After Easter, Germany's new labor and social affairs minister Andrea Nahles will be presenting the grand coalition's first major reform proposal for parliamentary debate: a bill to improve the benefits provided under the statutory pension system. A centerpiece of the reform package is early...

The introduced sanctions against Russia, which at the moment are on a level of travel bans and asset freezes against a limited group of individuals and firms, are unlikely to trigger a profound change in Russian foreign policy. This can primarily be attributed to the fact that the economic...

Not just since the European Central Bank announced the large-scale purchase of government bonds a few weeks ago, large-scale asset purchases have always been a controversially discussed topic. This DIW Roundup summarizes the measures that have been taken by central banks in Japan, USA and UK and...

The question of whether monetary policy should target asset prices remains a contentious issue. Prior to the 2007/08 financial crisis, central banks opted for a wait-and-see approach, remaining passive during the build-up of asset price bubbles but actively seeking to stabilize prices and output...

After a period of stagnation that lasted for almost two decades, German house prices began to grow at an accelerated pace since late 2010. Real house prices that even had been declining in 2000-2008 started to climb up steeply from the second half of 2010, followed by a recovery of construction...

Die Frage der Versorgungssicherheit in liberalisierten Strommärkten wird bereits seit vielen Jahren diskutiert. In Deutschland gibt es - abgesehen von netzbedingten Knappheiten in Süddeutschland - derzeit ausreichende Erzeugungskapazitäten; die mittelfristige Entwicklung des Kraftwerksparks...

The recent financial crisis has exposed the fragility of the banking sector to sudden withdrawals of wholesale funding, asset price declines and market dry-ups. Governments and central banks had to step in to prevent major banks from defaulting. These events led to renewed interest in the...

Die Regulierung von Risiken auf Ebene der einzelnen Bank reicht nicht aus, um die Stabilität des Finanzsystems zu sichern - das ist eine der Hauptlehren aus der Finanzkrise. Lag der Fokus der Regulierungs- und Aufsichtsbehörden bislang auf der Stabilität einzelner Finanzinstitute, so hat sich...

Mit dem Referentenentwurf für das Gesetz über Leistungsverbesserungen in der gesetzlichen Rentenversicherung leitet die neue Bundesarbeitsministerin Andrea Nahles das erste große Reformvorhaben der Großen Koalition für die parlamentarische Debatte nach Ostern ein. Innerhalb des Rentenpakets...

In the face of interest rates having hit their zero lower bound in major economies, large-scale asset purchases have become an important weapon of central banks in recent years. It is, however, not clear whether and under which circumstances such policy measures produce the desired effects. This...