Topic Markets

Impact of Mexico's Energy Reform on Consumer Welfare

We study the impact of Mexico's energy reform on the welfare of electricity, liquified petroleum gas, and gasoline consumers between 2010 and 2018. We utilize micro-level data to estimate income and price elasticities. Comparative statics are used to determine subsidy and price influences on consumer surplus. A counterfactual is used to simulate the industry's behavior under non-reform parameters. ...

Common Ownership in the U.S. Pharmaceutical Industry: A Network Analysis

We investigate patterns in common ownership networks between firms that are active in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry for the period 2004–2014. Our main findings are that “brand firms”—that is, firms that have research and development capabilities and launch new drugs—exhibit relatively dense common ownership networks with each other that further increase significantly in density over time, whereas ...

Lender-Specific Mortgage Supply Shocks and Macroeconomic Performance in the United States

This paper provides evidence for the propagation of idiosyncratic mortgage supply shocks to the macroeconomy. Based on micro-level data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act for the 1990-2016 period, our results suggest that lender-specific mortgage supply shocks affect aggregate mortgage, house price, and employment dynamics at the regional level. The larger the idiosyncratic shocks to newly issued ...

A Retrospective Study of State Aid Control in the German Broadband Market

We provide an evaluation of the impact of public subsidy schemes that aimed to support the development of basic broadband infrastructure in rural areas of Germany. Such subsidies are subject to state aid control by the European Commission (EC). While the EC increasingly recognises the role of economic analysis in controlling public aid to companies, there are to date no full retrospective studies performed ...

Competitors’ Reactions to Big Tech Acquisitions: Evidence from Mobile Apps

Since 2010, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft (GAFAM) have acquired more than 400 companies. Competition authorities did not scrutinize most of these transactions and blocked none. This raised concerns that GAFAM acquisitions target potential competitors yet fly under the radar of current merger control due to the features of the digital economy. We empirically study the competitive effects ...

A Concept for Measuring Real Estate Sustainability from the Investors’ Perspective

Obwohl die Nachfrage nach nachhaltigen Anlageprodukten steigt und die Regulierung zur Offenlegung von Nachhaltigkeitsaspekten zunimmt, mangelt es auf Seiten der Anleger:innen an Informationen über die Nachhaltigkeit der angebotenen Anlageprodukte. Auch wenn in der Literatur hunderte von ESG-Indikatoren für Standard-Investmentprodukte zur Verfügung stehen, gibt es bisher keinen ganzheitlichen Ansatz ...

EEAG Revision Support Study: Final Report

Mexico and U.S. Power Systems under Variations in Natural Gas Prices

This study examines the impact of natural gas prices on the power systems of Mexico and the United States. For this, we develop an integrated modeling framework by soft linking three different techno-economic bottom-up models of the power and energy systems, one partial equilibrium model of the natural gas sector, and a partial equilibrium model of the Mexican energy sector. Our results show several ...

The Hidden Homeownership Welfare State: An International Long-Term Perspective on the Tax Treatment of Homeowners

Welfare is traditionally understood through social security decommodifying labor markets or social investment policies. In the domain of housing, however, welfare for homeowners is largely hidden in the tax codes’ fiscal exemptions. Based on a content analysis of legislation, this paper introduces a novel yearly database of 37 countries between 1910 and 2020 to uncover the “hidden welfare state” of ...

The Productivity Riddle in Business Services

This is an online seminar using Cisco Webex. You will receive the login data with the invitation to the talk. Abstract:   A fast growing and diverse literature has addressed one of the riddles of economic developments: the declining labor productivity growth in almost all advanced economies. One of the reasons discussed is the shift towards service industries with inherently low...