We revisit the alleged retirement consumption puzzle. According to the life-cycle theory, foreseeable income reductions such as those around retirement should not affect consumption. However, we first recall that given higher leisure endowments after retirement, the theory does predict a fall of total market consumption expenditures. In order not to mistake this predicted drop for a puzzle we focus ...
In a meta-analysis of 126 impact evaluation studies, we find that financial education significantly impacts financial behavior and, to an even larger extent, financial literacy. These results also hold for the subsample of randomized experiments (RCTs). However, intervention impacts are highly heterogeneous: Financial education is less effective for lowincome clients as well as in low and lower-middle ...
One important function of consumption is for consumers to show off their taste, virtue or wealth. While empirical observations suggest that producers take this into account, existing research has concentrated on analyzing the demand side. This paper investigates how a monopolist optimally designs its product line when consumers differ both in their taste for quality and their desire for a positive ...
The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by the Berlin Centre for Consumer Policies (BCCP) and supported by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an international...
Scarce resources, the rising demand for agricultural products and growing land-use competition between the production of energy and food have increased the importance of strategies for food security. In the research project “Global Food Markets: Global Food Security – Challenges for Production and Consumption” both supply and demand-oriented approaches that can realize sustainable supply increases...
The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop sponsored by Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and WZB which takes place twice a year, in the Fall and in the Spring. The aim is to create an international forum for high quality research in Industrial Organization in the...
Promoting consumers’ rights, prosperity, and wellbeing are core values of the European Union. A wide array of laws, institutions, and regulations – which can be generally termed as consumer policies – aim at protecting consumers by ensuring adequate and truthful information in the marketplace as well as preventing firms from engaging in unfair and competition-impairing practices. While some of...