Findings of prolonged non-employment spells due to more generous unemployment benefits are commonly seen as an indication of reduced job search effort and moral hazard behavior. However, to date, there is hardly any direct evidence of benefit-induced reductions in search effort. This paper...

Based on official records from the former East German Ministry for State Security, we quantify the long-term costs of state surveillance on social capital and economic performance. Using county-level variation in the spy density in the 1980s, we exploit discontinuities at state borders to show...

It is widely believed that globalization affects the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. To provide evidence for this, we analyze the effect of firms' exporting behavior on the elasticity of labor demand. Using rich, German administrative linked employer-employee panel...

It is widely believed that globalization affects the extent of employment and wage responses to economic shocks. To provide evidence for this, we analyze the effect of firms' exporting behavior on the elasticity of labor demand. Using rich, German administrative linked employer-employee panel...

In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of ambient air pollution on individuals' productivity by using panel data on the universe of professional soccer players in Germany over the period 1999-2011. Combining this data with hourly information on the concentration of particulate matter in...

This paper studies the effects of the introduction of Germany's statutory minimum wage in 2015 on employment and unemployment on the level of regional labor markets. Using variation in the regional exposure to the new wage floor, we employ a difference-in-differences approach that compares the...

We investigate the long-run effects of government surveillance on civic capital and economic performance, studying the case of the Stasi in East Germany. Exploiting regional variation in the number of spies and administrative features of the system, we combine a border discontinuity design with...