External refereed essays

Active or Passive? Revisiting the Role of Fiscal Policy during High Inflation

We investigate the interplay of the monetary–fiscal policy mix during times of crisis by drawing insights from the Great Inflation of the 1960s and 1970s. We use a Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm to estimate a DSGE model with three distinct monetary/fiscal policy regimes. We show that, in such a model, SMC outperforms standard sampling algorithms because it is better suited to deal with multimodal ...

Mortality Inequality in Chile

This paper analyses trends in mortality inequality in 330 Chilean communes from 1990 to 2010 for different age groups and both genders. Chile had substantial inequalities in local-level mortality rates in 1990 but by 2010 these disparities had significantly decreased, especially among infants, children and the elderly. The only exception was Chilean men aged 20–39, for whom inequality in mortality ...

Did Religious Well-Being Benefits Converge or Diverge During the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany?

A large body of literature highlights the benefits of being religious in terms of subjective well-being. We examine changes to these so-called religious well-being benefits during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany and address the role of (formal and informal) social integration when explaining these changes. We empirically test two contrasting scenarios: The first scenario predicts ...

Entrepreneurs and Their Impact on Jobs and Economic Growth: Updated

Entrepreneurs, creators of new firms, are a rare species. Even in innovation-driven economies, only 1–2% of the work force starts a business in any given year. Yet entrepreneurs, particularly innovative entrepreneurs, are vital to the competitiveness of the economy and may establish new jobs. The gains of entrepreneurship are only realized, however, if the business environment is receptive to innovation. ...

Weather-Related Disasters and Inflation in the Euro Area

This article investigates the impact of weather-related disasters on inflation in the euro area over the period 1996–2021. Using a panel structural vector autoregression approach, we explore whether weather-related disasters have a significant and persistent effect on inflation, as well as the role that demand-side and supply-side channels play as drivers of inflation. We also analyse the heterogeneous ...

Equal Waiting Times for All? Empirical Evidence for Elective Surgeries in the Austrian Public Healthcare System

Objectives This study analyses waiting times for elective surgeries and potential determinants, including supplementary private health insurance, visits in the operating physician's private practice and informal payments for faster treatment. Study design Retrospective patient questionnaire survey. Methods The survey was conducted in eleven Austrian rehabilitation centres in 2019. Data was analysed ...

Measuring Historical Inequality in Germany

This article surveys the measurement of historical wealth and income inequality in Germany. We discuss the underlying data sources, the challenges they pose, and the opportunities they create. We also identify two promising avenues for future research. First, we argue that the geographic granularity of German historical statistics provides researchers with the opportunity to investigate the causes ...

The Gender Gap in Fair Earnings Increases with Age Due to Higher Age Premium for Men

This study explores how gender and age interact in shaping beliefs about fair pay through a factorial survey experiment conducted with German employees. Respondents evaluated hypothetical worker descriptions varying in age, gender, and earnings. While no gender gap in fair earnings was found for the youngest hypothetical workers, a significant gap favoring men emerged with increasing age. This suggests ...

Paying Income Tax after a Natural Disaster

We investigate the effects of a climatic shock on individuals’ tax deduction and tax payable patterns, alongside their income dynamics. Using individual-level annual tax return data and exploiting the 2010–2011 Queensland Floods in Australia as a natural experiment, we find that the floods affect different income groups differently. They also lead to persistent higher tax deductions for high-income ...

Persons in Contexts: The Role of Social Networks and Social Density for the Dynamic Regulation of Face-To-Face Interactions in Daily Life

Current psychological theories on daily social interactions emphasize individual differences yet are underspecified regarding contextual factors. We aim to extend this research by examining how two context factors shape social interactions in daily life: how many relationships people maintain and how densely people live together. In Study 1, 307 German participants (Mage = 39.44 years, SDage = 14.14) ...

Euro Area Inflation Differentials: The Role of Fiscal Policies Revisited

Einsamkeit in Deutschland – Prävalenz, Entwicklung über die Zeit und regionale Unterschiede

Hintergrund Einsamkeit ist weitverbreitet und hat negative Folgen für die Gesundheit. Diese Studie soll die Fragen beantworten: (1) wie viele Menschen in Deutschland hocheinsam sind, (2) wie sich die Einsamkeit in Deutschland über die Zeit – insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Covid-19-Pandemie – veränderte und (3) welche regionalen Unterschiede es in der Einsamkeit in Deutschland gibt.MethodenDie vorliegende ...

Herkunftsspezifische Unterschiede im Privatschulbesuch: Wie viel erklärt die geografische Verteilung privater Schulangebote?

In Deutschland ist die Zahl der Privatschulen seit 1992 erheblich gestiegen, insbesondere in Ostdeutschland. Diese Schulen werden überwiegend von SchülerInnen aus sozioökonomisch privilegierten Haushalten besucht, während Kinder aus einkommensschwachen Familien seltener vertreten sind. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir, ob die räumliche Verteilung der Privatschulen mit sozialen Ungleichheiten beim ...

The WBdigital Database: A Digital Repository for the Historical DIW-Wochenbericht, 1928–1968

Economic and social scientists are increasingly interested in historical data, but many relevant sources are still available in analog form, limiting accessibility and research potential. This article introduces the WBdigital database, which aims to improve this situation. The database provides digital access to the DIW Wochenbericht (1928–1968), including its economic texts and time series data covering ...

Assessing the Measurement Quality of Justice Evaluations of Earnings in Europe

How individuals perceive the fairness of their pay carries profound implications for individuals and society. Perceptions of pay injustice are linked to a spectrum of negative outcomes, including diminished well-being, poor health, increased stress, and depressive symptoms, alongside various detrimental effects in the work domain. Despite the far-reaching impact of these justice evaluations, validity ...

The Performance of Multiple Imputation in Social Surveys with Missing Data from Planned Missingness and Item Nonresponse

Designs using planned missingness, such as the split questionnaire design, are becoming more and more important in social survey research. To ensure an acceptable questionnaire length, these approaches typically entail large amounts of planned missing data, which can be imputed after data collection. However, social surveys typically also include other types of missingness such as item nonresponse ...

The Non-linear Impact of Risk Tolerance on Entrepreneurial Profit and Business Survival

Entrepreneurs tend to be risk tolerant but is higher risk tolerance always better? In a sample of about 2100 small businesses, we find an inverted U-shaped relation between risk tolerance and profitability. This relationship holds in a simple bilateral regression, and even after controlling for a large set of individual and business characteristics. Apparently, one major transmission goes from risk ...

(Re)Integrating Radioactive Materials and Waste into a Global Sustainable Development Context

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, established in 2015, aim to achieve global sustainability by 2030 through the improvement of environmental, social, and economic parameters. However, unlike earlier concepts such as the Agenda 21 of 1992, the SDGs overlook radioactive waste management and related challenges of radiation itself. First, we investigate the historic consideration ...

Measuring the Dunkelflaute: How (not) to Analyze Variable Renewable Energy Shortage

As variable renewable energy (VRE) sources increasingly gain importance in global energy systems, there is a growing interest in understanding periods of VRE shortage ('Dunkelflauten'). Defining, quantifying, and comparing such shortage events across different renewable generation technologies and locations presents a surprisingly intricate challenge. Various methodological approaches exist in different ...

External Costs of Water Pollution in the Drinking Water Supply Sector

Nitrate pollution from agricultural production is a major threat to water resources worldwide. This study quantifies the consequences of groundwater nitrate pollution for the drinking water supply sector by estimating the effect of groundwater nitrate pollution on the costs of water utilities. In doing so, we contribute to the estimation of the external costs of agricultural nonpoint pollution associated ...