This paper investigates in how far monetary policy shocks impact Euro- pean asset markets, conditional on different risk states. It focuses on four different asset classes: equity of industrial firms, equity of banks, high-grade corporate bonds, and high-yielding corporate bonds. We distinguish...

This paper exploits discontinuities induced by earnings caps for social security contributions (SSC) in Germany to analyse the effect of SSC on gross labour earnings. Empirical evidence is based on two complementary approaches utilising two administrative data sets. First, employment responses...

Die durchschnittliche Bildungsrendite betrug im Jahr 2007 in Westdeutschland 9,9 Prozent und in Ostdeutschland 9,6 Prozent. In den vergangenen Jahren sind trotz der zu beobachtenden Bildungsexpansion die Erträge, die der Einzelne durch Investitionen in seine Bildung erzielen kann, gestiegen....

Our paper picks up the current controversial debate about increasing (income) inequality due to recent monetary policy measures in major advanced economies. We use a VAR framework identified with sign restrictions to figure out how income in- equality related measures react to monetary policy...

Downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) could prevent real wage adjustments in times of low inflation rates. Nominal wage rigidity based on annual wages can at least be reduced, if the number of working hours is considered. This leads to a lower degree of DNWR in hourly wage changes. In this...

This paper documents that option-implied tail risk in the U.S. financial sector predicts real economic activity. The predictability is found to be incremental to the information content in a stock price-based measure of financial sector tail risk. This finding holds both in- and out-of-sample...