FamData is a database covering family businesses and non-family businesses across various size classes and branches containing structural and financial information. The ifo Institute assembled a business panel with executives from almost 4,000 companies. In addition to the "hard" business data...

We evaluate Germany's temporary value-added tax (VAT) rate reduction as a tool to stimulate consumer spending during the Covid-19 pandemic using a comparative case study approach. We construct a credible counterfactual for Germany in a two-step procedure. First, we carry out a careful...

This paper investigates the impact of the largest rail strikes in German history on intercity buses - a then newly liberalised market. Using unique booking data of bus services, we exploit variation in rail service cancellations across routes to show that the disruption in rail transport...

Why do public policies change little over time in individual places, sometimes for centuries? We investigate different mechanisms for policy persistence. Several city mayors serving in democratic Weimar Germany were expelled by the Nazis in 1933, but re-installed by the Allies after World War...

Does social capital always promote solidarity and democracy, or are social networks such as sports clubs also vulnerable to populism? We exploit quasi-experimental variation in sports club membership in German cities. Sports clubs are booming in cities with successful soccer teams which pass the...

International comparisons show that the reasons why e-government development in Germany does not occupy the desired "top spot" in rankings lie primarily in the inadequate provision of online services with little corresponding user orientation. In order to provide better and faster public...

A lack of transparency about policy performance can pose a major obstacle to welfare-enhancing policy competition across jurisdictions. In parallel surveys with German citizens and state parliamentarians, we document that both groups misperceive the performance of their state's education system....

How does previous exposure to massive immigrant inflows affect concerns about current immigration and the integration of refugees? To answer this question, we investigate attitudes toward newcomers among natives and previous immigrants. In areas that in the 1990s received higher inflows of...

Identifying exogenous variation in monetary policy is crucial for investigating central bank policy transmission. Using newly-collected archival real-time data utilized by the Central Bank Council of the German Bundesbank, we identify unexpected changes in German monetary policy from 580 policy...

The Global Repository of Income Dynamics (GRID) is a new open-access, cross- country database that contains a wide range of micro statistics on income inequality, dynamics, and mobility. It has four key characteristics: it is built on micro panel data drawn from administrative records; it fully...