate taxation with industrial policy objectives. We show that EU tax competition exerts downward pressure ...
2025| Jules Ducept, Sarah Godar
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DIW Discussion Papers 2115 / 2025
How do firms respond to greener household preferences? We construct a novel index of environmental willingness to act on the state-quarter level based on Google Trends search data. Relating the index to firm-level information on the U.S. auto- motive sector from 2006 to 2019, we find ambiguous results. On average, firms innovate more in electric, hydrogen, and hybrid (clean) technologies and reduce ...
2025| Olimpia Cutinelli-Rendina, Sonja Dobkowitz, Antoine Mayerowitz
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DIW Discussion Papers 2113 / 2025
Housing markets are affected by a large variety of factors. Among them, governmental regulations play an important role. Besides desired effects, all these policies exert a number of side effects, some of which can even offset the desired effects. In addition, different policies can cancel out each other. Therefore, it is important to be aware of the effects of individual policies and the composite ...
2025| Konstantin A. Kholodilin