Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of heat events. Understanding the impact of heat exposure is crucial due to its wide-ranging economic and social consequences, including increased energy demand, healthcare costs, reduced labor productivity, and exacerbation of social inequities in urban areas. In this context, the project's objective is to investigate the impact of heat...
The talk provides a hopefully not too selective bird’s eye perspective on research revolving around the role of historical change for adult development and aging. Walking in the footsteps of Baltes and Smith, Gerstorf will first summarize the scientifically good news that over the past decades age and aging have become younger in a number of different areas of people’s behaviors and experiences....
This paper investigates the mental health consequences of spousal death and the role of survivor benefits in mitigating these effects. Using Dutch administrative data and a staggered difference-in-differences, we first document a significant increase in the consumption of benzodiazepines - a proxy for deteriorating mental health - following widowhood (up to +3 percentage points, or +30%, in the...
This study explores the responsiveness of climate policy preferences and individual behaviors to variations in beliefs about climate change impacts. Using an information provision experiment embedded within the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze how updated beliefs influence pro-environmental engagement and whether these effects persist over time. By linking experimental data with rich...
How do life events affect life satisfaction? Previous studies focused on a single event or separate analyses of several events. However, life events are often grouped non-randomly over the lifespan, occur in close succession, and are causally linked, raising the question of how to best analyze them jointly. Here, we used representative German data (SOEP; N = 40,121individuals; n = 41,402 event occurrences) ...
An influential body of economic literature has consistently shown strong associations between cognitive abilities and economic preferences. However, much of this research has overlooked the potential endogeneity of cognitive abilities - an oversight given that these abilities stem from a series of investment decisions influenced by factors likely correlated with economic preferences. To address...
The DENeB seminar series gives invited senior researchers the opportunity to present and discuss their current work and is open to everyone interested in ongoing research in development economics. The Development Economics Network Berlin (DENeB) is a network for early career researchers in development economics. The network’s main purpose is to be a platform for knowledge exchange related to...