Publikationen der Abteilung Staat

Why Investing in New Nuclear Plants Is Bad for the Climate: Commentary

Sin Taxes and Self-Control

According to theory, "sin taxes" are welfare improving if consumers with low self-control respond at least as much to the tax as consumers with high self-control. We investigate empirically if demand response to soft drink and fat tax variations in Denmark depends on consumers' self-control. We use a unique home-scan panel that includes a survey measure of self-control. When taxes increase, consumers ...

Can a Federal Minimum Wage Alleviate Poverty and Income Inequality? Ex-post and Simulation Evidence from Germany

Minimum wages are increasingly discussed as an instrument against (in-work) poverty and income inequality in Europe. Just recently the German government opted for a substantial ad-hoc increase of the minimum-wage level to euro12 per hour mentioning poverty prevention as an explicit goal. We use the introduction of the federal minimum wage in Germany in 2015 to study its redistributive impact on disposable ...

The Macroeconomic Impact of Increasing Investments in Malaria Control in 26 High Malaria Burden Countries: An Application of the Updated EPIC Model

Background Malaria remains a major public health problem. While globally malaria mortality affects predominantly young children, clinical malaria affects all age groups throughout life. Malaria not only threatens health but also child education and adult productivity while burdening government budgets and economic development. Increased investments in malaria control can contribute to reduce this burden ...

Working Life and Human Capital Investment: Causal Evidence from a Pension Reform

Changes in Risk Attitudes Vary across Domains throughout the Life Course

Risk attitudes are important predictors of various economic decisions and socioeconomic outcomes. Although studies show that peoples’ general willingness to take risks decreases with age, there are few reports on the age dependence of domain-specific risk attitudes. Drawing on the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this study employs a proxy variable approach to disentangle age from periodic and cohort effects, ...

Causal Misperceptions of the Part-time Pay Gap

In this paper, we analyze if an increase in the working life leads to more human capital investment via on-the-job training. We obtain RDD-estimates from a sharp date-of-birth cut-off, generated by a pension reform that increased the Early Retirement Age (ERA) by three years for many women in Germany. In our preferred specification, we find that this reform causally increased on-the-job training by ...

Selection, Socialization, and Risk Preferences in the Finance Industry: Longitudinal Evidence for German Finance Professionals

The financial sector plays a crucial role in society. Consequently, prior research has examined the preferences of professionals working in finance. However, these studies have tended to be cross-sectional and have neglected the dynamic roles played by (self-)selection and socialization. This paper uses longitudinal data from Germany to examine how individuals’ financial risk preferences affect their ...

The Effects of an Increase in the Retirement Age on Health Care Costs: Evidence from Administrative Data

In this paper, we use unique health record data that cover outpatient care and the associated costs to quantify the health care costs of a sizable increase in the retirement age in Germany. For the identification, we exploit a sizable cohort-specific pension reform which abolished an early retirement program for all women born after 1951. Our results show that health care costs significantly increase ...

The Effect of Increasing Retirement Age on Households’ Savings and Consumption Expenditure

This paper examines how households adjust their savings and consumption expenditure in response to an anticipated increase in the early retirement age (ERA). We examine the 1999 pension reform in Germany, which increased the ERA for women born after 1951 by at least three years. First, we present suggestive evidence that women update their retirement planning in response to the reform. Using the German ...