Public investment spending declined steadily in advanced economies during the last three decades. Germany is a case in point where the aggregate decline coincided with growing inequality in investments across districts. What explains the variation in local investment spending? We assembled a...

Using German administrative data from the 1960s onward, this paper (i) examines the long-term evolution of child-related gender inequality in earnings and (ii) assesses the impact of family policies on this inequality. We present three sets of findings. First, child penalties (i.e., the...

Germany’s political economy has undergone a substantial transformation. After having been held up as the “sick man of Europe” at the turn of the century, it is now considered, depending on the point of view, either an “economic superstar” or a bulky elephant in the European Economic...