This study is an empirical investigation of the empty nest syndrome, commonly understood as a situation where there are feelings of loss or loneliness for mothers and/or fathers following the departure of the last child from the family home. This investigation makes use of rich, longitudinal, nationally representative German data to assess whether there is evidence for such a syndrome. Furthermore, ...
From standard portfolio-choice theory it is well-understood that background risk, overwhelmingly due to wage risk, is one of the central determinants of individuals’ portfolio composition: higher background risk reduces risky investments. However, if background risk is negatively correlated with financial market risk, higher background risk implies more risky investment. We quantify the influence of ...
In HANK, we show that fiscal policy is an appropriate macroeconomic stabilization tool at the ZLB. Fiscal policy achieves the same macroeconomic aggregates and the same welfare as hypothetically unconstrained monetary policy by replicating its transmission mechanism. Consumption taxes and labor taxes replicate the effects of monetary policy through the intertemporal substitution channel. Debt-financed ...
Since decades, only one fourth of German households invest in shares. One exception was during the three IPOs from 1996 to 2000 of the Deutsche Telekom, which gave Germans a taste to enter the stock market. However, the fall in the share price shortly after the second IPO, followed by corruption scandals of the company, put an end to their enthusiasm. The present study based on SOEP data shows that ...
We study a game in which two firms compete in quality to serve a market consisting of consumers with different initial consideration sets. If both firms invest below a certain threshold, they only compete for those consumers already aware of their existence. Above this threshold, a firm is visible to all and the highest investment attracts all consumers. On the one hand, the existence of initially ...
This is an online seminar using Cisco Webex. You will receive the login data with the invitation to the talk. Abstract: The tracking of online user behavior is considered essential for the construction of consumer profiles, which help platforms monetize their services. Prominent examples are advertising in online search or social media, but also online retailing in which matching...
This is an online seminar using Cisco Webex. You will receive the login data with the invitation to the talk. Abstract: High and growing prescription drug costs in the United States are a major concern for policy makers. This paper focuses on the extent to which promotional gifts and other transfers made to physicians by pharmaceutical companies cause physicians to prescribe more...
The European Commission (DG Competition) commissioned an international consortium of DIW Berlin together with E.CA Economics, LEAR, University of East Anglia and Sheppard Mullin with a background study on State aid in the field of environmental protection and energy. The results of the study will support the Commission in the revision of the EU Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection...
On 2 June 2020 DG Competition of the European Commission published several support studies on the retrospective evaluation of State aid rules. This “Fitness check” will serve as a basis for future Commission’s decisions about whether to further prolong or update the rules expiring in 2020. The consortium of DIW Berlin, Lear, Sheppard Mullin and UEA Consulting under the leadership ...
Abstract: User generated content is increasingly substituting content created by professionals. Local news that is generated by citizen journalists could be a promising way of supporting the struggling newspaper industry by reducing costs for professional journalists. We study a network of 122 local Austrian newspapers operating a hybrid model of citizen and professional journalism. We first...