In contrast to the first major wave of the pandemic, world trade has so far not shown any negative swings in the face of the Omicron variant rampant in many countries. Following the latest data update, the Kiel Trade Indicator signals a slight...

This paper examines the role of the health gradient – the positive correlation between household income and health – in individual retirement behavior, using data from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP). We first estimate agegroup-specific...

On 3 June 2020, the grand coalition put together a "stimulus package" and a "package for the future" worth 170 billion euros to combat the consequences of corona, secure prosperity and strengthen sustainability.

We present empirical evidence suggesting that technological progress in the digital age will be biased not only with respect to skills acquired through education but additionally with respect to noncognitive skills (personality). We measure the...

The Kiel Canal in Germany connects ports on the Baltic Sea with the rest of the world and is the most-used artificial waterway in the world. Despite this fact, it generates a balance sheet loss. Revenues, which are mainly generated by the transit...

This paper analyzes Germany’s unusual labor market experience during the Great Recession. We estimate a general equilibrium model with a detailed labor market block for post-unification Germany. This allows us to disentangle the role of institutions...

The Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan in March 2011 caused a fundamental change in Germany's energy policy which led to the immediate shut down of nearly half of its nuclear power plants. Using data from Germany's largest internet platform for real...

This paper is the first to show theoretically and empirically how firms' production technology affects the choice of their preferred wage formation regime. Our theoretical framework predicts, first, that the larger the total factor productivity of a...

This paper is the first to link economic theory with empirical life-satisfaction analyses referring to internal migration. We derive an extension of the Roback (1982) model to account for benefits from regional amenities in the utility function,...

We examine how foreign ownership of a firm affects the variety of goods that the firm exports and the number of countries it trades with. We construct a simple theoretical model of how foreign ownership may affect these extensive margins of exports...