This essay argues that economic systems should be defined in terms of clusters of complementary institutions. To show how such an approach can be carried out, I use a cluster analysis technique and data on forty different economic institutions in OECD nations to isolate four quite different...

In productivity analysis an important issue is to detect how external (environmental) factors, exogenous to the production process and not under the control of the producer, might influence the production process and the resulting efficiency of the firms. Most of the traditional approaches...

Since PV grid paraity has already been achieved in Germany, households are given an indirect financial incentive to invest in PV and battery storage capacities. This paper analyzes the economic consequences of the household's optimization behavior induced by the indirect financial incentive for...

In this paper we estimate the causal effects of conflict on dietary energy supply in Côte d'Ivoire. To identify the true impact of conflict, we use prewar and post-war household data bracketing the conflict period and the spatial variation in the prevalence of conflict between the North and...

Many OECD countries are reforming their pension systems. We investigate how pension eligibility affects labor supply in couples. Inspired by a theoretical framework, we measure how the sharp change in the pension eligibility of both partners affects labor force participation. We find that both...

This paper investigates the saving behavior of migrants in the UK across different dimensions, i.e., comparing temporary versus permanent migrants and migrants versus natives. Established theoretical predictions show that migrants save more when they plan to stay in the destination only...

The German mechanical engineering industry, dominated by medium-sized companies, is greatly successful - both on the domestic and on the international market. A first analysis conducted by DIW Berlin reveals that this success cannot be attributed to a better exploitation of potential...

Der deutsche Maschinenbau ist seit langem sowohl national als auch international sehr erfolgreich. Wie in kaum einem zweiten Sektor dominieren zudem mittelgroße Unternehmen. Eine erste Analyse des DIW Berlin zeigt, dass sich dieser Erfolg nicht auf eine volle Ausschöpfung vorhandener...

A common finding in empirical studies using micro data on consumer and producer prices is that hazard functions for price changes are decreasing. This means that a firm will have a lower probability of changing its price the longer it has kept it unchanged. This result is at odds with standard...

This paper contributes to the old theme of testing for rationality of inflation expectations in surveys, using two very different surveys in parallel. Focusing on the euro area and using two well-known surveys that include questions on inflation expectations, the Consensus Forecast survey and...