Vorträge des DIW Berlin

Voting for Direct Democracy: Evidence from a Unique Popular Initiative in Bavaria

We analyze a constitutional change in the German State of Bavaria where citizens, not politicians, granted themselves more say in politics at the local level through a constitutional initiative at the state level. This institutional setting allows us to focus on revealed preferences for direct democracy and to identify factors which explain this preference. Empirical results suggests support for...

The Role of Capital Income for Top Income Shares in Germany

The disappearance of capital income from the income tax base in many countries poses a major challenge to the comparability of top income share series based on income tax statistics both over time and between countries. First, we extend the existing German series including capital gains to 2010. Second, we derive three homogeneous series by simulating legislative definitions of capital income...

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Overlapping Political Budget Cycles

We advance the literature on political budget cycles by testing for cycles in expenditures for elections in the legislative and the executive. Using municipal data, we can identify these cycles independently for the two branches, evaluate the effects of random overlaps, and account for general year effects. We find sizable and significant effects in expenditures before elections for the...

Tax Transfer Payments after Natural Disaster: A Diff-in-Diff Analysis of the 2002 Elbe Flood and Its Impact on Municipal Finances in Saxony

This paper explores the financial effectiveness of tax transfer payments after an unforeseeable natural destruction on the regions budget. The example is chosen from the 2002 flood in Saxony and damages in the municipalities. It was debated whether the flood relief fund was sufficient or even over compensating. We analyze what has changed in the debt level of the municipalities and calculate the...

Inequality and Defined Benefit Pensions When Life Expectancy Is Heterogeneous

In this paper, we analyze how income taxes, transfer programs and the pension system affect inequality in lifetime income. Importantly, we consider pre-retirement and post-retirement income and thereby we extend the previous literature on lifetime inequality, which has only considered income received before retirement. We use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to derive trajectories of earnings...

On the Incidence of Renewable Energy Subsidies into Land Prices: Evidence from Germany

The disappearance of capital income from the income tax base in many countries poses a major challenge to the comparability of top income share series based on income tax statistics both over time and between countries. First, we extend the existing German series including capital gains to 2010. Second, we derive three homogeneous series by simulating legislative definitions of capital income...

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Sowing the Wind and Reaping the Whirlwind? The Effect of Wind Turbines on Residential Well-Being

We investigate the effect of the physical presence of wind turbines on residential well-being in Germany, using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and a unique novel panel data set on more than 20,000 wind turbines for the time period between 2000 and 2012. Using a Geographical Information System (GIS), we calculate the proximity between households and the nearest wind turbine...

Testing for Identification in Structural Vector Autoregressions with GARCH Residuals

Structural Vector Autoregressions with Smooth Transition in Variances: The Interaction between U.S. Monetary Policy and the Stock Market

Labor Supply under Participation and Hours Constraints: An Extended Structural Model for Policy Evaluations

Learning from Unrealized versus Realized Prices

The Effect of Peer Observation on Consumption Choices: Experimental Evidence

Hidden Skewness: On the Difficulty of Multiplicative Compounding under Random Shocks

Peer Effects in Labor Supply Decisions of Mothers with Young Children

Preference for College and Educational Inequality: Do Students Lack Information

The Greener, the Happier? The Effects of Urban Green and Abandoned Areas on Residential Well-Being

Learning from Unrealized versus Realized Prices

Analyzing the Continuity of Attitudinal and Perceptual Indicators in Hybrid Choice Models