This paper empirically investigates the effects of changes in the interest rate as well as transitory income uncertainty on households' consumption-savings decision. Applying a structural demand model to German survey data, we estimate the uncompensated interest rate elasticity for savings, in...

We study the impact of broadband availability on firms’ total factor productivity (TFP) using German firm-level data between 2010 and 2015. We adopt a control function approach to causally identify and separately estimate productivity for 46 two-digit manufacturing and service sectors. Over...

For the design of the pension system, it is crucial to disentangle the employment responses related to the substitution effect and the income effect. In this paper, we provide causal evidence regarding the importance of the income effect, which is generally assumed to be small or non-existent....

Social norms have been put forward as prominent explanations for the changing labour supply decisions of women. This paper studies the intergenerational formation of these norms, examining how they affect subsequent female labour supply decisions, taking into account not only the early...

We provide an evaluation of the impact of public subsidy schemes that aimed to support the development of basic broadband infrastructure in rural areas of Germany. Such subsidies are subject to state aid control by the European Commission (EC). While the EC increasingly recognises the role of...

We present evidence from a repeated survey on risky asset holdings carried out on a representative sample of the German population six times between April and June 2020. Given the size of the Covid-19 shock, we find little evidence of portfolio rebalancing in April 2020. In May, however,...

In response to strong revenue and income losses that a large share of the self-employed faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the German federal government introduced a €50bn emergency aid program. Based on real-time online-survey data comprising more than 20,000 observations, we analyze the...

In the German system of fiscal equalization Länder (States) with tax revenue below the average get payments from the Länder above the average. The difference between the average and the own tax revenue per capita will be compensated up to 75%. To prevent Länder from getting payments form...

Local authorities charge supply companies with concession dues on gas, water and electricity (Konzessionsabgaben), which are similar to some local taxes (local business tax, real property tax). These taxes have already been included in the fiscal equalization system and in the future concession...

In Germany, the tax loss carry-forward of corporations significantly increased over the last decade. At the same time only a small percentage of losses have been effectively offset in the following periods. One potential reason for this puzzle is that stricter loss offset restrictions have been...