The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) organizes the fourth Scientific Workshop on Productivity jointly with the German Council of Economic Experts (SVR Wirtschaft) in its role as the German National Productivity Board and the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI).

The workshop will take place on 24th and 25th August 2026 at DIW Berlin.

The event offers researchers the opportunity to present and discuss their recent contributions to the understanding of productivity developments and drivers, and serves as a platform to foster academic collaboration.

We are very happy to welcome Daniel Yi Xu, David Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Economics at the Duke University, as our keynote speaker.

09.09.: 1 pm - 4 pm

How should economists measure people’s well-being? A comprehensive measure of well-being is essential for accurately estimating the effects of a policy or intervention, tracking social progress, and assessing inequality. Traditional measures, such as compensating variation in microeconomics and Gross Domestic Progress in macroeconomics, largely restrict attention to market goods. These measures thereby omit potentially important components of overall well-being, such as emotional life, people’s sense of purpose, the quality of their relationships, and environmental quality.

This course will introduce the frontier of economic research on measuring well-being using survey questions. The course may be useful for researchers who analyze large-scale surveys (such as the German Socioeconomic Panel), collect their own data via lab, field, or survey experiments, or are interested in exploring alternative macroeconomic indicators.

The course covers theory and empirical evidence. The first half of the course focuses on single-question measures of well-being, such as happiness and life satisfaction. Key questions include: What is captured by these measures? Do any of them correspond to an economic concept of utility? The second half of the course examines multi-question indexes, such as the OECD Well-being Data Monitor. For such indexes, key questions include: Is the set of questions sufficiently comprehensive to fully capture well-being? How should responses to the questions be combined into an index in a principled way? For both single- and multi-question measures, interpersonal comparability and intrapersonal comparability over time are central challenges.

The Berlin IO Day is a one-day workshop supported by the Berlin's leading academic institutions, including DIW Berlin, ESMT Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Technische Universität Berlin. The aim is to create an international forum for high quality research in Industrial Organization in the heart of Berlin, one of Europe's most vibrant and intellectually lively cities.

On October 6 and 7, 2026, we are organizing a two-day workshop on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) at DIW Berlin. In addition to presentations on the composition, data structure, sampling design, and weighting strategy, hands-on sessions will offer a practical approach to the data and its potential.

The workshop is aimed at researchers at all qualification levels who want to work with SOEP data in the future or are currently in the early stages of SOEP-based data analysis.

21.10.: 10 a.m.-1 p.m.

The economics of crime literature dates back primarily to Becker’s (1968) economic model of crime, which put forward a theory of rational individual decision making to explain when individuals commit crime and the optimal level of crime in society. In the early-mid 1990s, an empirical literature took off – largely taking advantage of aggregate data and panel data methods – to test the economic model of crime: does higher probability of punishment deter crime? Does harsher punishment deter crime?

This literature has exploded in the last 15 years, with both increased attention by economists to understand the causes of criminal behavior, the advancement of quasi-experimental research designs capable of convincingly answering these questions, and the increased availability of high-quality micro-level data.  These lectures aim to survey the existing literature on a selected set of sub-questions and highlight both how the field has evolved  – in terms of questions, data used, and methodology - and where the frontier is today.

We are pleased to inform you that representatives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will visit the DIW Berlin to present the IMF Economist Program (EP) — an entry program for young economists who wish to pursue an international career in economic policy and research.

The IMF Economist Program is designed for talented economists who are close to completing or have recently completed a PhD and are interested in contributing to the IMF’s mission of promoting global economic stability and growth. During the session, IMF representatives will introduce the program, outline the recruitment process, and share insights into working as an economist at the IMF.

Eligibility criteria for the Economist Program include:

• Completion of a PhD (or within one year of completion) in Economics or a closely related field
• Citizenship of an IMF member country
• Under the age of 34 at the time of joining the program

This presentation will be particularly relevant for PhD students considering international policy careers. Other students interested in the Fund Internship Program (FIP) and undergraduate economics students interested in the Research Assistant Program (RAP) are also very much welcomed.

Students are free to attend to learn more about the program without registration.

The German Socio-Economic Panel Study is a representative panel study for the German population, collecting data on a broad variety of topics of everyday life, including general well-being, household composition, educational aspirations and educational status, income and occupational biographies, leisure time activities, housing, health, political orientation and more. With its long-running panel structure, the breadth of topics and the representative nature of the data, the SOEP has become a central resource for quantitative research in the social sciences in Germany.

A face to face interview is something every student will go through at some point in their career. In the academic job market, it is the central process to convince potential employers of your future research prospects. Outside academia the focus is less on research, but performing well in the interview is nonetheless essential to get the job you want. Handling a job interview successfully is not an easy challenge, but the skills needed to present yourself in the best light can be practiced.

For this reason, this year the Graduate Center will again offer job market interview training in the form of a ‘mock interview’. We will simulate the interview based on a fictive job vacancy in your field of interest. The“selection committee” will consist of at least two senior researchers in your field, e.g. your supervisor and post docs. Moreover, we have invited Sigrid Pearson, an English job interviewcoach. She will assist in preparing your talk during the days before the interview; she will also attend the talks and give detailed feedback on your performance after the simulation. As part of your preparation, we will also ask you to compose a short fictive job ad for the type of job you are planning to apply for (post‐doc position, position in an international organization etc.).

We are pleased to invite submissions for our workshop taking place on November 26-27, 2026 at DIW Berlin.

The workshop is part of the SOEP-LEE2 project and brings together research on resilience, crisis responses, digital transformation, and cyber security, with a particular emphasis on empirical work using survey and linked data on firms, employees, and households. It will also showcase new data resources from the SOEP research infrastructure.

Economic crises, geopolitical tensions, and rapid technological change are profoundly transforming firms, labor markets, and households. At the same time, the diffusion of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, remote work, and cyber risks is reshaping organizational structures, work practices, and economic behavior. Understanding these developments requires high-quality data that links individuals, households, and organizations.

The program will feature three keynote lectures by leading international scholars in the fields of resilience, digital transformation, and organizational change: Christian Dustmann (Department of Economics, University College London and Rockwool Foundation Berlin), Osea Giuntella (Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh) and David Peetz (Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith University, Brisbane).

The Graduate Center of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) and the Sustainable Economy Research group at CentraleSupélec are organizing a joint Winter School for PhD students and postdocs in Economics of Energy and Environment.

The distinguished, internationally renowned lecturers will be Prof. Frank A. Wolak (Stanford University), Prof. Veronika Grimm (TU Nürnberg), Prof. Philippe Quirion (CIRED-CNRS), and Prof. Afzal Siddiqui (Stockholm University). 

We are pleased to announce that on December 18, 2026, DIW Berlin will host the “Macroeconometric Workshop”. The workshop brings together researchers working on both applied and theoretical macroeconometrics, featuring methodological and empirical contributions at the frontier of quantitative macroeconomics. It is organized with the support of DIW Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

We are delighted to welcome Evi Pappa (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) as this year’s keynote speaker.

For paper submissions, please send a full paper to MacroeconometricWorkshop2026@diw.de no later than September 15, 2026.