Topic Regional Economy

Mobile Phone Network Expansion in Sparsely Populated Regions in Germany: Roaming Benefits Consumers

As part of the 2019 frequency allocation process for mobile communications, the Federal Network Agency required network providers to achieve a certain level of mobile network coverage for the population. Cooperation between different network providers was also permitted for the first time, although it was not specified what forms of cooperation are permitted. Using a model, this report shows that providers ...

Urban Green Is More than the Absence of City: Structural and Functional Neural Basis of Urbanicity and Green Space in the Neighbourhood of Older Adults

The relationship between urbanization, the brain, and human mental health is subject to intensive debate in the current scientific literature. Particularly, since mood and anxiety disorders as well as schizophrenia are known to be more frequent in urban compared to rural regions.Here, we investigated the association between cerebral signatures, mental health and land use indicators (Urban Fabric and ...

Lights along the Frontier: Convergence of Economic Activity in the Proximity of the Polish-German Border, 1992–2012

This paper studies regional economic development on the municipality-level in Poland and Germany along the Oder–Neisse border. We use high-quality satellite night-time light intensity data as an innovative and comparable measure to proxy for overall economic activity on both sides of the border consistently over a long period of time (1992–2012). We use descriptive heat maps as well as regression analysis ...

Forward to the Past: Short-Term Effects of the Rent Freeze in Berlin

In 2020, Berlin enacted a rigorous rent-control policy: the “Mietendeckel” (rent freeze), aiming to stop rapidly growing rental prices. We evaluate this newly enacted but old-fashionably designed policy by analyzing its immediate supply-side effects. Using a rich pool of rent advertisements reporting asking rents and comprehensive dwelling characteristics, we perform hedonic-style Difference-in-Difference ...

DG Competition of the European Commission publishes several studies evaluating State aid rules provided by a consortium with the participation of the DIW Berlin

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 ...

Childless Cities

Unfortunately the event is canceled. As soon as a new date is fixed, it will be announced here on the website. BAMS is a joint seminar by the DIW Berlin, the Hertie School of Governance, the HU Berlin and the WZB.

Retrospective Evaluation of the Regional Aid Framework: Final Report

Way Off: The Effect of Minimum Distance Regulation on the Deployment of Wind Power

Several countries and regions have introduced mandatory minimum distances of wind turbines to nearby residential areas, in order to increase public acceptance of wind power. Germany’s largest federal state Bavaria introduced such separation distances of ten times the height of new wind turbines in 2014. Here, we provide a novel monthly district-level dataset of construction permits for wind turbines ...

Inferring Floor Area Ratio Thresholds for the Delineation of City Centers Based on Cognitive Perception

The morphology of today’s cities is the result of historic urban developments and ongoing urban transformation resulting in complex urban spatial structures. While functionally as well as spatially, cities are structured into sub-units such as the city center, business districts, residential areas or industrial and commercial zones, their precise localization in the geographic space is sometimes difficult. ...

Economic Effects of Transportation Infrastructure Quantity and Quality: A Study of German Counties

In this paper, we analyze the impact of transportation infrastructure quantity and quality on regional economic production. We exploit an extensive panel dataset on the German county level (N=401), expressing the capital value and condition of highways between 2007 and 2016, to estimate a spatially extended translog production function. The spatial specification uses SLX and SDEM models, with various ...