A political miracle occurred when Germany was reunited, and at first glance an economic miracle has followed. Real … west Germany. Excessively high wages coupled with investment incentives that made the cost of capital negative rank high …

We examine financial literacy in Germany using data from the SAVE survey. We find that knowledge of basic financial … concepts is lacking among women, the less educated, and those living in East Germany. In particular, those with low education … and low income in East Germany have little financial literacy compared to their West German counterparts. Interestingly …

use the separation of Germany into the communist GDR and the democratic FRG and its reunification in 1990 as a natural … experiment. Relying on household data that are representative for Germany, our empirical results strongly indicate that … conspicuous consumption is relatively more important in East Germany. Importantly, a significant gap in conspicuous consumption …

economic mobility. Using standard measures of mobility (with panel data for the western states of Germany and the U.S.) over … the entire period 1984-2006, we find the conventional result that income mobility is greater in Germany. But when we cut … significantly over the years immediately following reunification in Germany but not in the U.S …

to East Germany in 1989 experience a persistent rise in their personal incomes after the fall of the Berlin Wall … within a given West German region invest in East Germany. As a result, West German regions which (for idiosyncratic reasons … capita in the early 1990s. A one standard deviation rise in the share of households with social ties to East Germany in 1989 …

Why do borders still matter for economic activity? The reunification of Germany in 1990 provides a unique natural … to trade between East Germany and West Germany were eliminated completely within a very short period of time. The …

Italy and Germany have similar geographical differences in productivity – North more productive than South in Italy …; West more productive than East in Germany – but have adopted different models of wage bargaining. Italy sets wages based on … nationwide contracts that allow for limited local wage adjustments, while Germany has moved toward a more flexible system that …

recipients to stay unemployed. Empirical evidence about the effects of UI sanctions in Germany is sparse. Using administrative … data we investigate the effects of sanctions on the reemployment probability in West Germany for individuals who entered UI …