Early retirement options are usually targeted at employees at risk of not reaching their regular retirement age in employment. An important at‐risk group comprises employees who have worked in demanding jobs for many years. This group may be particularly negatively affected by the abolition of...

By simulating various (labour market) integration scenarios with the aid of a New Keynesian DSGE model, this paper explores the potential economic consequences and transmission mechanisms resulting from the recent refugee migration to Germany. We find that the long-run costs and benefits for...

In January 2015, Germany introduced a federal, statutory minimum wage of 8.50 € per hour. This study evaluates the effects of this policy on regular and marginal employment and on welfare dependency. Based on county-level administrative data, this study uses the difference-in-differences...

Using the exact wording of the ECB's definition of price-stability, we started a representative online survey of German citizens in January 2019 that is designed to measure long-term inflation expectations and the credibility of the inflation target. Our results indicate that credibility has...

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...

Using confidential daily data, we analyse how the intervention episode of the Bank of Israel (BOI) from 2013 to 2019 has affected the foreign value of the Israeli new shekel (ILS) and the expectations about its future value. We find that interventions amounting to US dollar (USD) 1 billion are...

This study analyzes the causal effect of an increase in the retirement age on health. We exploit a sizable cohort-specific pension reform for women using two complementary empirical approaches - a Regression Discontinuity Design and a Difference-in-Differences approach. The analysis is based on...

Recent evidence suggests a positive impact of air pollution on crime in large cities. We provide first evidence on the potential effect of air pollution on criminal activity using a broader set of geographical regions with lower air pollution levels. We use a unique combination of daily crime...

The economic policy response to COVID-19 lockdowns included a variety of measures. Their effects on non-financial firms, however, remain unclear. To shed light on the effect of transfers, we investigate the effect of German emergency aid transfers (November-December aid), a program designed for...