We study the consequences of a large-scale austerity program targeting financially-constrained municipalities in Germany. For identification, we exploit the quasi-random assignment of treatment among equally-distressed municipalities using a difference-in-differences design. The policy helped...

We study how business taxes affect establishments' R&D activities. Relying on geocoded panel data targeting the universe of R&D-active establishments in Germany, we exploit around 7,300 changes in the local business tax rate over the period 1987-2013 for identification. Using event study...

Regional disparities are pronounced and persistent. Regional data of high quality are needed to improve the understanding of the origins and consequences of regional disparities and the effectiveness of regional policies through empirical analysis. Against the background of existing problems...

Regionale Ungleichheiten sind ausgeprägt und persistent. Qualitativ hochwertige Regionaldaten sind notwendig, um auf Basis empirischer Analysen ein besseres Verständnis über die Ursprünge und Konsequenzen regionaler Disparitäten sowie der Wirksamkeit regionalpolitischer Maßnahmen zu...

This paper studies the impact of immigration on public policy setting. As a natural experiment, we exploit the sudden arrival of eight million forced migrants in West Germany after World War II. These migrants were on average poorer than the West German population, but unlike most international...

This paper studies the impact of immigration on public policy setting. We exploit the sudden arrival of eight million forced migrants in West Germany after WWII. These migrants were poorer than the local population but had full voting rights and were eligible for social welfare. We show that...

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...

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...

Despite the prevalence of government surveillance systems around the world, causal evidence on their social and economic consequences is lacking. Using county-level variation in the number of Stasi informers within Socialist East Germany during the 1980s and accounting for potential endogeneity,...

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 number of spies in the 1980s, we exploit discontinuities at state borders to...