The 1st annual Workshop for Women in Macroeconomics, Finance and Economic History is being organized by the DIW Berlin. The aim is to bring together female academic researchers and practitioners to promote and exchange ideas in the field of Macroeconomics, Finance, and Economic History. We invite both empirical and theoretical contributions, including, but not limited to macroeconomic and financial stability, interactions between monetary policy and financial regulation, institutional change and capital market integration, and studies dealing with expectations and experience. The conference will facilitate and support the formation of professional networks among female economists across academia and policy institutions.
Each conference day will be opened with an invited speaker followed by contributed pa-pers, discussions, and poster sessions. Additionally, invited speakers will share experiences and insights of pursuing a career in the field of Macroeconomics and Finance.

Keynote lectures will be given by:

Claudia M. Buch (Deutsche Bundesbank),
Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln (Goethe University Frankfurt), and
Raffaela Giacomini (University College London)

There is no registration or participation fee. Accommodation, lunch buffets and a dinner will be hosted by DIW Berlin. However, travel expenses are not covered. 

Please submit your paper or an extended abstract until March 31, 2019 in PDF format along with information on the paper title, name(s) of author(s), and contact details to wimfeh@diw.de. Authors will be informed latest by April 30, 2019. By submitting your paper and personal data, you agree that this information will be used exclusively for conference planning. After the conference, this data will be deleted. 

The tremendous growth of digital transactions –mainly through online platforms— has profoundly affected the way we interact, opening vast opportunities to improve our lives. Consumers have benefited from an unprecedented proliferation of new services and products that previously were simply too costly to be developed and marketed to customers. At the same time, network effects in platform business models have brought market power concerns back to the front stage.

This year’s conference focusses on the rise of corporate power with an emphasis on digital markets. A remarkable body of economic research reports the global rise of mark-ups across many markets and industries. The measurement of market power, the role of competition policy, and the potential need for regulatory intervention are core issues in the current academic and policy discussion. These issues are particularly challenging in multi-sided digital platform industries with large players like Amazon, Facebook, and Google, which are also under suspicion of increasing political power and influence. This conference brings together leading academics and policy makers to discuss the road ahead for improving institutions and markets to curb corporate power for the good of society.

Online registration is now open at this link. Updated information about the event is available at the BCCP Conference website. We look forward to welcoming you to the 4th BCCP Conference.

This year's SOEPcampus@University of Mannheim Workshop "Längsschnittdatenanalyse mit dem Sozio-oekonomischen Panel (SOEP)" will take place from June 24-26 (the workshop is held in German).

Registration:
Please use the registration form and/or contact Deborah Gottinger-Würtz soeporga@mail.uni-mannheim.de

Workshop organization: Hans-Helmut Kotz (SAFE, Harvard) and Dorothea Schäfer (DIW Berlin) in cooperation with Horst Gischer, head of Forschungszentrums für Sparkassenentwicklung e.V. at the University of Magdeburg.

The workshop is part of the research project Banking Sector Diversity: Does it matter for sector stability and SME financing?

Germany’s persistent current account surplus reflects to a large extent low domestic private investment. We argue that two factors—the local fragmentation of Germany’s banking system and the role of local banks in local public finance—can help explain why investment is so low. Local public banks dominate lending to small and medium firms in many regions of Germany. At the same time, they are also important as lenders to local municipalities. Local banks in more indebted municipalities lend more to local government. This effect is particularly strong for local public banks, which are under the direct political control of municipalities. Local government debt yields very low returns, but because lending markets are geographically segmented, local banks can charge higher rates on their small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers to break even. Using a unique data set of more than 1m German firms over 2009-2016, we show that firms which depend on local banks pay higher interest rates on their loans if the local bank lends a lot to the local government. This considerably lowers firm investment. Hence, the reliance of municipalities on local banks for credit leads to the crowding out of private investment in geographically segmented banking markets.

Further details regarding time, place and registration will be announced.

This course provides a thorough exposition to complementarity models and their solution techniques. It covers algebraic and geometrical interpretations of optimality conditions, equilibria, mathematical programs with equilibrium constraints, and equilibrium problems with equilibrium constraints. It will apply the concepts to the analysis of electricity markets.
The course is designed for PhD students with an interest in optimization and equilibrium problems, numerical solution techniques or the analysis of energy markets. It consists of theory lectures and practical computer exercises.

Further details regarding time, place and registration will be announced.