We present evidence from a repeated survey on risky asset holdings carried out on a representative sample of the German population six times between April and June 2020. Given the size of the Covid-19 shock, we find little evidence of portfolio rebalancing in April 2020. In May, however, individual investors started buying heavily, parallel to market recovery. The cross-section shows large differences ...
Loneliness levels were assessed in a longitudinal, nationwide sample (N total = 6,010) collected over the course of the first 3 months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. When in-person social contact restrictions were put in place, loneliness increased significantly compared to prepandemic levels but began to decrease again even before contact restrictions were eased. The loneliness costs were distributed ...
The existential threat to small businesses, based on their crucial role in the economy, is behind the plethora of scholarly studies in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining the 15 contributions of the special issue on the “Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship and small businesses,” the paper comprises four parts: a systematic review of the literature on the ...
Background Evidence on the relationship between socioeconomic position (SEP) and infections with SARS-CoV-2 is still limited as most of the available studies are ecological in nature. This is the first German nationwide study to examine differences in the risk of SARS-CoV-2 infections according to SEP at the individual level.Methods The ‘CORONA-MONITORING bundesweit’ (RKI-SOEP) study is a seroepidemiological ...
Given the high number of refugee children and adolescents around the globe, it is critical to determine conditions that foster their adaptation in the receiving country. This study investigated the psychological adaptation of recently arrived adolescent refugees in Germany. We focused on whether psychological adaptation reflects the organizational approach taken by the school that refugee adolescents ...
Sales in the construction industry will continue to increase strongly in 2022 and 2023. Overall, DIW Berlin estimates a nominal increase in construction volume of almost 13 percent in 2022 and six percent in 2023 to 585 billion euros. In 2021, construction volume increased by ten percent to 488 billion euros, which is around 15 percent of GDP. This shows that construction demand remains at a high level ...
Using COME-HERE longitudinal data from 2021, this investigation links mask wearing, prosocial behaviour, and well-being. Given that mask wearing has positive externality properties, wearing one can be seen as pro-social behaviour. Individuals are categorised into three groups based on a comparison between their own mask wearing frequency and what is required by law. Those...
The Covid-19 pandemic poses numerous societal challenges. We will examine how it affects distinct social and at-risk groups in Germany, what it implies for societal inequalities, and what role welfare state measures play. First, we will describe the situation of the population before and during the pandemic in the health and the socio-economic domain. In each domain, we will study a set of core...
This online workshop on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on societal inequalities is organized as kick-off for the research project “GaPRisk – Groups put at Particular Risk by Covid-19”. The project is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and is a cooperation between the DIW Berlin, the Robert Koch Institute, and Bielefeld University. The PIs of the project are...