External refereed essays

Green Premiums Are a Challenge and an Opportunity for Climate Policy Design: Comment

Adjusting green public support programmes to green premiums can reduce public spending, yet this is challenged by uncertainty. Underfunding green technologies can delay the green transition, and overfunding them can increase transition costs. Both risks of under- and overfunding can be reduced using responsive adjustments.

Putting MARS into Space: Non Linearities and Spatial Effects in Hedonic Models

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline (MARS) is a simple and powerful non-parametric machine learning algorithm that automatizes the selection of non-linear terms in regression models. In this study, we propose using MARS in a spatial regression framework to account for potential non-linearities and spatial effects in spatial regression models. Using a relatively large data set of 17,000 dwellings ...

Viral Shocks to the World Economy

We construct a global index of epidemic news based on text analysis of newspapers from 17 countries. We apply the index to study the economic consequences of epidemics on the world economy in structural vector autoregressions. Epidemic shocks exert significantly and persistently negative effects on output and prices that last for up to two years. There is no quick recovery and no overshooting. The ...

Geographical Balancing of Wind Power Decreases Storage Needs in a 100% Renewable European Power Sector

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many countries plan to massively expand wind power and solar photovoltaic capacities. These variable renewable energy sources require additional flexibility in the power sector. Both geographical balancing enabled by interconnection and electricity storage can provide such flexibility. In a 100% renewable energy scenario of twelve central European countries, we investigate ...

Proximity to Refugee Accommodations Does not Affect Locals’ Attitudes toward Refugees: Evidence from Germany

With the so-called 'long summer of migration' of 2015, there was an urgent need to accommodate many refugees in Germany. This situation was framed as a 'refugee reception crisis', and it revealed diametrically opposed stances within German society. Within this debate, anti-refugee sentiment is often explained with the placement of nearby refugee reception facilities. Conclusive evidence of this claim ...

Bias in Tax Progressivity Estimates

Tax progressivity is central in public and political debates when questions of vertical equity are raised. Applied, structural research demands a simple way to capture it. A power function approximation delivers one parameter that captures the residual income elasticity - a summary measure of progressivity. This approximation is accurate, tractable, and interpretable, and hence immensely popular. The ...

Trade Liberalization along the Firm Size Distribution: The Case of the EU-South Korea FTA

Leading theories suggest that amongst continuing exporters, lower variable trade costs should boost exports of smaller firms by the same or greater percentage rate than larger firms. However, investigating the impact of the deep EU-South Korea FTA with French customs data, we find robust evidence to the contrary. Applying a triple-difference framework, we report that the FTA increased sales in the ...

Selective Bond Purchases – May the ECB Chose Winners and Losers?

The European Central Bank (ECB) is currently facing major challenges. Fragmentation of government bond yields across Member States of the European Economic and Monetary Union, based on different economic and fiscal policies, hampers a uniform transmission of monetary policy. At the same time, climate-related financial risks need to be addressed. In recent years, the ECB is meeting these challenges ...

Not Only a Mild Winter: German Consumers Change Their Behavior to Save Natural Gas: Commentary

Gender Gaps in Early Wage Expectations

Using detailed data from a unique survey of high school graduates in Germany, we document a gender gap in expected full-time earnings of more than 15%. We decompose this early gender gap and find that especially differences in coefficients help explain different expectations. In particular, the effects of having time for family as career motive and being first-generation college student are associated ...

The Inequity Z: Income Fairness Perceptions in Europe across the Income Distribution

Using data from the European Social Survey, we examine income fairness evaluations of 17,605 respondents from 28 countries. Respondents evaluated the fairness of their own incomes as well as the fairness of the incomes of the top and bottom income deciles in their countries. Depicted on a single graph, these income fairness evaluations take on a Z-shaped form, which we call the "inequity Z". The inequity ...

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

In 2020, Berlin introduced a rigorous rent-control policy responding to soaring prices by capping rents: the Mietendeckel (rent freeze). The German Constitutional Court revoked the policy only one year later. Although successful in lowering rents during its duration, the consequences for Berlin’s rental market and close-by markets are per se not clear. This article evaluates the short-term causal supply-side ...

No Evidence for Transactional Effects between Religiosity and Self-Esteem in a Secular Country

This research tests the unique predictions of three different theoretical perspectives on the self-esteem benefits of religiosity: the religiosity-as-a-personal-relationship-with-a-higher-power perspective, the religiosity-as-a-resource perspective, and the religiosity-as-social-value perspective. To do so, we used random-intercept cross-lagged panel models and examined the between- and within-person ...

Toward a Systemic Approach to Energy Transformation in Algeria

This paper examines the drivers of Algeria's energy transformation as well as the cross-cutting issues and challenges in the transformation process. It suggests a framework that accelerates sustainable transformation based on the ideologies of systemic reasoning. Interviews were conducted with 20 energy experts in Algeria, along with a content analysis of policy documents, reports, and previous studies. ...

Tuition Fees and Educational Attainment

Following a landmark court ruling in 2005, more than half of Germany’s universities started charging tuition fees, which were later abolished in a staggered manner. We exploit the fact that even students who were already enrolled had to start paying fees. We show that fees increase study effort and degree completion among these students. However, fees also decrease first-time university enrollment ...

Cognitive Reflection and 2D:4D: Evidence from a Large Population Sample

Bosch-Domènech et al. (2014) reported a negative association between 2D:4D, a suggested marker of prenatal testosterone exposure, and the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) in a sample of 623 university students. In this pre-registered study, we test if we can replicate their findings in a general population sample of over 2,500 individuals from Germany. We find no statistically significant association ...

Family Care during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Germany: Longitudinal Evidence on Consequences for the Well-Being of Caregivers

We examine changes in the well-being of family caregivers during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) and the SOEP-CoV study. The COVID-19 pandemic posed an extraordinary challenge for family caregivers, as care recipients are a high-risk group requiring special protection, and professional care services were severely cut back. ...

A Collective Blueprint, Not a Crystal Ball: How Expectations and Participation Shape Long-Term Energy Scenarios

The development of energy systems is not a technocratic process but equally shaped by societal and cultural forces. Key instruments in this process are model-based scenarios describing a future energy system. Applying the concept of fictional expectations from social economics, we show how energy scenarios are tools to channel political, economic, and academic efforts into a common direction. To impact ...

Revisiting the Relatedness Hypothesis: The Impact of Merger Relatedness on Acquiring and Rival Firm Value  

Despite intuitive appeal, empirical evidence supporting the relatedness hypothesis has been scant, as it has not been established that related acquisitions generally outperform unrelated acquisitions. In considering the impact of merger relatedness on not only acquiring-firm value – as is standard in the relatedness literature – but also on non-merging rival firm value, we offer an alternative perspective ...

Stranded Nations? Transition Risks and Opportunities towards a Clean Economy

The transition away from a fossil-fuel powered economy towards a cleaner production system will create winners and losers in the global trade system. We compile a list of 'brown' traded products whose use is highly likely to decline if the world is to mitigate climate change, and explore which countries are most at risk of seeing their productive capabilities 'stranded'. Using methods from economic ...