The German Institute for Economic Research (German: Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung) or more commonly DIW Berlin is a economic research institute in Germany, involved in basic research and policy advice. It is a non-profit academic institution, financed with public grants from the Berlin Senate Department for Economics, Technology and Research and the Federal Department for Economics and Technology. DIW Berlin was founded in 1925 as the Institute for Business Cycle Research and was later renamed.DIW Berlin presents its research results in science journals, within the scope of national and international scientific events as well as at workshops, symposia and colloquia. Current economic and structural data, forecasts and advice as well as services in the area of quantitative economics are provided to decision makers in economics and policy and the broad public. Furthermore, the research results often meet with a major response in the news media..
To ensure security of supply in the power sector, many countries are considering capacity mechanisms. Simultaneously, the expansion of variable renewables increases the need for power sector flexibility, with promising options on the demand side. We analyze how a centralized capacity market and an advanced reliability reserve with a moderately high activation price affect demand-side flexibility investments in a German 2030 case study. Using a capacity expansion model with detailed demand-side flexibility potentials, we show that a centralized capacity market caps wholesale market prices, thereby reducing incentives for flexibility investments. The reliability reserve induces seven times higher flexibility investments in energy-intensive industries and twice as high investments in district heating storage, while achieving security of supply at similar electricity supply costs. The reliability reserve could create a learning environment for flexibility technologies to support the transition to climate neutrality, and policymakers should consider it in forthcoming capacity mechanism decisions.
This paper estimates and analyzes the distribution and composition of pre-tax national income in Germany since reunification, combining personal income tax returns, household survey data, and national accounts. We find that pre-tax national income inequality has increased since the 1990s, though to a lesser extent than suggested by previous studies. Our results draw parallels in top income structure and concentration to the United States: Half of the top 1% earners are non-corporate business owners in labor-intensive professions contrasting with corporate top incomes in France. Also the concentration of pre-tax national income in Germany is similar to the United States and higher than in France.
This paper examines how multinational enterprises (MNEs) internationalize their R&D activities. We address three questions: (1) What determines the level of R&D internationalization? (2) What strategies dominate home-base-augmenting (HBA), home-base-exploiting (HBE), technology-seeking (TS), or market-seeking (MS)? And (3) What are the patterns in strategy mixes? We merge data on 2,000 global research leaders (2012–2014) with the EPO PATSTAT database, covering roughly 1,700 top corporate R&D investors and their patenting. We find that about one-fifth of these investors concentrate their patent-relevant R&D domestically. Our results indicate that leading R&D performers use offshoring primarily to acquire complementary technological knowledge (HBA) and to leverage home-based technological strengths for market expansion (HBE). The increasing proportion of HBA strategies in the late 2010s highlights the growing importance of international knowledge exchange, suggesting that the rise of foreign R&D locations does not undermine national innovation systems.
Das Projekt einer Europäischen Währungsunion war das wohl ehrgeizigste wirtschaftspolitische Vorhaben in Europa während der 80er und 90er Jahre des letzten Jahrhunderts. Eine Währungsunion erfordert den Verzicht auf nationalstaatliche Gestaltung der Geldpolitik. In kaum einem Land fiel dieser Verzicht schwerer als in Deutschland. Dies hat wenigstens drei Gründe: Erstens bedeutet der Übergang zu einer einheitlichen europäischen Geldpolitik eine Entmachtung der angesehenen Deutschen Bundesbank. Dieses Unbehagen geht zweitens einher mit hoher Inflationsaversion in Deutschland und traditionell höheren Inflationsraten in den Nachbarländern. Drittens schließlich war Deutschland als wirtschaftlich größtes Land, das zudem als einziges Mitgliedsland der Währungsunion über eine international breit verwendete Währung verfügte, bis zur Währungsunion in seiner Geldpolitik autonomer als die meisten Nachbarländer. Letztere mussten mit ihrer Geldpolitik vor allem im Europäischen Währungssystem in hohem Maße den Vorgaben der Deutschen Bundesbank folgen.
Young adults increasingly abstain from committed romantic relationships. However, psychological theories of singlehood are lacking and it remains unclear who selects into remaining single throughout emerging adulthood and how consistent singles’ well-being is affected over time. Here, we included 17,390 initially never partnered respondents from three panel studies from the UK and Germany providing 110,261 yearly observations from ages 16 to 29. First, we used survival analysis to predict who remained single. Young adults with lower well-being, male gender, higher education, and living alone or with parents stayed single longer. Second, we compared within-person age trajectories of life satisfaction, loneliness, and depressivity between consistent singles and eventually partnered respondents. Across emerging adulthood, consistent singles experienced comparatively stronger life satisfaction decreases and loneliness increases. Well-being deficits became more pronounced in the later 20s, when depressivity increases also diverged between groups. Evidence for moderation of these changes (e.g., by gender) was absent or inconsistent. Third, we examined how the first romantic relationship affected well-being aspects longitudinally. In both the short and long term, the first romantic relationship was associated with increases in life satisfaction and decreases in loneliness but not depressivity. Together, the findings indicate moderate average well-being risks when staying single in emerging adulthood. Well-being differences between consistent singles and eventually partnered respondents were minimal in adolescence but were exacerbated with prolonged singlehood. This highlights difficulties for first partnership formation in the later 20s because, concurrently, low well-being predicted remaining in singlehood longer. We discuss critical questions for singlehood theory development.
