Former theoretical and empirical studies find that precautionary savings are reduced inthe presence of social security systems. The saving motive, however, does not change:individuals respond to increasing income risk by increasing their savings. Although thisstill holds for common tax and...

This paper analyzes long-term effects of skilled-worker immigration on productivityfor the Huguenots migration to Prussia. We combine Huguenot immigration lists from1700 with Prussian firm-level data on the value of inputs and outputs in 1802 in aunique data base. In 1685, religious persecution...

Recent literature finds that exporters are particularly vulnerable to financial market frictions.As a consequence, exports may be lower than their efficient levels. For this reason,many countries support exporters by underwriting export credit guarantees. The empiricalevidence on the effects of...

Using data from the US commodity flow surveys, we show that the historical Union-Confederacy border lowers contemporaneous trade between US states by about 16 percentrelative to trade flows within the former alliances. Amongst one million placebos, thereis no other constellation of state...

Im Vergleich zu zwei vorausgegangenen Tragfähigkeitsanalysen von 2005 und 2008, die das ifo Institut für das Bundesministerium der Finanzen (BMF) durchgeführt hat, berücksichtigt die Studie jüngste Entwicklungen wie die Finanzmarktkrise und erweitert den Zeithorizont bis 2060. Gegenstand...

Using information from the UNCTAD, we construct a new balanced panel database ofbilateral international student mobility for 150 origin countries, 23 host countries, andthe years 1970–2000. We match these data with information on bilateral stocks of internationalmigrants by educational...

Using unique micro-data on German firms, this paper estimates the effect of restrictive bank lending on innovation. In the German three-pillar banking system, comprised of commercial banks, credit unions, and savings banks, firms were differently affected in their ability to raise external debt...

This paper estimates the causal effect of an additional year of parents’ schooling on theirchildren’s education, exploiting compulsory schooling reforms that were implemented inall West German states between 1946 and 1969. Although previous research indicatesthat these reforms had no effects...

It is well-known that nonresponse affects the results of surveys and can even causebias due to selectivities if it cannot be regarded as missing at random. In contrast tohousehold surveys, response behaviour in business surveys has been examined rarely inthe literature. This paper is one of the...

Using the environmental decision support system DANUBIA, we analyze the effects ofclimate change on industry and compare the effectiveness of different adaptation strategies.The observed area covers Germany and Austria up to 2025. Since the main effects ofclimate change in this region are...